Patrick Smyth, Foreign Editor, escaped the cold earlier this year for a week's sailing holiday, taking time to explore some of the further reaches of the Canary Islands
SANTA CRUZ, La Palma - 28°40"N 17°46"W.
It had all been too good to be true. Then our luck turned. Ten metres off the pontoon, a shudder, a groan from the engine, and all movement stopped. The good yacht Preciossso - note the third S for added emphasis - was going nowhere, precious or not.
A mooring rope was wrapped tightly a dozen times round our propeller and the gentle northerly was taking our bow back to rest awkwardly on to the jetty, her arse (or stern, as we nautical types call it) stuck out, evidence for all of our humiliating failed departure.
La Palma is one of the two most westerly islands of the Canaries, its greenest, its spine covered by a renowned pine forest, and dominated by a spectacular volcanic mountain whose Caldera de Taburiente, a full 27km in diameter, is the world's largest, and well worth a visit (bus trips and car hire available from Santa Cruz).
The island's surprisingly prosperous capital on her east coast reflects its 500-plus years of Spanish heritage, its charming narrow cobbled streets and squares, showing off classical Canaries architecture, its elaborately carved wooden balconies and doors. The port is a busy commercial terminal for goods and the many ferries which serve it from neighbouring islands.
But the new facilities for visiting yachts and stunning sailing club (two pools, gym, restaurant, loos and showers) are likely quickly to attract the many cruisers that ply these waters.
Mind you, there's now one less mooring line and anchor, courtesy of the P and her crew.
There's no choice really. After squaring a distinctly unhappy marina manager with a few euros, two of the lads strip off and plunge into the harbour's warm water, diving down under the boat repeatedly to hack away the barnacle-encrusted line.
Then, just an hour delayed, its sails up and a course set for La Gomera and the spectacular town of Valle Gran Rey.
Preciossso is a 12m Beneteau yacht based in winter in the Canaries and in the summer in the Med. It is chartered for the week by Charlie Kavanagh, the one-man-band who is the Wicklow-based South East Cruising School.
His crew of six, who have each paid €720 for a berth - in some cases half a berth - is a varied bunch in age (from 20s to 60s), background, and experience: Barry, a retired business consultant who once headed the Irish Management Institute and has sailed quite a bit; Teresa, a nurse returning to sailing after some years away; Chris, a German-Wicklow mother of two who works in the family business and sails regularly; two young IT professionals and nautical novices, Pat (Cork) and Marga (Catalonia), very much a couple and addicted to adventure - their last trips were Everest base camp and the top of Killimanjaro. And then one overweight fiftysomething journalist with some experience.
The idea is to escape the winter blues and explore some of the further reaches of the Canaries, largely unknown to many for whom the islands are little more than sun, sangria and beaches. And in the process to refresh or learn some sailing skills.
These are stunning sailing grounds well served by many different ports of call though many are crowded with boats. Further from the main tourist destinations it is usually possible to get a place at a harbour wall or in a marina.
But mooring offshore is also an option, a short dinghy ride or even swim ashore in waters that even in January are pleasant to bathe in.
Between the islands, funnelled by their steep mountains, even winds that are moderate close to the shore build dramatically in "acceleration zones" to provide exciting sailing.
Life on board is distinctly cramped. It's a bit like going on holiday in a caravan with six people you don't know. It can be a bit risky. Unlike a caravan, you can't just get off.
But this group's dynamic works from the off, all happy with the give and take and Charlie's gentle disciplinary/ pedagogical regime.
The easy atmosphere is lubricated by congenial evenings ashore where the local food, and to a lesser degree, the local wine, rarely disappointed: simply cooked octopus, squid, sea bass, luscious prawns, moray eel, tuna, baked goat's cheese, a local pesto-like sauce, mojo . . .
Here in Santa Cruz, on a street named after an Irish merchant called Daly, we have the most delightful meal of the trip in the wooden-beamed La Placeta.
Our starting point three days earlier had been the other Santa Cruz, Tenerife's noisy, bustling capital, on the night of the local celebration of the Epiphany with crowds on the streets, parades and fireworks.
A day's sailing south brought us past the magnificent Ayers-Rock-like Montana Roja, incandescent in the setting sun, to brash, busy Los Cristianos, the epitome for many of the traditional Canaries resort.
From there, after an encounter with a small school of pilot whales basking on the surface, and a turtle making its stately lengthy migration south, possible even from Co Kerry, it was on in Columbus's wake to La Gomera, where in 1492 he made his final landfall before America.
The town hall was once the home of his mistress Beatriz de Bobadillo. Cortez , and many another transatlantic traveller to this day, also stopped off here in the natural harbour around which the small town of San Sebastian would grow (it is also easily reached by fast ferry from Los Cristianos).
Perched vertiginously and a steep climb above the marina is the fine, old-fashioned Parador Hotel, worth a visit. Or, nearer the harbour, the friendly and cheaper Quatro Caminos.
The island, whose hinterland surrounding the peak of Garajonay is a national park and a popular walking area, is surrounded by forbidding volcanic cliffs often flecked with red streaks like primitive cave paintings.
On its northern tip, and only visible from the sea, is a spectacular basalt formation, Los Organos, organ pipe-like symmetrical stepped rocks reminiscent of the Giant's Causeway.
With a good force five behind us and white horses breaking all around, we make a brisk eight knots down the western shore of the island on our passage back from La Palma.
From a distance the small white houses of Valle Gran Rey and neighbouring La Calera tumble from a steeply sloped valley between the cliffs like a stream of white pebbles.
Perched precariously on a shelf between rockface and sea barely a couple of hundred yards wide, this small charming town and its old fishing harbour of Vueltas retain a feel of the bohemian, hippy culture for which it became known a couple of decades ago. Its cheap friendly restaurants serve a sizeable resident German population, many of them, it appears, came in the 1970s and stayed.
This would be a place to linger, to stroll up winding paths of the valley, to visit the 16th-century hermitages of San Nicolas de Tolentino and Adoracion de los Reyes, to stretch out on the beach . . . but time and tide are not on our side.
A final passage, a broad reach (with the wind almost behind us) takes us to the fishing village of of Las Galletas back on Tenerife, a seafood supper on the harbour front, a final toast, or two or three, and the plane for home.
Preciossso. With three Ss.
Sign up for a sailing holiday
Sailing holidays come in many forms, for those with experience and without, some pure training, others pure holiday, or a combination of the two.
Charlie Kavanagh (South East Cruising School, www.sailsoutheast.com) has taken crews on charter boats in the Canaries in January for several years and to Croatia in the summer. He incorporates training to the "day skipper" cert for those who want it - some experience preferred though crews have tended to be a mix.
Egon Friedrich (Celtic Ventures, www.celticventures.com) does likewise and also has a fully-equipped and customised Oceanis 393 Performance available in Dún Laoghaire for "bareboat" charter (unaccompanied charter by experienced sailors) and similar accompanied cruising/training in the Irish Sea.
Others offering charters, training and skippered cruising in Ireland include Sovereign Sailing (www.sovereignsailing.com), based in Kinsale, West Cork Sailing (www.westcorksailing.com) in Adrigole, Carlingford Sea School and Yacht Charter (www.beauforthouse.net/SeaSchoolYachtCharter.html), and Sailing Ireland (www.sailingireland.ie) based in Kilmore Quay.
The Irish Sailing Association provides a full list of qualified training schemes for cruising (www.sailing.ie)
A number of British-based companies arrange flotilla holidays abroad - a group of yachts, usually 30ft, led by one with an experienced skipper - which cost between £600 (€767) and £1,000 (€1,280) per person, per week, usually including flights from the UK.
Bareboating can be a bit cheaper at between £600 and £1,000 per boat in the Med plus the cost of flights. Evidence of experience, notably an International Certificate of Competence, will usually be necessary. Insurance and deposit on top.
A few companies now also offer "stay and sail" packages combining charter and time ashore in hotels or apartments (Nielsen, Sunscape, Activity Holidays).
A wide range of destinations around the world is now available but those specifically chartering in the Canaries include A24 Sailing, Club Sail, Cosmos Yachting, Nautilus Yachting, Sailing Holidays Ltd, Seafarer Cruising and Sailing, and Windward Islands.
The Practical Boat Owner's website (www.pbo.co.uk) has an extensive database of cruising/training options in the UK.