Tuesday – Gran Canaria
Today, we arrived in Las Palmas, on the island of Gran Canaria. It was a day in which we hadn’t been given any tour escorting duties, so we had it all to ourselves.
After a leisurely breakfast, we took a walk into town. There were five other cruise ships in port, including Fred Olsen’s Boudicca and two P&O ships (Oriana annd Oceana), so the quayside and all adjacent routes away from it, into town, were thronged with cruising visitors.
Although we didn’t have a plan as such, we’d already decided it was going to be a relaxing ‘chill-out’ day, so after a brief recce, we returned to the ship to get ourselves togged out for the beach.
Neither Tracey or myself are what we’d describe as beach people. Lying still, doing nothing but reading, providing suitable tonal contrast against the suntanned flesh, honed pecs and abs of our neighbours and slowly roasting under an African sun doesn’t come naturally to us. When we first arrived at the beach, it was moderately busy, but with enough spaces in the sand, between the folks that had arrived earlier, to feel comfortable. As the morning wore on, however, free space came at a premium. A rowdy, but good-natured group of Spaniard men were enjoying themselves just behind us, while around us, the bronzed bodies of younger, more seasoned beach-people soaked up the sun with headphones and books, and the occasional foray into the sea to cool down.
Despite our intention to stay put all day, we both became restless after about an hour and a half. Not only was the beach starting to look like high summer in Blackpool or Scarborough, but we were both getting hungry.
We enjoyed a beach-side italian lunch, watching the throngs of people as they passed by, playing ‘Brit’ or ‘No-Brit’, cringing at the awful recorder player who freestyled his way through tuneless warblings and then had the audacity to hold his hat out for money (I briefly wondered if paying him would encourage him to go away and bother another restaurant’s tables), before heading off along the promenade in search of ice cream.
Along the way, we enjoyed looking at several sand sculptures; very clever works of art created by nothing more than sand and a little water, before we found a small establishment pervaying some of the most luxurious (and big) ice cream cones either of us had ever tasted (at a very reasonable price, too).
We continued walking, towards the opposite end of the bay, until our feet, unaccustomed to the heat, started complaining. The sun was hot, and we had a substantial wallk back towards the ship.
Despite the fact that we’d had two or three days of good weather, and calm seas, were were slightly dismayed, on our return to the ship, to discover that the deadlights on our cabin portholes were still in place. For the third time in as many days, we enquired as to why this was so, and pointed out that we hadn’t had any natural light in our cabin since leaving Bristol over a week ago. The good news is… within half an hour, the deadlights were opened… yesssss!!!!
