Ahoy me old ship mates, this is Captain Colin here fresh back from Santa Cruz, it was awash with tourists from Germany, Britain, France, Italy and Spain, as 5 cruise liners docked. It was too good an opportunity to miss, so armed with my camera and notebook I stalked the streets of the capital looking for a story for www.tenerifemagazine.com .

The ships were lined up nicely at the far side of the port, trouble was security guards were posted at the entrance to the area where they were moored, so I had to be content with pics from the ferry reception building. The biggest of all the ships, MSC Fantasia has called in before, but still looks impressive with its 18 decks, 3,274 passengers, and money oozing out of every port hole. The Grand Mistral weighed in with 1,100 passengers, the Astor 590, a 4 mast sailing yacht, Sea Cloud with about half that, and Island Escape adding another 1,690 floating wallets. Personal service is the order of the day on board these ships, so crew numbers only lag slightly behind the paying public.

Thankfully the weather behaved, leaving me to chase passengers around the streets of Santa Cruz with a big net, it just needed the Benny Hill music in the background and it would have been perfect. A lot of passengers didn’t want to talk, probably thought I was selling something, and others pretended to speak French or Italian just to get rid of me, probably from Scunthorpe but good at accents. At least a few were chatty, give it a few days and you can read the full article at www.tenerifemagazine.com , we are cramming so many stories in at the moment, some have to adopt a stacking formation and wait for a space to become available.

All this activity didn’t keep me away from my favourite food places, I nearly always have some churros de pescado (fish in batter) at the Plaza del Principe cafe, and it would be rude not to have some coffee and chocolate doughnuts along the way. All the streets were busy with beggars and artists, some are a pain, but I can’t resist stopping to watch the living statues, and the reactions they get from startled members of the public when they suddenly move.

I was ready to make my way back down south, this time along the Avenida Maritima, the dock front road, but loud music and gathered crowds alerted me to the slip road bordering the docks, brightly coloured race cars were gathering for the Tenerife Rally. All 96 entrants were going through last minute checks before Friday nights 3 quickfire stages could take place in Arico, Icor and Fasnia.

Feast you eyes on this Porsche 911 997 GT3 , I’m told it is favourite to win the Tenerife Rally after the 2 further Saturday runs on the same 3 routes. The driver is Santiago Concepcion Acosta from La Palma and his co pilot Nazer Ghuneim Olivares. I must be honest and say that the technical wizardry of the cars is lost on me, but I did appreciate the dolly girls dishing out the race programmes. The full article is already up on www.tenerifemagazine.com and you still have until the end of November to win a weeks holiday at Sands Beach Resort in Lanzarote, by joining the Tenerife Magazine Facebook group, get in there.