Debi and Jack sailing on SV Iroquois

We slept around 12 hours and felt good on waking after the long sail. This marina is not the luxury resort like the one we were in on Lanzarote. It's one of the oldest in the Canaries and the boats are crammed in med mooring style. Jack did an excellent job pulling into the narrow space between two boats and reversing to hold us from bumping the wall. It also helped that two guys were waiting to take lines and hand over the lazy lines. The boat next to us was German and has done the crossing to the Caribbean twice before. His ensign is the EU flag with a small German flag in the corner. It's somehow reassuring to me in this crazy mixed up world-- the idea of working together is bigger than that of nation.  I tried to pick the owner's brain about when to leave and how to route but he just said to wait until the trades are established. We went to the shopping center to get more data from Vodafone. In Portugal we bought 15 gigabytes for 15 euros. In Spain the maximum is 3.2 gigabytes and costs 20 euros. We tried another carrier who was next door to Vodafone, but their maximum was 2 gigabytes. So we went back to Vodafone and added 3.2 gig to our simcard. Then we went back to the marina and paid for their wifi which is slow but less expensive. These problems will only get worse I guess until we get back to the US. We had a surprise visit from George, who we met in Guernsey and haven't seen since then. He and his crew left for Antigua after they get their engine repaired this morning. It's the best part of cruising when you meet up with people  in another place. You never really know if you will see each other again, but it’s a real pleasure when you do. We had to move to another slip because the owner of ours was supposed to return today. We managed it without mishap luckily. Most of today was spent on boat repairs and reading / guitar playing. Axel, the German who was next to us, gave us a battery that he doesn't need anymore. So we can use that as a starting battery for the engine and increase our house bank, which should really help.
Wrote the above day before yesterday.

Yesterday we drove from the south of Gran Canaria, where we are moored, all the way to the opposite end of the island. Gran Canaria is a circle with a volcanic mountain in the center. We went through innumerable biomes. Here there are lots of palm trees. As we drove north up into the volcanic mountains we saw mostly cactus until the first lookout stop. There we could see palm trees in the valleys and dragon trees on the rims. Dragon trees are native to the Canaries. They're mostly a twiggy thin trunk with sprigs of spiky things at the end of the branches. As we drove higher we entered the Canary Pine forest. We stopped near the top at the famous Roque Nublo where we clambored around on it with lots of tourists. I like that a landform which was worshipped by the ancient peoples is still getting so much interest. As we drove down the other side of the mountain on a most tortuous road we came into a large burn area and once we got past that we were in another kind of forest with deciduous trees, an undergrowth of ferns and Spanish moss. As we got further north the vegetation got more lush until the brush was dense and we saw spots of grassy areas, there were vines climbing and hanging all over. Eventually we got to banana fields,  in fact just one banana field after another. We ended our tour at an archaeological site, Cueva Pintada, which is strikingly similar to the ancient sites we saw in the Orkneys and Shetland only these stone/cave houses were occupied until the fifteenth century. According to the guide these islands were isolated until Columbus came. We find it hard to believe that no Africans came across --- it's not that far. Anyway, it was an interesting site. On the way back we drove on the coastal highway instead of the tortuous narrow winding mountain roads, barely wide enough for two cars to pass each other let alone all the bicyclists. Did I mention the sheer cliff a foot from the pavement edge? Will write more tomorrow.