Janet Anscombe

In real life, I am an ancient historian, and was a university lecturer in Classics & Ancient History before moving to Tenerife. I’ve been here now since 2004 when I left Higher Education, which for me had become disillusioning and depressing. Tenerife is wonderful, a sub-tropical eternal Spring amazingly within Europe, and with a language and culture that is simultaneously different and familiar. I have rheumatoid arthritis, and I find that the climate here, with its steady humidity and gentle temperatures, is just about perfect.

I live with my husband in a 200-year-old Canarian cottage in a mountain village a kilometer high overlooking the west coast. Our garden is packed with geraniums, roses, and fruit trees … and lizards who are now so used to us that they have to be shuffled out of the way as they come to us for titbits, whether cheese, fruit, or particularly eggs! Here are a couple of photos; the first is the view down to the coast and out over the sea to La Gomera, and the other is of a so far unnamed youngster who lives in the complex of holes shared by Mr and Mrs Corner and their increasingly extended family in the outside of our kitchen wall!

We are now in our eighth year here, and I have spent my time indulging a longstanding interest in property, investigating everything from home design to construction, sales techniques, and particularly, the legal aspects of the Canarian market, as well, indeed, as most aspects of the expatriate experience in Tenerife. If I see myself as anything, it is as an advocate for anyone thinking of moving here, or actually living here and struggling with day to day bureaucracy and legalities.

My goal is to enable people to be stress free and to help them fulfill their dream without it turning into a nightmare, something that can unfortunately be an all-too-familiar story. I hope that this site will be helpful to anyone looking for up-to-date and relevant information about what is happening in Tenerife, as well as a straightforward guide to the legalities and bureaucracy involved in being a resident or property owner here.

Below on this page are the five latest of regularly-updated current news and events posts from the local media; for earlier items, just click on the main news link in the right hand column. Please do express opinions or ask questions: just click on individual headlines to find the comments box. There is also a Tenerife Sur current weather box in the right hand column which links to Weather Underground for more detailed forecasts. For other more specific information, simply browse the links at the top of this page, or contact me by e-mail or phone one of the numbers in the box at the end of the right hand column (the 922 number is a landline, the 678 one is a mobile).

COPYRIGHT: I have written all the text on this website. Whilst the news and facts themselves are not subject to copyright law, my opinions and views, as well as my wording and translations, are, and I claim copyright. Readers are welcome to use text for other websites as long as they name this site.

As of yesterday, Callao Salvaje and Playa Paraíso have been adopted by Adeje after a wait of 40 years in the case of Callao Salvaje and 20 in that of Playa Paraiso. From now, the two towns will enjoy all Adeje’s services alongside the rest of the municipal area, whether rubbish collection or water supply, as well as street cleaning and garden work.

The only part of the entire area that is not fully adopted yet is a plot of some 10,000 square metres in Callao Salvaje destined for a green area, where there remains a legal case outstanding against the promoter. Adeje mayor José Miguel Rodríguez Fraga said, however, that the matter was more a formality than substantive.

Spanair ceased trading as of last night, and the company website is showing the following text HERE for any travellers affected:

As of today, 27 January 2012, Spanair has ceased its operations and therefore, given these exceptional circumstances, all our flights from today are cancelled.

If you have a ticket for the next few days or weeks, you have varios alternatives:

a- if you paid with a credit card, notify the card company for a refund
b- if you have cancellation insurance, contact the insurers to establish the cover you have
c- if you bought a tickt through a travel agency, you will need to contact them.
d- If you have a Spanair ticket for a different airline, your flight is, in principle, guaranteed. We ask that you confirm with the relevant airline.
e- Spanair, in co-ordination with the Cataluñan regional government, has arrived at an agreement with Vueling, Iberia and Air Europa for passengers travelling over the next three days to have a special tariff as follows:

- Domestic flights to the Balearics €60
- Flights to the Canaries €90
- International flights €100

f- In any other case, and to reclaim fares, you will need to submit a claim through one of the following channels:

· Spain sales offices
· AENA desks in the relevant airports
· Tourism offices in the relevant airports
. Cataluñan consumer agency

- Spanair is in permanent contact with the Spanish areronautic authorities and airports where the company operates flights to resolve this situation.

- Spanair Centre (900.13.14.15 – from outside of Spain +34 971 916 047) and airport sales desks will remain open to attend to clients.

- For updated information please consult our website www.spanair.com

- Spanair apologises for any inconvenience to those affected.

Meanwhile, a website, www.afectadosspanair.com, has been set up to help people reclaim help if they have been affected. I have no idea who set it up but the notice on its single page says this is someone who has reunited Spanair-affected people with money before, with legal help where necessary. The single page will, it says, shortly become a forum for those affected by Spanair going into administration.

It is a symbolic number that has been feared for some time, even though one or two positive stories about the rate of unemployment raised hopes that it might not actually happen. Those hopes have been dashed, however, with the news that unemployment in the Canaries is now over 30%. Latest figures show that the number of those out of work in the islands rose 27,500 throughout 2011, leaving 341,900 people without work, up 8.75% on 2010.

The exact rate we are suffering here is 30.93%, according to data from the Instituto Nacional de Estadística (INE). The breakdown is Las Palmas province 32,36%, and Santa Cruz de Tenerife 29,46%. In Spain as a whole, only Andalucia has a worse rate, at 31.23%.

Update 26 January 2012: The President of the Canaries, Paulino Rivero, has visited the new Garachico port and expressed his satisfaction at the way the works have progressed. The port will have two docks, one for fishing and another for sports with the capacity to moor 40 boats. It will also have facilities for commercial maritime lines. The works are currently being finished, with the port expected to be in operation from June.

Above is a superb video of the entire works since August 2009 to date. It looks lovely now, and shows how much work has gone into it over the last two and a bit years. The storm damage I posted about below can be seen at around 3 minutes.

Original post 23 October 2009: Waves up up to 8 metres have damaged part of the breakwater in the new Garachico port, which is still under construction. The strong swell began lashing the coast in the early hours of yesterday morning and continued through to the afternoon, with water breaking through and reaching tens of metres inland. Chief engineer Rafael Aznar said, however, that he was generally satisfied at the wall’s performance after the waves were double the strength of those expected. Repair works are expected to take a few weeks. The works on the new port, intended for sports, fishing and touristic uses, should be completed by the end of 2011.  El Dia

Update 25 January: In the last week, the harmonic tremor has been up and down, sometimes collapsing completely and at other times giving some extremely strong bursts. There have been several minor earthquakes … 8 the other day, 4 today so far. There has been bubbling on the surface, and quite a bit of smoking magma coming up … some of quite a size too.

Vulcanologists are still expecting it to become Surtseyan in type, but are saying it could be anything between hours and weeks before it goes up. There are science boats on the scene, Guardia Civil helicopters hovering over it taking measurements of temperature and gases being released….

One interesting bit of information was that the temperature inside the smoking maga is 426°C, said to be sufficient to allow the gases to ignite when they mix with oxygen at the surface. Another fascinating fact is that this undersea volcano has already released 12 times as much magma as the La Palma eruption that it is usually compared with.

Update 19 January: Pevolca says that bathymetric readings taken by the science ship Ramón Margalef on 10 and 11 January show that the cone is now at a depth of 130 metres – just 30 metres short of the height where Surtseyan activity could take place. The readings also show a significant growth in volume of the cone.

Update 18 January: Just as an update, there’s very little change in the eruption. Over the last ten days there has been an almost constant harmonic tremor, collapsing at some points but then building up. Vulcanologists think that this represents occasional vent collapses. Since last night there has been a very strong and almost constant harmonic tremor indeed, with a large area of staining on the surface of the sea. The eruption is ongoing.

Update 7 January: The Telefonica webcam HERE (click on the “Vista La Restinga Zona erupción” webcam at the south of the island) is showing steam/gas floating on the surface of the Las Calmas sea. This, vulcanologists are saying, could be the beginning of a Surtseyan eruption if this carries on growing and erupting in this way.

I have pruned this post because it was becoming too long and unwieldy. I have had to divide all previous posts into two sections: the earliest are now HERE, and the later ones, to the start of this post, HERE.