Bright, modern and eye catching, that just about sums up TEA-Tenerife Espacio de las Artes, in Santa Cruz, but until October 4, there’s a multi coloured marine welcome in the form of 13 whale sculptures from the Loro Parque Foundation. When all their friends are present, there are 18 of these 2.5 metre high acrylic works, made by 13 different Canarian artists in an attempt to highlight the threat to cetaceans in the oceans of the world.

Expo Orca has brought together some of the brightest talents in the Canary Islands art scene and the results are visually stunning. The quartet at the top of this post collectively depict the 4 basic elements of life, fire, water, air and earth, all the work of Pepe Damaso, from Gran Canaria.

Make the most of the Orcas in their TEA setting, they move on after October 4 but will be popping up at both Tenerife airports, Los Rodeos in the north and Reina Sofia in the  south, before heading out to Gando airport in Gran Canaria.

Saddles so sharp they could do you a mischief, and not a bell or saddlebag in sight. The 100 plus cyclists from 14 teams, came bombing down Funchal and into the heart of Los Cristianos this afternoon, to complete stage 3 of this years Vuelta Ciclista of Tenerife. Police had sealed off several roads but with little advance publicity, crowds were sparse, and drivers were irritated at having to move from their usual parking places.

I tried to guess the arrival time but made a schoolboy error, calculating how long it would take from the start point of Candelaria up on the east coast. A check of the 95.3 km route showed that they only hugged the coast until forsaking the TF 28 at San Isidro to make the uphill climb to San Miguel, and a downhill finish through Valle San Lorenzo and back on the TF 28 at the Guaza roundabout.

Los Cristianos centre was well snarled up by the time the peleton (pack) came in sight, there were no advance posters and the excellent free glossy colour guide book, only appeared at the Cultural Centre on the morning of the stage. The stage and podium were ready in the car park, converted for this weekends Virgen del Carmen fiesta but it seemed forever until the support vehicles arrived, screaming downhill with sirens blazing, followed by the lycra flash of the leaders, now I know why the pot holes have recently been filled in by the traffic lights.

Sweeping into the car park, sorry showground, the sweaty sportsmen got a good reception and grabbed cold drinks as the prize giving was prepared.In true Tour style, there were 7 different coloured jerseys to be awarded in various categories, bunches of flowers, and smiling sponsors, but no sign of champers, well there were still 2 more stages to go. The yellow jersey was retained from the previous day by Spains Jose Belda for the CCN Valencia team, something of a veteran at 34 but showing the others a clean pair of pedals.

Tomorrow (Saturday) the action switches to El Sauzal (noon) for the longest stage, 101 kms to Santiago del Teide on the west coast, and then the climax is on Sunday, split into 2 stages, from Santa Cruz (9am) to San Andres and back, followed by a 45 km round trip of La Laguna, leaving Camino de La Rua at 5pm and ending in Plaza del Cristo. Good luck to them all, and lets hope for no punctures.

Damm those pesky Pios, you just can’t trust them, their inferiority complex has led Gran Canaria tourist bosses to launch a visitor recruitment drive here in Tenerife. Valencia and Spain footballer David Villa appers in a promotional video for Gran Canaria, that is being shown in Santa Cruz and La Laguna, with the object of enticing people to try the dubious attractions of Pio land.

Silva is from Arguineguin in the south of Gran Canaria, and on the video he is seen strolling through the sand dunes of nearby Maspalomas, trying to make the giant sand pit look attractive. The whole sordid promotion is the latest in a long running sore between the 2 islands, that stretches back into history. In their defence for this promotion, the Pios would say that Tenerife fired the first salvo in this latest skirmish, handing out promotional material on the front at their Las Canteras beach in Las Palmas a few months ago, to tempt visitors over from them to Tenerife – we of course see that as a humanitarian rescue mission.

Tenerife and Gran Canaria head the 2 provinces that split the 7 Canary Islands for administration purposes, Tenerife province also includes La Gomera, La Palma, and El Hiero. Arguments have raged between the island rivals for years, and not just over football, everything from funding and status of the rival universites to beer have caused a polite exchange of views. CCC beer company have plants on both islands producing their range of beers but Tropical is seen as a Pio beer, whilst Dorada is proudly consumed by the Tenerife faithful.

 So prepare to repel the Pio overtures, drink your Dorada with pride and salute the Tenerife flag, bow down and worship Mount Teide and hang your Oscar Dominguez paintings on every wall. Maybe we should compose a new Tenerife anthem, I have always thought that Fog On the Tyne could be easily adapted, sing along  “the snow on Teide’s all mine all mine, the snow on Teide’s all mine…” Ooh i’m filling up.

Taking to the water once a year can become a big challenge for some people, personally I always face my annual bath with great resolve, but Jose Brito and Miguel Cruz like to make sure that their Tenerife ripples benefit as many as possible. Just a year after a 10 day 250 km swim around the coast of Tenerife, the old sea horses are back with a new challenge, a 24 hour swim around the bay of Los Cristianos.

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Next Saturday, Septermber 5, at 5pm they will set off from the old harbour to swim across the bay to the Costamar Apartments, and will continue to zap back and forth before finishing on Sunday, again at 5pm. The 2 dedicated swimmers are taking on this challenge to raise awareness of the dangers facing the local coastlines, and they will find plenty to test them in this particular stretch of water. Playa de Los Cristianos is usually busy with sunbathers, the bathing area soon gives way to a selection of pleasure boats moored up, and in some cases abandoned, then it’s just a short splash to the entry and departure point of the Fred Olsen and Armas ferries.

Jose and Miguel are allowed just 90 minutes break from swimming during the 24 hours, taken in short snatches to eat and drink. It’s a good job they both have strong swimming pedigrees. Jose was busy in 2004, swimming from Lanzarote to Fuerteventura, and later from San Sebastian, La Gomera to Los Cristianos. Miguel is no slouch either, three times he won the 800 metres freestyle in the Spanish championships, and was in the World’s top ten for the 1,500 metres.

Good luck to the pair of them, the event is being heavily promoted by Arona council, so try to get down to the old beach to give them a rousing send off and a huge welcome back.

To be honest, I can’t get very excited about tennis, although Maria Sharapova does stir me somewhat. But even a non fan like myself can see how great it would be for Tenerife, if a major Davis Cup match was held here. Last year Tenerife missed out on staging the mens semi final between Spain and U.S.A, as Madrid got the nod, but now there is a new bid in to put on this years semi between Spain and Israel, from September 18 to 20.

Yesterday, delegates from the Spanish tennis federation visited the proposed venue, the Antonio Dominquez football and athletics sadium on the edge of Playa de Las Americas to check out the facilities. Anyone who has seen football there or one of the many music concerts, may well be scratching their heads to see how it can work.

Two courts would be set up on the centre of the football pitch, with seating extended down from the terraces. The expected capacity for spectators would be 12,000 to 14,000 and would cost about 80,000 euros to stage over the 3 days. Against that you can look at television rights, advertising, and concessions for food and drink, bur best of all the prestige and tourism promotion for Tenerife. It seems unlikely that this bid will suceed, rivals Oviedo, Gijon, Cordoba, Tarragona and Zaragoza are strong contenders, but Tenerife was highly favoured for last years bid, and if they keep applying, their persistence should pay off in the next few years.The decision is made on 23 July – fingers and toes crossed.

Yippee, here they are, the CD Tenerife fixtures for La Liga 2009-2010, the route map of my life for the next 10 months. Not too upset with them, a fairly gentle start away to Zaragoza (they just signed Jermaine Pennant from Liverpool) then a weeks gap for International games, and the home debut on Sunday 13 September, or maybe the day before. This season more than any other, we will be at the mercy of the television companies, especially Canal Plus, who will move us late on for live coverage, usually at late kick off times, we even have 4 midweek games.Â

AUGUST

30       Zaragoza                                     away

SEPTEMBER

     13     OSASUNA                                 HOMEÂ

     20     Mallorca                                     away

     23     ATHLETICO BILBAO             HOME    WEDNESDAY

     26     Real Madrid                                away

OCTOBER

      4      DEPORTIVO                             HOME

     18     Espanyol                                     away

     25     XEREZ                                       HOME

NOVEMBER

       1     Villareal                                      away

       8     MALAGA                                  HOME    Â

      22    SEVILLA                                   HOME

      29    Real Valladolid                           away

DECEMBER

       6     SPORTING GIJON                    HOME

     13     Getafe                                          away

     20     ATHLETICO MADRID            HOME

JANUARY

      3      Racing Santander                        away

     10     BARCELONA                            HOME

     17     Almeria                                       away

     24     VALENCIA                                HOME

     31     ZARAGOZA                              HOME

FEBRUARY

      7      Osasuna                                       away

     14     MALLORCA                             HOME

     21     Athletico Bilbao                          away

     28     REAL MADRID                       HOME

MARCH

      7     Deportivo                                     away

     14    ESPANYOL                               HOME

     21    Xerez                                            away

     24    VILLAREAL                             HOME     WEDNESDAY

     28    Malaga                                         away

APRIL

      4     Sevilla                                          away

     11    REAL VALLADOLID               HOME

     14    Sporting Gijon                             away        Wednesday

     18    GETAFE                                     HOME

     25    Athletico Madrid                         away

MAY

    2   RACING SANTANDER                HOME

    5   Barcelona                                         away       Wednesday

    9   ALMERIA                                      HOME

   16  Valencia                                           away

Meanwhile, there have been crazy scenes at the Heliodoro this week as the season tickets went on sale. On the first day , 3,000 tickets were sold and 2,000 fans were shut out as queues swamped the ticket office staff. It’s definately the hottest ticket in town.

A banquet of football will be served at Spains La Liga top table in the new season, today CD Tenerife fans found that it’s theirs to enjoy from as little as 11 euros per game. The new season ticket prices have been announced and although it has brought squeals of protest from the upper end of the price range, even percentage rises of 60% on last season mean that the dearest seats in the Heliodoro, are just 670 euros for 19 home games, that’s just under 36 euros per match, including Real Madrid and Barcelona.

Surely a mistake I hear you cry, no ( and don’t call me surely) I yell back with delight. CD Tenerife have been good to the loyal hard core of Peñas (fan clubs), we all gather in the Grada Popular end of the ground and our renewal season tickets will cost just 205 euros. There are no new season tickets either upstairs or down in that section, once the current holders have renewed, it will leave 40 % of the places up for grabs in the week before matches – you can bet they will sell mega fast. Your best bet elsewhere is the Herradura for 375 euros, 210 euros for under 16’s and 165 euros for over 65’s.

Match day tickets will be hard to come by this season, and the club are aiming to sell 15,000 season tickets before the action kicks off on September 13. Just to put these prices in some sort of context the cheapest prices for the new teams in the English Premier go from 441 pounds at Burnley,444 pounds at Birmingham and 643 pounds at Wolves.

Full price details are on the CD Tenerife club website or you can get in touch with The General , at chrisarmadasur@yahoo.co.uk and sort out your tickets and your new Armada Sur membership (20 euros), ready to enjoy the complete match day experience. Fixtures will be out on July 10, it’s a big season so get behind your local team, and don’t miss the tram.

Just two speeds, slow and stop, well it may seem like that sometimes in Tenerife, but major transport projects have been making steady progress in recent years. The Santa Cruz tram system has been a great success and after many years of idling in the sidings, the great north to south train link looks more positive, with detailed plans announced. Hot on the rails of that comes news of a possible seaplane link between Santa Cruz and Las Palmas, Gran Canaria.

So lets dig into those new plans for the proposed train link. I always thought it would hardly be worth it to shave a few minutes of the trip, but 40 minutes from Santa Cruz to Las Americas starts to sound like a good argument. The 80 km run has been costed at 1,800 million euros and would travel up to 220 kms per hour and includes 7 stops, Santa Cruz, Anaza, Candelaria, San Isidro, Reina Sofia airport, Los Cristianos and Las Americas, eventually it could be extended to Torviscas and even to Fonsalia on the west coast to link to a propsed new ferry port.

Ready for some more stats, the trains would run every 15 minutes, carry 350 to 400 passengers a train, go through 9 tunnels and for large parts of the journey, would run underground. All pretty ambitious, and even with a 2017 boarding date for the first trip, they would need to get cracking pretty soon, we can but hope.

How about a seaplane jaunt from Santa Cruz to Las Palmas? A Canadian company are keen to start trips as soon as next year, with only 20 passengers , it would be a more specialist form of transport, maybe for business people using the 2 capital cities. The plane used would be a DHC-6 Series 300 Twin Otter (pic above) and as well as fast tracking passengers, it could be used to fight forest fires, sloshing 1,000 litres on the flames in one swoop.

As always in Tenerife, it’s best not to count your chickens before they are roasted, but maybe unlike the inventions we were promised on  Tomorrows World, these transport dreams could come true, hold on tight.

Withdrawal symptoms are common this time of year for football fans, we have to get what crumbs of comfort we can. In that respect, yesterday was a good day, in the afternoon I went to the amphithetre above Siam Park for the Red Bull Street Style football competition.

This is an international competition that comes to a head next year in South Africa, just before the World Cup, and yesterday was the last of the 4 Spanish rounds. Four players would be selected to go, all expenses paid, to the grand Spanish final in Valencia on 29 August. The advertising tag for the event is “3 minutes, 2 players, one ball” the players started with individual rounds to eliminate a few and get in down to 6 finalists. Then they went head to head in a series of challenges to see who could do the best moves.

Now I know you are thinking, was I tempted to get up and show my own silky skills, sadlyI had a little twinge in my leg and had brought a sick note from my Mum to excuse me. The youngsters were all very good and did well not to wilt in the scorching heat, I had to leave before the end but will look out on the website for the progress of the competition.

Meeting The General and Neal and Karen (the Bournemouth section) we set off north to Santa Cruz to represent the Armada Sur at a very special function. Our Canarian terrace comrades the Frente Blanquiazul have a locale near La Paz which they use as a social club, and they had invited CD Tenerife club captain and legend, Cristo Marrero, in order to pay tribute to him.

One of the best organised and most respected of the Peñas (fan clubs) the Frente live and breathe football and their “home” is a credit to them, strewn with souvenirs of many seasons of devotion.  Cristo is a local Tenerife boy, from Las Zocas, and what he lacks in talent he more than makes up for in heart, blue and white blood courses through his veins.  That dedication to CDT shows itself not just on the pitch, but in the way he always gets involved in social events run by the fans, and he was more than happy to come along and mingle with us supporters.

Speeches were given and presentations made, and the great man cheerfully posed for pics with us all. The plaque that was unveiled says “To Cristo Marrero, always our captain, who in defence of the colours of CD Tenerife has shown the qualities of the Canarian people, never to be forgotten, thanks for everything.” The Club have not renewed his contract but have said they will offer him a job at the club to make use of his popularity, enthusiasm and inspirational qualities, we look forward to seeing him around for many years.

“I’m a fire starter, twisted fire starter”, so said that great modern poet Keith Flint, maybe he was referring to the annual Noche de San Juan. Maybe i’m getting older and more cynical, but I thought last nights celebrations in Los Cristianos were quiet subdued by normal Canarian standards.Â

Basically San Juan is about renewal and cleansing and based around midsummer, lots of fire and water are involved, and of course lots of alcohol. I got to town at 9.30 to catch the old Canarian ladies gathered outside the local florists, armed with large spears of heather, a statue of Saint John was perched on a table, decorated with more flowers and smouldering with incense. Spot on the half hour, the ladies took up their leader and carried him shoulder high towards the beach.

I raced ahead and was a little taken aback to see that there were no bonfires underway on the main Las Vistas beach, and people were only just starting to drag old wooden pallets and boxes to start the biggest showpiece fire. Luckily I had arranged to meet Neal and Karen, a.k.a the Bournemouth section of the Armada Sur at Goodfellows bar on the front. As we sipped our Dorada and discussed the state of football in the world, we saw lots of young Canarian kids pass by with carrier bags clinking, heading for the beach, but there were few flames leaping into the night.

Just after midnight we hit the beach and weaved our way through large groups of drinking, clinking youngsters, there were a few very small bonfires, easy to jump over, as tradition demands, many more were dipping in the sea – another way of symbolically cleansing the soul. There seemd a shortage of family groups and candles, normally they dominate the celebrations, but not this year. It looked like the drinking was set to go on well into the early hours, but I headed for a couple of late beers on the way home to my waiting bed.