Ireland day 1134. Tuesday 05 November 2024- From La Gomera

Today’s summary	A protracted journey back to Manchester today at the end of our holiday in La Gomera. A 6:15 am taxi from the Parador down to the ferry terminal for the 7 o’clock Fred Olsen sailing to Tenerife. Another taxi took us onwards from Los Cristianos to the airport – a full five hours early for our 1pm EasyJet flight to Manchester. The flight left on time and arrived in Manchester a few minutes early, four hours later. Overnight and dinner in the Manchester Airport hotel and onwards to Dublin tomorrow.
Today’s weather	Sunny warm and dry in the Canaries. Light easterly wind. Appx 22c. Appx 13c and cloudy but dry in Manchester.

Today’s overview location (The blue mark shows the location of our route)		Close-up location (The blue line shows where we sailed) (No GPX today)

Commentary

Well all good things have to come to an end, I suppose, and let’s face it, this holiday has been very good. Anyway, today we started our protracted journey back to Ireland, an enterprise which started with a 6:15 am taxi from the Parador to take us to the Fred Olsen ferry terminal down in San Sebastián town. The ride took all of five minutes, but it was an awful lot easier than dragging our bags down a million steps.

The boat ride across the straits from La Gomera to Tenerife was quick and smooth – far more comfortable than the journey out had been. As we cruised out of San Sebastián, we got a good view of a (rare, apparently) four masted sailing ship moored close to the Fred Olsen jetty. A fine sight. Probably the Santa Maria Manuela, a training vessel.

Another taxi was waiting for us in Los Cristianos and whisked us speedily to Tenerife airport, ready for our departure to Manchester. The side effect of all this efficiency was that we arrived at the airport fully five hours early – before our incoming flight had even left Manchester.

Still, with packed breakfasts prepared by the Parador, and numerous coffees, the time passed quickly enough. We boarded our EasyJet flight more or less on time at 1pm. The flight north was a good 20 minutes slower than the flight here – the helpful tailwinds in one direction became the unhelpful headwinds in the other, I guess. But despite the headwinds and a longer flight, we still landed a few minutes early at around 5:30pm. Plenty of time to catch up on podcasts en route.

We’re staying overnight in the Manchester airport hotel again tonight, then an onward flight to Dublin tomorrow afternoon. Just time now for some dinner, then perhaps hopefully an early night to start recharging the sleep deficit from this morning’s excruciatingly early start.

So still a few more moments of holiday atmosphere to enjoy, then back to our Irish adventures later in the week!

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


Early morning departure courtesy of the Bencomo Express	The view from the bridge! Pole position seats to view the sunrise over Teide

Tenerife South airport – just like a million others. Busy, but reasonably efficient	Last view of El Teide

Sunset somewhere over the Bay of Biscay. Exactly 6pm

Just soaking up the last of those subtropical rays!