Las Palmas
Friday 13 November
This morning I got on an enormous bus with some other ARCers for a trip up to the interior to plant trees.
The ARC has a partnership with a forestry charity who are steadily reforesting Gran Canaria to help restore the habitat and improve the self-sufficiency of water supply for the island.
Up until 500 years ago, the island was covered in laurel forest which was then destroyed almost completely after the Spanish conquest in 1483 mostly due to farming including sugarcane where they not only clear forest to plant the cane but it is also very fuel intensive to extract the sugar – and that fuel was wood.
The forest was also pillaged for boat building and because of the increased lack of rain, forest fires became a problem.
By restoring the trees, more of the humid air that crosses the island will condense onto the leaves which will then capture that water for the island and also reduce evaporation and water loss when it does occasionally rain. The restoration of the forest is in tandem with the reintroduction of the local wild pigeon population.
It felt very funny planting laurels (which self-seed like mad in my garden back home and I pull out as weeds!) and trying to help pigeons that are also ten a penny in the UK. However this is a special laurel forest with many different varieties, and a unique white tailed pigeon which is indigenous to the island.
The white tailed pigeon became extinct on the island by the late 19th century so hundreds were reintroduced in 2012-13 and have successfully bred since. They are a partner to the laurel forests as they spread the seeds. Reintroducing the pigeons and forest is all part of restoring the natural balance and habitat of Gran Canaria and we were very pleased to be able to take part in this worthwhile work.
When we got out of the bus it was much cooler up in the hills, raining and very muddy underfoot. I did notice that nearly everybody else had a raincoat. I have one, but I left it on the boat…
Thankfully the rain stopped and by the time we’d climbed up the hill a lot of people were stripping down, and I had, in fact, dressed perfectly!
We were given a demonstration:
1. Dig a pretty large hole with a heavy mattock, this is quite hard work as there are lots of roots to cut through.
2. Build a small retaining wall on the downhill side. 3. Get your little tree and pop it in filing back the soil to two fingers above the roots.
4. Put the stakes and rabbit proof netting on it and cover the net flaps in soil.
5. Give it two buckets of water.
6. Add some mulch from the hillside. And Bob’s your uncle!
I sensibly paired with a lovely younger fitter woman called Amanda from ‘Pressure Drop’ – we took it in turns to dig and planted 4 trees between us.
The helpful forestry men said four of them can do 200 in a day… Anyway we all planted all the trees they had put out for us.
The land we are planting on used to belong to a wealthy Canarian plantation owner and now they have donated the land to the forestry project.
On the way back we walked through a fam and saw some lovely cows.
A very young calf
We all got quite muddy – the soil is beautifully rich, red and fertile and it took me as long to clean my shoes on the dock as it did to plant a tree! I had a swim and a shower and felt the cleanest I have been for weeks!
I wanted to do this tree planting in the spirit of a charity I supply saplings for in the UK called Woods for the Trees. If you have unwanted saplings growing in your garden, instead of throwing them away you can pop them in a pot and take them to Woods for the Trees https://woodsforthetrees.org/ who will then take them to where they are wanted so that they can reach their CO2 guzzling potential.
Meanwhile David and Sam (back with us now Rosemary has flown home) had been very busy on the boat. Sam rigged the new jack-stay straps – these are the safety straps you clip onto when you go forward; they need replacing every 2 years as the UV light degrades them. David put smart metal chafing strips on the boom where the Yankee sheet can rub if we get it wrong.
They also checked the steering cables and lubricated the bits we can reach. Unfortunately, the steering system has been installed in a way that you can’t reach all the bits that you’d like to.
In the evening we went to a very enjoyable welcome drinks event (with canapés!) where we met a lot of other excited crews – we are all in different states of preparation but very pleased to be here.
We feel pretty good – only a few more jobs to get done – and all the victualling which I am beginning to worry about. However I have found Carlotta who will bring us our fresh veg from the market and another company that supplies fresh frozen ready meals.
By the way, the ARC webpage is a useful source of info and will have the start of our rally on it when we go & lots of photos etc. ARC 2026 – World Cruising Club
¡Hasta luego!
Are you the only Arcona?
Yes looks like it!