By boat around the island

"Tina"

Offerings for whale-safari, dolphin-safari, roundtrips and sailboat-trips were many.
We chose a trip around the island one day when the weather looked promising - with the
motorvessel "Tina". We left the harbour at 10 AM and were scheduled to be back at 5 PM.

There was more mountain to come on this trip. As my wife said when we came back home and was asked if we had any photos from the place: "Oh yes, mountains,
mountains and mountains...". But, anyway -
it was fun! Just look at the amusing
mountains on the photo to the right.

La Gomera is certainly of volcanic origin,
even if there has been no activity for the
past few thousand years. In the meantime nature has done what it wanted with the landscape, and at the same time the sun has baked the mountainslopes, and the ocean eaten the lower part of the island.

Finally, when we rounded the northern tip,
at "Los Organos" (see below), we were met
by strong wind, and the Captain found out
that it was better going back south finding
a sheltered bay, rather than continuing
towards heavy sea, and everybody getting seasick, not able to care whether we were
there or anywhere else.... And I must say that was very thoughtful of him, don't you agree?

Then on our way back, we passed by the amusing stone-formation again, and note
that now there are heavy dark clouds over
the old forest up in the mountains.

But first we were still going further north. And as mentioned, the weather became more windy.
The big waves rolled over the ragged coastline, and left 'an ocean' of white sea-spray.
Another amusing stone-formation showed up, two smaller rocks below in the sea,
and two larger ones on top of the mountain, almost alike in shape.

"Los Organos" finally revealed. We had heard about this mountainwall earlier, it is only
approachable from the sea. And we soon understood why. At first sight, this looks like
an unusual formation - but there was more to come.

First a close-up view, which actually doesn't say much about how mighty all this would be
as we came closer. Of course, there was no sign on the wall telling us what kind of
force that once had made all this .

As mentioned earlier, mountains and ragged coastline were to show up all the way. South of
Valle Gran Rey, where we were now heading owing to bad weather, we were looking for a quiet
bay, for bathing and a tasty dinner with (of course) local fish. On our way, we passed a small canyon, revealing the now well known mountain of "Fortaleza" (1.241 m. asl) in the background.

Up there, in the mountains, you can still find some of the original inhabitants - from before the Europeans arrived - living as they more or less have done all the time with their farming, cattle
and bananas. A lot more fertile, too, up above 1.000 m asl, as we have told in our trip to the "Laurisilva" wood of the Tertiary Age. As a matter of fact, it looked to us that only Valle Gran Rey
is what can be called a lovely green valley on this island (but so far, we haven't seen it all, yet).

For the children on board, and some others, too - the climax of the trip, was when late in the
afternoon we turned westward, out in the deep sea, looking for dolphins and whales. Thanks to a German TV-team from Hessischer Rundfunk, we think the Captain let us have an extra trip to suit
them - anyway, we were not back into the harbour till 7 PM, two hours behind the schedule.

And the dolphins came. They were many. On the lower picture above, is a mama and her babe.
At this time of the year, they don't normally play with tourists as they are afraid what could happen
to their youngsters - just as we are. But today they were there - enjoying both young and old.
This was also a trip that we gladly recommend.