6. La Gomera: 4 – 14 Apr 2016

Before leaving Tenerife, we sailed over to admire a ‘super (motor) yacht’ that was anchored nearby.  One has to admit that it was impressive – even though it did not have any sails!
Super yacht Lady Lara anchored near us 

The wind picked up once we entered the Wind Acceleration Zone between Tenerife and La Gomera. From then on we had an enjoyable and invigorating 20-mile sail.

Heeled over in the Wind Acceleration Zone 
approaching La Gomera

As we entered the harbour at San Sebastián, the capital of La Gomera, the cloud over Tenerife lifted and we had our first view of Mount Teide.  For all the time we’d been in Tenerife the volcanic mountain had been obscured by cloud.

Entering San Sebastián harbour, we had 
our first view of Mount Teide (in the background) since arriving in the western isles   

The harbour in San Sebastián, in which the marina is located, primarily services the only commercial ferry and cruise liner port on the island. It is said to be the finest natural harbour in the Canaries.
Harbour and marina viewed from the 
Parador overlooking the town

We’d been to La Gomera before. The first time was in 1998, when we picked up, fitted out and delivered a brand-new Jeanneau from La Rochelle to San Sebastián for Club Sail – a sailing school and charter company based, at that time, in La Gomera.  While there, Mike picked up a 4-month delivery of an American Brewer yacht across the Pond, through the Panama Canal and up the Pacific coast of North America to San Diego.
Mike transiting the Panama Canal in 1998

On our second visit to La Gomera we spent Christmas and the New Millennium’s Eve in the marina where we provisioned prior to leaving on our first Atlantic crossing in Island Drifter.

With Marjorie Mullins in San Sebastían immediately prior to leaving on our first Atlantic crossing in Island Drifter  in 2000

This time our objective was to explore the seventeen known anchorages, many of which are accessible only by sea.

The marina is situated on the edge of the very pleasant town of San Sebastián where there are still some interesting, albeit renovated, buildings, particularly Spanish Baroque and Moorish style pantiled houses with shaded courtyards and balconies.

San Sebastián’s, and indeed La Gomera’s, principal claim to fame is that it was Christopher Columbus’s final port of call before his historic crossing of the Atlantic in 1492.  He called in to La Gomera to provision, fill up with the island’s excellent water, and, allegedly, to visit an old flame Beatrice de Bobadilla.
Local picture of Columbus’s boat 
anchored off San Sebastián

Church in San Sebastián where Christopher Columbus and his crew are alleged to have attended mass prior to their historic Atlantic crossing in 1492

La Gomera, the second smallest of the seven islands in the archipelago, resembles a sphere with deep ravines that radiate out from the centre, fertile green valleys with steeply terraced slopes and dense dark rain forests leading up to its central peak – which is invariably covered in cloud.  
Google Earth view of La Gomera

An example of the deep barrancos (ravines) that radiate from the centre of the island to the sea

Fertile valley in the centre of La Gomera 

Typical terraced slopes in a cultivated valley

Cloud forest on La Gomera with Mount Teide 
on Tenerife in the background

A road rings the National Park at the island’s centre with spurs of differing quality off to its three ports, major rural villages, sundry hamlets and half a dozen black sandy beaches from where some local fishing boats still operate.  Because of the barrancos (deep ravines) there are no coastal roads although there are traditional tracks that have now been developed as hiking trails. And very good ones at that!

Longer-term visitors and the numerous day visitors go to La Gomera for the scenery, the tranquil relaxed atmosphere and way of life.  The more energetic have access to some of the best hiking opportunities in the Canaries; most of the rest use the excellent bus service if they want to see the island.  While a small inter-island airport has recently been built, most visitors still arrive in San Sebastián by ferry or cruise ship. 
Mike hiking up a barranco through typical scrub

La Gomera also has two (smaller) secondary ports, (with adjacent anchorages),  backed by pleasant holiday resorts:  Valle Gran Rey to the west  and Santiago to the south. Each is full of local boats on moorings.  The respective harbour masters are, however, usually happy to let visiting yachts stay overnight on the inside of the harbours’ concrete breakwaters (which act like a cheese grater on GRP and fibreglass!) and to charge them more for each night’s stay than they would pay in the excellent private marina (with facilities) in San Sebastián!

Valle Gran Rey, also known as Puerto de Vueltas, the larger of the two secondary ports, lies at the mouth of an impressive valley around which a large German holiday town has developed behind the port. An enormous outer breakwater was added to the port ten years ago for use by ferries, but no regular service has commenced and it is ‘out of bounds’ to visiting yachts. The breakwater does, however, provide some considerable protection to the adjacent anchorage. 
The enormous breakwater at Valle Gran Rey’s harbour also protects the adjacent anchorage

Island Drifter on inner breakwater at Valle Gran Rey with the old town in the background and the harbour full of local boats on mooring buoys

Puerto de Santiago is a smaller fishing port on the south coast. Its compact old town and harbour are overlooked by the 5-star Hotel Tecina which occupies the clifftop to the east of the bay. Nearby, the new inter-island airport has recently been built.

Playa de Santiago’s port, town and anchorage viewed from the clifftop to the east of the bay

We pulled on to the wall in Santiago in order to sit out an overnight southeasterly gale. It was not comfortable!  We were fortunate in only breaking two mooring lines and sustaining some superficial damage to our gelcoat!  Our fenders must, however, have felt punch drunk in the morning, by which time the gale had blown through.  With the benefit of hindsight, we’d have been less uncomfortable in the anchorage off the town frontage.
Island Drifter on Santiago’s inner breakwater ‘the next morning’ having sat out a southeasterly gale overnight

View of Playa de Santiago town from Island Drifter 
while on the inner breakwater

Most cruisers we’ve met dismiss the option of anchoring in the Canaries – with the possible exception of anchoring off Graciosa or Papagayo in Lanzarote. There are good reasons not to anchor. In the best traditional anchorages marinas have been developed, ports have been created for ferry and commercial traffic, breakwaters have been built around smaller fishing harbours, and mooring buoys proliferate in the remaining open anchorages.

Unlike in the other islands, however, there are many good anchorages in La Gomera.   Admittedly none of them has the level of protection, sometimes of 360°, that we enjoyed when in Norway, although they all have good holding in 5–12 metres in firm black sand.

One of the fully protected, 360° anchorages that we enjoyed in Norway (Rausvagen, near Egersund)

Gomeran anchorages are only suitable when the wind is from a specific direction suited to that anchorage or, for day stops, if the weather is ‘relatively’ settled.  Cruisers who anchor overnight have to watch weather forecasts carefully and keep alert – but that soon becomes second nature.  No different really from anchoring in the Scilly Isles.  

We made a point of visiting all seventeen anchorages in La Gomera and stopped in many. The paragraphs immediately below on the anchorages give a general overview of what, in our opinion, are the best.
La Gomera’s anchorages

Before breakwaters were built at the three main harbours, yachts were advised to move to the north of the island for shelter at the onset of a southerly gale.  Today, few people would elect to quit the shelter of their port or marina in such circumstances.  If nearby marinas and ports are full, lying in the shelter of the cliffs off the north coast of La Gomera is still a good option.

The wide, rather uninspiring bay at Playa de Valle Hermosa and the more colourful one at Playa de Hermigua are the two principal traditional northern anchorages in La Gomera. Each should be avoided as an anchorage in the island’s prevailing northerly winds.  They are each, however, amazingly calm in southerly winds and have good holding in shingle and sand. Both are connected by road up valleys to their respective rural towns that bear the same name. 
Bleak north-facing anchorage at Playa de Valle Hermosa

The very attractive rural town of Valle Hermosa, some three miles inland from its anchorage

The anchorages in the south, with the exception of the two adjacent to the secondary ports, have nothing, or almost nothing, ashore.   What they do have is dramatic cliffs and scenery and they provide a very relaxing quiet break from ports and marinas.

The four anchorages on the southwest coast of the island (i.e. from Valle Gran Rey to Playa de Santiago) provide shelter from winds from the north to the northeast.  That at Valle Gran Rey (see both above and below) benefits from both its surrounding volcanic seacliffs and the town’s enormous outer breakwater.  It also has the convenience of  being adjacent to a vibrant, quality town and resort with good transport by bus throughout the island.
The anchorage at Valle Gran Rey seen from the port 
(Island Drifter can ‘just’ be seen in the far background)

The port and town of Valle Gran Rey seen 
from its adjacent anchorage

Volcanic sea cliffs towering over and protecting the anchorage at Valle Gran Rey

While at anchor outside the port, we initially dragged badly over rock and sand until advised by Brian Jackson on a live-aboard yacht nearby as to where the best holding was. Thereafter, we had no problems. Brian also helped us when our dinghy, with outboard motor on it, was flipped over by a freak gust and had to be stripped down immediately and dried out before the engine would start again.  Fortunately we reacted quickly and hopefully there has been no long-term damage to the engine. 

Our neighbours Brian and Benedikte on his 1948 Classic wooden French-built boat anchored off Valle Gran Rey’s port

Two of the other southwest anchorages located to the south of headlands also provide good shelter.  Playa del Eres, which lies at the mouth of a barranco in a cove surrounded by volcanic hills south of Punta Becerro, is arguably the most scenic.

Sailing away from Playa del Eres anchorage on the southwest coast – scenic and isolated but with good holding in winds from the north to west

The anchorage at Cala de la Rajita is accessible by road and has a few old houses set back from the beach. It once was the site of a now-disused fish canning factory. Its old jetty still remains relatively intact and provides an option for going ashore by dinghy when the surf is running.  The anchorage lies under a very high protective cliff south of the headland of Punta de la Darme.

Cala de la Rajita’s anchorage close to 
a now-disused fish canning factory

The anchorages on the southeast coast from Playa de Santiago to San Sebastián generally provide the best protection from winds from the west through to north. 

That at Playa de Santiago, at the bottom of the island, lies just off the town’s beach and close to the port, but does appear to suffer, as does the port, from swell when there is an element of east or south in the wind.   Even so, as previously mentioned, we would, with hindsight, have anchored rather than gone on to the port’s wall.

Anchorage at Playa de Santiago 
viewed from the town frontage

The best natural anchorage on the southeast coast is undoubtedly that at Playa de Chinguarime, which provides protection from the NNW to the NE, as a consequence of the shape of the headlands at either end of its bay.

Anchored in Playa de Chinguarime – a well-protected cove where the high volcanic cliffs are riddled with caves inhabited these days by naked hippies!  
We refrained from joining them!

Chart plotter showing Island Drifter at anchor 
behind the headland of Punta Gaviota

The anchorages at Playa de la Roja and Playa de la Guanche are both protected to a marginally lesser extent than Playa Chinguarime by headlands to their north. They each provide good shelter in NW through to NNE winds.

The anchorage at Playa de la Roja is completely isolated. It doesn’t even have a track running to it and the nearest road or habitation is three miles away up a very steep barranco.  Tucked neatly into a cove to the south of Punta Gorda, it is protected from the prevailing winds by steep headland cliffs to the east and volcanic mountains to the north and west.
Island Drifter lying comfortably at anchor off Playa de la Roja – behind the headland of Punta Gorda

Anchorage of Playa de la Roja viewed from Island Drifter

The Playa de la Guanche anchorage is only 3 miles south of San Sebastián, the island’s capital, and yet it exists almost in a different world.  By coincidence, we met up again in this anchorage with Gareth Thomas who runs sailing courses in the Canaries in the winter and in Malta in the summer.  We’d last seen him when we both left Lanzarote in heavy weather two years ago on our respective ways north. 

Playa de Guanche anchorage viewed from  
Island Drifter with Mike rowing to shore

Mike with Gareth Thomas on his yacht Salana 
in Playa de Guanche anchorage

We felt that the other anchorages on La Gomera were well suited to day stops or even overnight if conditions were settled. While having their own attractions, they lacked the protection in strong winds of the alternative anchorages on that coast. A good example is the anchorage, in the same bay as Playa de la Guanche, albeit it in a separate cove, of Playa del Cabrito (Goat beach). It houses an attractive, low-level, well-landscaped upmarket private hotel on the edge of the beach.
Playa del Cabrito anchorage – an attractive but not so well-protected anchorage as Playa de Guanche

We are now back in the marina in San Sebastián and are about to depart for the island La Palma, from where we’ll sail south to El Hierro, the smallest and most westerly island in the Canaries archipelago.

 






6 comments:

  1. Di's logbook tells me we made landfall at San Sebastian at 0200 on Saturday 13 September 1980. On the 14th we moved on to Los Cristianos. Somehow, all those years ago, we never stopped anywhere for long. Probably cos we were skint! Another interesting read, guys.

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  2. We're sure San Sebastian looks a lot different now to what it was in 1980! It's a great place and you'd have enjoyed a longer stay.

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  3. Nice to see pictures of ID in the anchorages. I recognise a few of the places from my brief trip there with the Lord Nelson in January-San Sebastian and Valle Gran Rey in particular (the latter was visited on a coach tour though!) El Hierro was my favourite though- enjoy!

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    1. Good to hear from you. Both we and ID enjoy dropping the hook in nice locations. You'll have gathered we've been "anchorage bagging" on this trip! Have changed CQR for a Rocna which seems to hold better in that it doesn't turn on its side if the boat direction changes and pulls straighter. Looking forward to El Hierro again, although La Palma is probably our favourite island.

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  4. Wow, a whole host of anchorages in la Gomera. Sad we didn't make it there either, will have to save it for our next trip! We are missing the Canary climate already, have had to dig out shoes, jumpers and raincoats here in Portugal!

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    1. Thanks for the advice regarding clothing! We'll dig out our fleeces in readiness...

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