How very remiss of me, it’s been a few months since I last made the short hop to Las Galletas, one of my favourite ports of call. So with a volunteer clean up of the beaches taking place last week it seemed a perfect time to see how the neighbours are doing.

Change arrives in small measures for this delightful fishing village, well it would be difficult to do anything major without ruining the natural charms of Las Galletas. The main beach looked much the same, it was never dirty, most people’s beef seems to be with the shingle and stones and their aspirations for sand to be added. When I first went to Las Galletas some ten years ago the beach was mainly large stones, this was scraped clear and a fine shingle added but sun bathers began popping over the road to the waste ground and bring back large stones to peg their towels out – you can’t please everyone.

Anyway back to the clean up, around 60 volunteers pitched in and removed 600 kilos of rubbish, 500 kilos of that was from the sea bed. It was clear to me that some of the older weather beaten small fishing boats had been pulled over to a quiet corner and several other bigger and possibly abandoned craft moored in mid water now had for sale signs on.

Earlier in the week I had noticed the long deserted Yellow Submarine re-located to Los Cristianos quay side. This former under water viewing ship has been a dirty and unloved anomaly at the Las Galletas for as long as most people can remember – it looks like it outdates The Beatles. It will be interesting to see if it is salvaged, the layers of caked on silt will take more than a few cans of Mr Muscle.

The Marina del Sur is a more recent cautionary tale of apathy and bad planning, it is well used by pleasure craft and excursion trips but is still only a shadow of what was intended. 8 years ago. The Policia Local and fishermen never did move into their purpose built new premises and the little cafe at the far end of the marina arm that embraces the bay opened and shut in the blink of an eye.

Despite all this it is still a hub of fishing tradition with some lovely cheap shops, bars and restaurants in the back streets and the undeveloped nature of the main beach ensures plenty of room and I always enjoy a swim along the sweep of the bay with the mountains of Arona as an inspiring back drop.