Wednesday 25th – Puerto Castillo

We were up early to get the boat ready for departure, hand in electrical connections and keys for deposits etc before my parents, Angelo & Michelle joined us to say our goodbyes. They very kindly presented us with a coffee pot, plus coffee and storage jar after Kevin had admired theirs at the villa the night before to get his shot of expresso in the morning as he has now gone quite native! We said goodbye until probably October when they are out again to the villa, though we will by then be over at the other side of the Canaries group, they plan to come and visit. They also kindly took some pictures as we departed as we haven’t any pictures of Invincible at sea, so we waved our goodbyes at the harbour wall.

We had aimed to get as far as Gran Tarajal on Wednesday, it is described in the pilot guide as offering “a glimpse of the island as it must have been before the tourist boom took off”, which sounded just like our kind of place. However, it was 44 miles from Marina Rubicon, so a fair sail and we did not set off until nearly lunchtime after saying our goodbyes and clearing out at the marina, so by about 5pm after a choppy day’s sail in swelly conditions, we opted on plan B, Puerto Castillo, a private marina / complex which offered swimming pools and saunas, harbour “little visited by tourists”, 97 berths for boats up to 16m, “attractive beach which will soon need to start operating a queuing system”. Well, I am writing this having arrived at Gran Tarajal and I must say how wrong they have been in their descriptions! Puerto Castillo is easily the worst marina we have ever been to and no one used to rave about Fleetwood much when we were they, but at least their facilities were clean and pontoons level and useable. The office at Castillo is supposed to close at either 7 pm or 8 pm according to the pilot guides which advocated arranging a berth in advance, just after 5pm I tried them by VHF then phone, the guy answered the phone didn’t want to talk to us, just said pull up at the fuel berth, not even asking our boat length.

The fuel berth turns out to be a concrete wall nestled between a the rocky end of the breakwater and the overhanging anchor of a big motor cruiser and when I say nestled, we had about 6ft either side when we were moored. I am still not sure how Kevin managed it in the 25 knot winds and we did sustain a slight scratch to the topsides on the bow. Then the security guy decided to turn up and directs us to a berth opposite, well it’s actually the end of a pontoon without a finger berth on it at an angle of 10-15 degrees list. Coming of this wall with the wind blowing us on was even more hairy with little comfort being available in either choice of rocks or bow/anchor at each side having to clear the beam of a large motor cruiser and not really being able to spring off the wall easily with no cleats available. The security guy did go over to the pontoon to take our lines, (which is just as well as the berth was too short for our boat so the usual approach of me stepping off the stern to moor that we usually employ was not possible, it’s a 4ft drop off the sides without a step which is awkward to say the least when mooring in those conditions. Kevin brought us alongside and by now there was also a man and a woman on the pontoon to assist. I threw stern line to the security guard then bow line to the other guy, both of whom preceeded to try and hold the boat under motor themselves rather than fastening round a cleat, after miming the wrapping round the cleat action, they both proceeded to let the lines gradually run through under the cleat without attempting to wrap it round, so we are now about 8ft of the pontoon in a very strong wind in berth too short, having just had a hell of a time getting off a nasty wall berth! Arrgghh, eventually we get them to lock the lines down on the cleats and between pulling in the lines and Kevin motoring us back and forth we managed to get moored up. We pay the security guy a 20 Euro deposit for the swipe card access as apparently by 5.30 the office is shut. Kevin is now quite understandably in need of a beer, so we secure the boat and head ashore. The man that helped us with the lines is still stood at the end of the pontoon looking out to sea and talking into his mobile. The pontoons lead up to a very unattractive aluminium fencing about 8 ft height, behind which is a small pool created by pontoons and a wooden hut, then another pool in which is moored (from what you can see through the grills) a very tired looking “pirate” ship. We proceed up the pontoons through the portacabin on the end and out to a café overlooking more 8 ft fencing on the other side. There are two people in the café, we wander round but failed to find the showers which reputedly our swipe card provides access. We settle for a beer or two in the rather scruffy looking café/bar/restaurant. I only realised a little later when I go to the filthy toilets (akin to a service station, over flowing bins, broken tiles etc) that one of the two cubicles has a swipe card access and there is a very large water heater mounted on the wall above head height. I assume that was the shower, though I had no intention of trying it. I wouldn’t imagine that you can get to the toilets at night either and clearly you’d be sharing the one available with the café clients (though I suppose luckily there weren’t many of them). Absolutely horrible, facilities awful, ridiculously overpriced at 30 Euros a night (more than Puerto Calero!!!). I assume that there may have been access to a swimming pool on the resort somewhere, though it must be quite a walk as we didn’t see it, presumably you have to get the mini train thing parked outside.

We went back to the boat for a nice meal on board (mushroom spaghetti), though the man was still on the end of the pontoon looking in on us, as chose the moment we sat down to eat to ask if Kevin could take the lines of his son when he arrived at the berth next to us. We agreed and sat down to relax… later to be joined by two men fishing off the end of the pontoon apparently for shrimp until after dark. I guess it is a disadvantage of the deck level saloon in terms of privacy, but you don’t usually have people stood all evening at the end of the finger pontoon that you are moored on. Better was yet to come however, when Kevin got up in the morning to find a visitation of about 6 fisherman, one of whom was just about to climb on board our boat and seemed a bit put out when Kevin told him not to!

The man’s son finally turned up at about 11.30pm, so he’d have had a 6 hour wait at the end of the pontoon if he’d hung around, clearly not so good at calculating his ETA. I certainly wouldn’t have come in to the bay which is unlit and surrounded by reefs on both sides of the entrance at night, but I guess he must have been local. Kevin went to help (he was still on about the 4th rewatch of Band of Brothers so no problem). The guy offered up a line which appeared to be washing line or something similar to Kevin to moor up his ~26ft motor cruiser, luckily his father turned up so Kevin left them to it. The engines were still running 30 minutes later, so I guess there were problems.