Wednesday – Tenerife
Today, we arrived in Santa Cruz, on the island of Tenerife.
Once again, we were free of any tour escorting duties (in fact, I believe that’s it for the rest of this cruise), so we were free to do as we wished.
It was only a half-day, though, and I had classes in the afternoon, so we opted to take a walk along the seafront to the Opera House. It’s a great walk, clearly designed for walkers annd runners, and it felt good to be using some energy in a positive, putting-one-foot-in-front-of-the-other kind of way. To compound the feeling of healthy goodliness, there were cross-trainer contraptions, cycling gizmos and lift-your-own-weight devices embedded along the promenade for all those keen keep-fitters who almost certainly use the walkway on a daily basis to maintain their honed physique. For us who are not quite as fit as we know we should be, they simply provide moments of hilarity…
The Santa Cruz Opera House is a magnificent piece of architecture. From a distance, it has more than a passing resemblance to the Sydney Opera House; if viewed from certain angles, it looks very much like a Spartan Helmet.
We enjoyed a relaxing, and well-earned drink of chilled water in the cafe beneath the great dome, and meandered around the extraordinary building taking photographs before heading back towards the port. On the way back, we paused by the small lake on the seafront that created some lovely reflections of the town. After taking some photographs, we wandered through the small craft market, resisting the temptation to spend money, before returning to the ship.
This afternoon, I gave two lessons on painting skies. Both were quite well attended considering the good weather outside and the sailaway party on the rear deck.
Sadly; the deadlights have now been closed again… Hey Ho… Unfortunately, the forcast is for more rough seas, although the swell seems quite tame compared to some of the rough weather we’ve been through in the past week.
Tomorrow, we’ll be in Madeira… looking forward to the New Year fireworks…
