I was going to title this post as Tenerife; Day 2 but we were up well before the crack of dawn on Friday, September 23rd, to drive north to Santa Cruz de Tenerife to catch the ferry to go to Las Palmas de Gran Canaria in search of Hard Rock Cafe shot glasses and beaches.

My brother in law, Curtis, collects the shot glasses from Hard Rock Cafes and Hotels from all the places he’s visited around the world (and he’s visited a lot of places) but he’d never been to the Canary Islands and the opportunity to visit another island nearby was just too tempting not to go.

We had just cleared the entrance to the harbour when it became obvious that it was rougher than it looked out there on the open sea.

The ferry seemed like it was just crawling along and it was pitching and bouncing so walking was a challenge. The crew made it look easy but looking for chairs to grab or a wall to lean on was the only way I could get around easily.

It seemed less rough at the back of the boat so I stayed on the deck for a bit and took a few shots. Lynda made her way back there for a while too.

Our trip over was about 2 and a half hours. We could of taken a 2 hour trip to a different port but it would of involved more driving to where we needed to go. I’m sure with the rough ride, Curtis was re-thinking the port choice.

It had been pretty cloudy on the way over but as we drove to the south side of the island to find the Hard Rock Cafe Rock Shop Gran Canaria the clouds started parting.

At least the sun was shining when we got to the shopping centre as The Rock Shop was closed. We walked around the area checking out stores hoping it would open soon. We’ll take the credit for that working.

After the wait, we found out they are out of shot glasses and suggested going to the Hard Rock Hotel to find some.

I did get myself a tee shirt so at least it wasn’t a total waste of time.

We decided to get some lunch while we were there.

The food was fabulous and I really enjoyed the Tapas.

With lunch over, it was time to walk over to the beach.

At last, the beach came into view.

I’m not much of a beach guy so I’ve not been to too many of them but even I can recognize a nice beach when I see it. And this was a nice beach.

It was such nice sand to walk on. The black mixed in made the sand patterns change constantly as the water washed over it.

The water seemed cool initially but as I walked along it felt warm. Since I had my camera and was carrying all our stuff, going knee deep was as far as I could go. My bride, on the other hand, had no such restrictions having given me everything but her sandals to carry.

A lack of swimsuit wouldn’t deter my bride from getting a feel for the ocean. Even her hat was wet, but she was enjoying herself.

We started making our way back to the car so we could head over to The Hard Rock Hotel to look for shot glasses there.

It was a short drive east to the hotel and we found a parking spot only a short walk away.

After learning there were no shot glasses here either, we sat and enjoyed a drink before going to check out the nearby beach.

It was a short walk through some sand dunes to another fabulous beach.

I saw why Gran Canaria is noted for it’s beaches. I’ve only been to 2 of them so far and both have been really nice.

I was once again limited to knee depth but my wife and sister had no such restrictions. They figured they were already wet so maybe some body surfing was in order. They never did manage to get the surfing part down but they did manage to get even wetter than they already were.

I was in the ocean too.

It was getting time to go look for some food before we had to catch the ferry back so we walked along the restaurants near the back and decided on Pub Dragon.

We tried a few more Tapas and Curtis had a hotdog.

It was a nice, short walk back to the car.

I saw quite a few cool things along the way but it’s really hard to take photos out the back of a car so you’ll just have to take my word for it.

We got back to the ferry terminal with time to spare and waited patiently for it to come. And waited, and waited.

Finally a ferry pulled in. It wasn’t the company we had come over with and it was an older ship. It looked to be a downgrade from the morning boat.

Finally we were under way.

Just like the mornings trip, the moment we left the harbour it was a rough ride. It was actually rougher than in the morning. (The tropical depression that arrives tomorrow probably had something to do with it.) I’m sure being pitch dark out probably didn’t help the feeling of how rough the crossing was.

We got back to Santa Cruz de Tenerife around 11:00 pm and made our way back to the apartments.

I’m sure there is some cool stuff to see between there and the Costa del Silencio area but both directions of travel on that trip was in the dark so I really have no idea if there is or not.

Our really long day was over around midnight as we got back to the apartment. Just shy of 12k steps today, a lot of them at/near the beach. It was a good day, ferry rides aside.