Location: Tenerife
High above and down below
Today, Vela’s crew split into two groups to go hiking and scuba diving. My group (the better one) was hiking today, so all you blog friends at home will just have to wait for Smash to be skipper tomorrow when we switch activities to hear about our dive. The hiking group, consisting of Emma, Claire, James, Dan, Eliza, Chloe, Luke, Theo, Lillian, Lukas, Mac, Eduardo, and I (Brendan), woke up bright and early at 6:30 to the smell of Eduardo’s cooking. We packed our bags, scarfed down some delicious egg bites, and hopped into our taxis to take us up to the trailhead. Our original plan was to start at the bottom of the hike and get picked up afterward by the taxis at the top, but after we told that plan to the taxi driver, he basically called us crazy for doing the hike going up since apparently everyone always just goes down this route on account of how steep it was. (We would later learn that this was, in fact, a complete lie as we passed several hikers heading up on our descent.) So, with our revised plan, we set out on the road toward the peak of the mountain.
Now, with the way this guy was driving, you’d think he was a professional rally car racer because we were whipping up switchback after switchback into the heights of Tenerife faster than if we had been sent up by trebuchet. Thankfully, the views on the way up through terraced gardens and towering volcanic peaks were still just as beautiful when reduced to a high-velocity blur. After promptly spilling out of the taxi, we snapped a quick group photo at the top and began our hike down into the valley. The hike was extremely beautiful we had endless views out to the ocean and meandered down rocky paths surrounded by cactuses and lush vegetation while gawking at the dramatic slopes of jagged peaks. Those in the group who consider themselves “well-traveled,” which I suppose is all of us by this point in our voyage, said that the environment was pretty like the mountains they had seen in Hawaii or South America. After the hike, we explored the small town below and had lunch in a little caf that we found by the sea.
Once we returned to the boat, our group had seamanship class with Claire, where we continued to work on our chart plotting skills and waited for the dive group to return from their expedition, which I’m told consisted of exploring a shipwreck and getting to see loads of marine life. Once Amy, Ruby, Liam, Max, Boston, Cat, Talia, Watson, Audrey, Grace C., Grace N., Mac (instructor), Mich, and Ben got back to the boat, we had a guest speaker named Tomas come on board for our Oceanography lecture! Tomas worked with a local shark conservation group and talked to us about the angel sharks that live around the Canary Islands and the work their company is doing to research and protect their species.
After class, a group of us played football on shore, which consisted of some insanely executed plays and some equally insane stubbed toes (playing barefoot on concrete isn’t always super comfortable). We tried to get Tomas to join in, but apparently, he has a “knee injury,” which I’m pretty sure is slang for “I can’t handle your skills.”
Eduardo then cooked up my favorite dinner we’ve had on this entire trip, which was fried chicken sandwiches with homemade Chick-fil-A sauce, and we all chugged our waters to finish the meal since some folks on this boat hadn’t been hydrating enough. We cleaned up after dinner, Tom and Smash came back from their day off, and I walked down into the chart house to write the blog you are currently reading. Next up, we’re going to have some free time on shore to finish out the evening, which I’m sure will consist of ice cream and impulse purchases of whatever cool things catch our eyes.
That about wraps it up for another day on Vela in the final few days before we set out across the Atlantic Ocean. The next time I write a blog, I will be somewhere in the Caribbean, so until then – may the wind always fill your sails, and may your fruit hammocks always be full. Lots of love to Mom, Dad, Ryan, Patrick, and George.