Items filtered by date: May 2024

Tenerife is a great place for some whale and dolphin watching. You can book a boat from Los Cristianos, Las Galletias, Puerto Colon and Los Gigantes, some of the boats have under water viewing where you can watch these magnificent animals in their natural environment.

As whale watching has become so popular, regulations have been put in place that limits the number of boats operating to protect the animals.

Short finned pilot whales are frequently seen off the south west cost of Tenerife where one of the world’s most important colonies is regularly seen. These whales can weigh more than 3000kg and reach a length of 5m.

Many other species can also be seen in the waters off the Canary Islands, as up to one third of all whale and dolphin species live or migrate through these waters, including sperm whales, and killer whales .

Dolphins are common off the Tenerife coast including the common dolphin and the bottlenose dolphin, and these dolphins are often seen swimming and jumping alongside of boats.

As well as whales and dolphins there are many other species of sea creatures to be observed on a boat trip including sharks, turtles and rays.

Another stunning time-lapse video of mount Teide on Tenerife, this one was taken around the Observatory of the Astrophysical Institute of the Canary Islands situated on Tenerife. There are some extraordinary shots of the 'sea clouds' at night taken from above illuminated by the street lights from the town below.

This year’s poster for the Santa Cruz carnival has been chosen by a jury after voting was suspended due to suspected vote fraud, and it was decided a jury would choose this year’s winner.

The poster is normally chosen by the people of Tenerife by popular vote on the Carnival website for their favourite design, but this was suspended after technicians detected suspicious voting patterns from the internet by computers using bots to cast votes for one particular entry.

Five finalists were originally chosen from 46 entries by the same jury, and the unanimous winner has been announced as “Aguitaaaaa” by Juan Pedro Hidalgo Sabina.

The mayor of Santa Cruz, Jose Manuel Bermudez said “this work reflects the carnival as relaxed and innovative”.

The theme for the Santa Cruz Carnival 2014 is ”Cartoons” and celebrations will begin on Friday 28th February and close on March 9th.

This year brings the Professional Windsurfers Association Wold Cup to Tenerife for the third year running. The location of the event is Playa de el Cabezo, El Médano on Tenerife’s south eastern coast near the south airport.

The competition is for the Wave discipline which is often regarded as the top windsurfer discipline, where competitors go head to head or in heats.

There are two separate categories within the Wave discipline which are wave riding and jumping. Wave jumping involves competitors launching themselves into the air to perform acrobatic manoeuvres anywhere up to fifty feet in the air.

Wave riding is similar to surfing but with the advantage of wind power providing more speed and the ability to perform extreme aerial manoeuvres.

Dates of this year’s event in El Médano: 3rd August – 9th August 3013

Tenerife PWA 2013

This year the second ‘Fest Costa San Miguel' will be held in Golf del Sur with events being held on every Saturday throughout the month of August. These events will be at different venues in the resort Golf de Sur and are being organised by the Department of Tourism of the municipality of San Miguel.

The festival will showcase some traditions of the area to tourists and visitors through folklore and traditional games.

The planned entertainment includes live folk music performed by local musicians, traditional Canarian sports including Canarian stick fighting and Canarian wrestling.

The venues are San Blas Shopping Centre on Saturday 3rd, Saturday 17th, Saturday 24th and Saturday 31st August, the Aguamarina Hotel beach promenade on Saturday 17th, and the Sandos San Blas Hotel on Saturday 24th August.  All the events start at 20:30hrs, except the one at Sandos San Blas hotel which starts at 19:30hrs.

If you are staying in Golf del Sur or Amarilla Golf in August it will be well worth taking a look at these shows as it should be very entertaining.

This year the 18th world water-ski championship is being held in Tenerife at Puerto Colon Marina in Costa Adeje in September.

The event starts on 5th September and concludes on the 15th September. The races start at 9am and are on the following dates, Saturday 7th, Monday 9th, Wednesday 11th and Saturday 14th September 2013.

Water ski Championship Program of Events

The championship is likely to have around 70 competitors across six skiing categories and three team competitions.

The completions consist of races around a circuit between skiers from different teams, with each team consisting of one skier, one driver and one observer in a power boat of over 1300hp with speeds up to 110 mph.

Each team will race four times over three rounds for the Junior Women’s F2 and Men’s F2. The launch area is in the Puerto Colon marina with the two race courses off the coast of Costa Adeje.

World Water ski Championships Tenerife

Costa Adeje Water Ski Championship Course 1

Water Ski Championship Course 2

Watch this nice video of Mount Teide set to Mike Oldfield’s music written in tribute to Tenerife’s mountain. The title of the music is simply ‘Mount Teidi’ and was a track on his album titled ‘Five Miles Out’ released in 1982.

Temperatures this weekend in London reached 30 degrees Celsius making it hotter than the holiday island of Tenerife in the Canary Islands. Saturday was the hottest day in the UK so far this year and the Met Office has issued server weather alerts warning people to take care in the heat.

The current hot weather is set to continue for another 7 days with no sign of the sun disappearing anytime soon. The Met Office has issued a Level 2 Heat Health watch for London until Wednesday evening.

Temperatures are expected to rise to heat wave levels across southern England this week with temperature creeping up to 30 Celsius.

The M25 London ring road has apparently buckled in the heat creating ridges in the carriageway surface near Pottersbar where the motorway was closed overnight for inspection.

A computer failure this morning at Swanwick control centre near Southampton has resulted in flight delays to Tenerife today. The problem restricted the number of flights crossing the south of the UK and aircraft taking off from airports.

Check the live Tenerife Airport Arrivals Board

The problem was fixed by a reboot of the air traffic computer system that had caused a rouge flight plan. A spokesperson for Gatwick airport said that flights from Europe could be affected by restrictions on flights around Jersey’s airspace.

Flights are returning to normal but there may still be some delays as is apparent from the live Tenerife airport arrivals board.

Read more about this

An Orca born at Loro Parque in Tenerife on the 3rd August last year has died. Loro Parque issued a statement on their Facebook page last month announcing the sad death of the 10 month old killer whale, Vicky.

She had been behaving strangely for a few days before her death and a specialist vet had been sent over from the USA.

The death of Vicky has highlighted concerns about the breading in captivity of killer whales. There are concerns about the inbreeding and the fact that Vicky’s mother had been removed from her own mother at an early age. She rejected Vicky almost immediately so the young calf was being hand reared by the staff at Loro Parque.

Read More Here