Santa Cruz, Tenerife

Today as predicted by Ugrib the wind has died down and just in time for our visitors Jill and Phil who will be joining us today at about 11.30. We hope to set of for La Gomera at the first possible chance.

Yesterday we went upto Santa Cruz to collect our new storm sail from ATN, we had been given a document from the marina to say that we need to go to customs and clear any taxes due on the parcel. There should not be any taxes as the pilot guide has said that as long as the package is clearly marked ‘Yacht in Transit’, then this should clear customs without any problems. Wrong!

On arriving at the customs building, which was very impressive, vast, as almost everything on the island will need to be imported. Therefore, I was expecting a long wait and a very busy import office. We went through the entrance and then through the airport style scanner having our bags x-rayed and climbed the stairs to the first floor, the import section. First impression, wow, this is a big office, lots of desks and paper work piled high. Second impression, no people at the desks and I mean not a single person, too early for siesta and I can’t hear any fire alarms, hmmm. So, we just hung around, until eventually a customs lady, who did not speak any English, but Jo had previously written down a few Spanish key words that would help our cause. When she produced the document we had been sent it seemed to be enough to provoke some kind of action. The customs official then pulled out a document, which had my name on it and was an exact copy of what I had in my hands, bingo, we have done it!

Ha, Ha, Ha, the Spanish customs gods must have been having a good laugh at this point. The customs lady then tried to explain the situation, in Spanish and was speaking at such a rate that she had clearly just had her shot or two of coffee, no good. She went to find someone who could help, then requested us to follow her to someone who could explain the situation in English, here we go! We found an official who was reading the documents and we explained our position clearly. He agreed yes you are on a boat, which is in transit, you will not need to pay any import tax, Great! Let’s have our package and we will be on our way dear fellow.

Not so fast my good man, you will need an agent to help you fill out the forms for us to stamp your copy of the document, (which was on his desk in front of him) so you can pick up your package from another building about 10 miles away. He then gave us two sheets of A4 with lists of agents who could help us; I thought things were going too well. We eventually found an agent who is now processing our goods and we have entered the Spanish import doldrums, otherwise know as mañana, that’s all he kept saying, yes yes mañana. Quick phone call this morning and still nothing, not even a mañana, but a promise he will call us later, so we will wait with baited breath to see what happens later today. At this point I will take a wild guess - mañana! I have heard of this phenomenon before but now have a first hand account of it.

Whilst on our visit to the islands capital, the big Turkish gullet had arrived back, with the crew on the decks with their heads in their hands shaking their heads in disbelief. The boat looked as though it was helping out the British evacuation at Dunkirk. The main sail was hanging over the boom, not attached to the mast runners you could see that all main sail connections had been ripped out, the tender was hanging off the davits like the limpest of limp things with the outboard clearly missing. Ha, I hear you say, they could have taken it off, yes they could, but would you pull the transom out of rear of the tender with it, no I don’t think so. Clearly they have found other uses for the tender that most of us are not aware. I did not linger near the boat for long, just in case I was requisitioned to help out with some other opportunity of improvement they may have come up with.

So we are giving the boat a clean before we set off to pick up Jill and Phil from the airport.