January – 22 February 2010 
We found that in Spain Christmas Day is not very important. The coming of the Three Wise Kings is the big event here as the children write their present lists to them rather than Father Christmas and receive their presents on the 12th day of Christmas. The Kings arrived by boat across the harbour to an enormous and excited welcoming crowd in the morning of the 11th day. Later on a group of us went to watch the procession through the town with loads of decorated floats and costumed participants all throwing sweets to the huge crowds of onlookers. At the end of the procession rode the Kings on camels, each with their own large entourage, all throwing sweets and receiving present lists from the very excited children who were held up by their parents. It was great fun and an absolutely marvellous atmosphere. After this we had a meal then wandered around the crowded older parts of town, where the craft fair and the shops were all still open, and on to the concert in front of the Cathedral which started at midnight. It was all still very busy when we left at 1am but we had had a marvellous evening and were tired.
Click for video of the Three Kings procession
By 6 January we had prepared for the Atlantic crossing, we had provisioned and were ready to leave, intending to stop in the Cape Verde Islands for a week or two before crossing to the Caribbean. Jim switched the engine on for a final check – a worrying clunk and a few minutes later we found we had water coming into the boat; the shaft seal was damaged!! We could only obtain the spare part from England; it arrived about 10 days later so we had the boat hauled out on shore, made the repair and sorted out one or two other problems which we subsequently found, antifouled the hull and returned to the marina.
We then had to wait for reasonable weather to start the crossing. So far this year there had been an unusually high proportion of south-westerly winds and high swells caused by the same bad weather that northern Europe was experiencing. Whilst waiting we hired a car and spent 3 days visiting different parts of the island - the beaches and sand dunes in the south and some of the interior including a cave village and La Roche Nuebe, the highest point on the island. We were lucky to have bright sunshine for this and had the most fantastic views across the island and to Tenerife.
We also ended up staying in Las Palmas for Carnival – a fantastic month-long festival of parades, competitions and parties. Not only the participants in the parades, but many (perhaps half) of the onlookers, were in fancy dress – in particular, the men here love to cross dress for Carnival, the the most popular competition being for the Drag Queen with totally outrageous costumes. The parties didn’t seriously get going until around 1am and continued for the rest of the night – great for the younger ones around, but we just wanted our bed by midnight!
Click for video of the main Carnival parade
Unfortunately we were unable to recover the photos which we lost when the hard drive failed, but the video was still on DV tape. For some poor quality stills from video please click here
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