Friday 11th November
Alan – you will be pleased to know that David is keeping up his sextant skills and went along to a seminar with Chris Tibbs this morning. This covered the basics of setting up the sextant, adjusting or compensating for errors. They then practised a few sun sights; between the rain and the clouds some of them managed a reasonable reading.
Meanwhile, Vicki went off with another group for an extended morning trip (and hopes all of the following information is correct – there was a lot to take in). This is now the 7th year of the ARC tree planting project and so far they have planted over 2,000 trees. (There is also a similar project on St Lucia but the tree planting day there is on David’s birthday and we will probably only just have arrived). Gran Canaria has 6 extinct volcanoes on its northern coast; the land rises quickly and it is much higher than some of the other islands. The winds blow from the north/north east, where they hit the land they then rise and a rain forest climate is created. The major tourist resorts are in the south of the island, away from this area and the cloudy weather. Gran Canaria is densely populated and most of the water used has been through a desalination plant. In order to try to improve this situation they are planting trees, primarily laurel. The laurel has waxy leaves which do not absorb water and the presence of the trees increases the amount of rainfall threefold. Vicki and her partner, Paula (from Gracious), planted half a dozen or so (see today’s photo).
During the course of the morning Vicki got chatting to another chap on a similar boat to ours. This chap made some comment that he was an engineer and how much ‘fettling’ he was doing. This words could have come straight out of David’s mouth so at the excellent party last night (with a live band, amazing tapas, sponsored by Rolnautic the local chandlers), Vicki made a point of seeking this chap out. David took one look at the bloke and said “You are Ian Cunliffe” – they worked together at the BBC 9 years ago.
‘It’s a small world’ times.
Vicki