Adam mentally preparing himself for the storm.
While Hurricane Sandy has been causing havoc and destruction at home we have been hiding out from our own storm in a bay on the east side of Tenerife. We have been anchored in the bay for the last three days in anticipation of some strong winds from the south west. The bay provides great protection from the south west but we were a bit hesitant because we had read of a recent incident where the police turned non-Spanish boats out of an anchorage, and into a marina, because they did not have permission to anchor. From what we understand in the Canary Islands freighters are required to have permission to anchor but on Tenerife the police are applying this rule to all boats. We tried to obtain this elusive “permission” but couldn’t find anyone who knew what we were talking about. We had hoped that we’d go unnoticed but it wasn’t to be; yesterday Adam spotted the police boat circling the anchorage and taking pictures of us and the other two boats in the anchorage. The police boat came over to us and directed us to contact the Tenerife traffic control and we were informed that we should have obtained permission in order to anchor. Adam let the operator know that we had gone to the Port Captain to get authorization and that we were unable to; her response was that we must have been talking to the wrong person. She did however give us permission to weather the storm in the bay. A simple mix up or a Spanish conspiracy? Either way our anchoring days appear to be numbered on Tenerife.