8
Official State Bulletin were quite unspecified. But the offer stimulated my
imagination and held the promise of adventure. It was also quite exotic.
Moreover, I thought it would permit me to keep my ties to the Optics Institute
and follow up my incipient optical research.
I discussed all this with my fiancée, María (‘Mary’) Anselma Almeida, and
managed to convince her to join me in the adventure, much to the disappointment of family and close friends, and to the fury of Professor Durán,
who for years after felt affronted at my turning down the cushy copper job.
Once the decision had been made, we prepared everything in a month, got
married on 29 December, and embarked on our honeymoon voyage to the
Canary Islands. Our haste quite alarmed our families and raised eyebrows
among our acquaintances.
The wedding was splendid and the guests were amply regaled. After leaving
the bridal bouquet at the foot of the Virgen de la Montaña, the patron saint
of Cáceres, we changed and left on our honeymoon voyage to the Canaries,
having spent our wedding night at the Mérida parador and New Year’s Eve in
Seville, before finally boarding the Ernesto Anastasia in Cádiz.
In early January of 1961 we arrived, tired and seasick, at Tenerife after an
uncomfortable crossing from Cádiz. Mary had been so seasick during the voyage that she mistook an abandon-ship drill for the real thing and rejoiced in
the thought that they would transfer her to a lifeboat so that she could watch
the loathed heaving vessel vanish from sight. When we came on deck on the
last day, the ship was sailing steadily without pitching; we caught site of the
mountains of Anaga. We were awestruck at so unexpected and beautiful a
vision; the island seemed to have suddenly risen from the ocean. A bright
dawn daubed the admirable and dramatic landscape of the bay of Santa Cruz
with brilliant and limpid colours. The jutting rocks of the gorges of Anaga
seemed to want to embrace the hull of the ship, and large fluffy clouds, illumined in the growing light, hung from the sky. We never forgot this glorious
first encounter, and the rough sea passage faded from our minds.
We had booked lodgings at the Colegio Mayor San Fernando in an apartment for university teaching staff. We took a taxi to La Cuesta, the old road
to La Laguna. We passed the neighbourhoods of Vuelta de los Pájaros and
Vuelta de las Flores, and stopped at the Mirador de Vistabella. These poetic
names accentuated the impressive view that lay spread beneath us: a reverberant indigo ocean with scattered brilliant white clouds, flowers, unknown to
us, of riotous colours all around, poinsettias and bougainvillias, which we had
never seen before. And all bathed in a brilliant, almost blinding light. After
the wintry mainland, we thought that we had reached Paradise.
F. Sánchez
Official State Bulletin were quite unspecified. But the offer stimulated my
imagination and held the promise of adventure. It was also quite exotic.
Moreover, I thought it would permit me to keep my ties to the Optics Institute
and follow up my incipient optical research.
I discussed all this with my fiancée, María (‘Mary’) Anselma Almeida, and
managed to convince her to join me in the adventure, much to the disappointment of family and close friends, and to the fury of Professor Durán,
who for years after felt affronted at my turning down the cushy copper job.
Once the decision had been made, we prepared everything in a month, got
married on 29 December, and embarked on our honeymoon voyage to the
Canary Islands. Our haste quite alarmed our families and raised eyebrows
among our acquaintances.
The wedding was splendid and the guests were amply regaled. After leaving
the bridal bouquet at the foot of the Virgen de la Montaña, the patron saint
of Cáceres, we changed and left on our honeymoon voyage to the Canaries,
having spent our wedding night at the Mérida parador and New Year’s Eve in
Seville, before finally boarding the Ernesto Anastasia in Cádiz.
In early January of 1961 we arrived, tired and seasick, at Tenerife after an
uncomfortable crossing from Cádiz. Mary had been so seasick during the voyage that she mistook an abandon-ship drill for the real thing and rejoiced in
the thought that they would transfer her to a lifeboat so that she could watch
the loathed heaving vessel vanish from sight. When we came on deck on the
last day, the ship was sailing steadily without pitching; we caught site of the
mountains of Anaga. We were awestruck at so unexpected and beautiful a
vision; the island seemed to have suddenly risen from the ocean. A bright
dawn daubed the admirable and dramatic landscape of the bay of Santa Cruz
with brilliant and limpid colours. The jutting rocks of the gorges of Anaga
seemed to want to embrace the hull of the ship, and large fluffy clouds, illumined in the growing light, hung from the sky. We never forgot this glorious
first encounter, and the rough sea passage faded from our minds.
We had booked lodgings at the Colegio Mayor San Fernando in an apartment for university teaching staff. We took a taxi to La Cuesta, the old road
to La Laguna. We passed the neighbourhoods of Vuelta de los Pájaros and
Vuelta de las Flores, and stopped at the Mirador de Vistabella. These poetic
names accentuated the impressive view that lay spread beneath us: a reverberant indigo ocean with scattered brilliant white clouds, flowers, unknown to
us, of riotous colours all around, poinsettias and bougainvillias, which we had
never seen before. And all bathed in a brilliant, almost blinding light. After
the wintry mainland, we thought that we had reached Paradise.
F. Sánchez