[Captains Blog] Las Palmas

Having finally completed the leg from Lagos direct to Las Palmas, we arrived at daybreak to find that the port authorities decided to ignore my calls over the radio to ask for permission to enter the port. As I got no reply, I decided to go ahead anyway, but just as we were about to round the breakwater, we were cut off by the port police launch with its blue lights flashing. Our instant thought was that we were in trouble, but I had my case prepared in the event that they got snotty with us.  The Port policemen didn't speak much English, but we gathered through sign language that they wanted us to reverse up and follow them back northwards away from the entrance. It turned out that a ferry was about to round the breakwater from the other side and once that had passed by, we were able to continue on into port. A busy place though -- there were upwards of 10 vessels standing off waiting for permission to enter. Small fry like us don't count obviously.