Imagine dozens of tall sailing ships gracing the coastline of Tenerife as they arrive from Vigo, Spain, the starting point of The Tall Ship Atlantic Challenge 2009. These beautiful vessels will be in Tenerife from 14th to 17th of May preparatory to setting off on a 26 day sail to Bermuda. There, they will help celebrate and mark the 400th year anniversary of the settlement of Bermuda before heading off to Charleston, Boston and Halifax before setting sail across the great Atlantic again for the final leg of their journey which will see them make port at Belfast, Ireland in August 2009.

At the time of writing 23 sailing ships have entered the race from countries as diverse as UK, Uruguay, Netherlands, Bermuda, Russia, France, Germany, Belgium and the US. Those on the liked page that still have active email links are looking for trainee crew members. Wow. That could be you.

Being as I am a little on the vertically challenged side, my young nephew bravely stepped into the breach and volunteered to go Bob Diving on my behalf.

He’s very happy he did as you can see from the following excert.

I did one of the most extraordinary activities in the world or Europe at
least. Bob (Breathing Observation Bubble) Diving. It was one of the most
brilliant experiences I have ever had.
It all started in Puerto Colon where I boarded a boat full of people and six Bob Scooters. Once on the boat it was about a 20 minute ride to the location where the anchor was dropped and we were shown how to operate the scooters – a button to go forwards and handlebars to steer.

Read Bob’s Tenerife Bob report on eTenerife where you can also make an availability request and receive a whopping €4 discount per person on a confirmed booking!

In Tenerife each local council organises activities through the summer months for the school kids that are registered in its area. Accessing the Arona Ayuntamiento website to find out what is on offer this year I could not find any information at all. In fact, if I had wanted to know what was going on in Verano 2005, I was quids-in but for summer 2008 – not a peep.

Many of the most popular courses have cut-off dates to get your kid’s name down and some have limited places so if you want to take advantage of these activities then now is the time to get them organised. I emailed Arona and received a reply linking to this pdf document listing Verano 2008 Activities in Arona. Too late already for the first round of swimming classes in Los Cristianos but there are plenty of other things to choose from including windsurfing, surfing and recreational and artistic roller skating.

Most activities are available to 6 years and up and there are a few specially for older kids including boxing and beach exercise classes. Pensioners get a look in too with beach exercise and gymnasium.

Congratulations to 16 year old Maxime Huscenot from Reunion for winning the Santa Pro Surf Junior after beating French Jules Thomet in the final.

Head to Playa El Socorro tucked between Puerto de la Cruz and Icod de los Vinos to catch the Santa Surf Pro Junior in which 98 of Europe’s best under-21 surfers will compete to bag a US$4,000 prize. This is a Grade 4 ASP Junior Men’s Event and is taking place between the 4th and 8th of June 2008.

Live Coverage from Surfer’s Village