Somebody's got to do it.

 I've been showing an international group of journalists around La Palma for the tourist board. So I took them to all the most beautiful parts of the beautiful island, and we ate in the best restaurants, and we had good conversations and I got paid for it.

But then I suppose that somebody has to do it.

On Saturday we watched the sunset from the dome of the enormous Gran Telescopio Canarias at the Roque de Los Muchachos observatory. As usual, it was spectacular to watch the sun set into the sea of clouds beneath us.

Even the people and their shadows looked amazing.

Then we went up to the Roque itself where we saw the twilight and Venus (on the right) through the Muchachos themselves.  ("Muchachos" is Spanish for "young men". With a lot of imagination the rock formation looks like a group of people.)

Fainting Tourists

Wow, what a week!

I can now spout explanations of four new telescopes (although I need to work on the bit about Cherenkov radiation in Spanish) and the general talk about the observatory. It took a lot of practice, and I'm sure I must have looked quite mad, lecturing the bathroom mirror on the short history of Gamma Ray telescopes. But however ridiculous I looked, it worked. By Tuesday, I found myself regurgitating it quite confidently in front of the tourists.

I was deep in the explanation of how they observe gamma rays, given that gamma rays never make it as far as the earth's surface, when I heard a collective gasp and everyone looked away from me.

An old lady had fainted.

She was already coming around when I got there. We moved her to the recovery positioninthe shade, and I just had time to run through the checks to make sure it was a faint, not a stroke, when Romer, the assistant, arrived with the ambulance.

By then it was obvious we didn't need it. She was on her feet again, with her husband hugging her fit to bust her ribs and choking back tears. The poor man obviously thought for a second that she'd died.

She insisted that she was fine, and sorry for being such a bother. So Karl, the boss of the MAGIC, produced a chair and some water and we carried on. Then when we'd finished with the MAGIC, we persuaded her to rest in the nice, cool residencia for the second half of the visit.

We made a good team, I think.

We got up to the Liverpool and Mercator telescopes, and found engineering work going on inside the Liverpool,and the man who'd offered to take half the group very busy with higher priority things. But I wasn't going to let a little thing like that put me off after coping with the faint. I ploughed on, and remembered it all (although not quite in the best order.)

One of the visitors comments afterwards, that they enjoyed it, but it would have been even better with some photos of galaxies or seeing the telescope move.

So now we have pretty pictures organised for the next visit to the Mercator.

Most of Wednesday passed in a blur of housework. I went to see the astronomer for the Galileo telescope who does public relations, to educate myself some more. Then I took my son to the dentist. And finally, by way of relaxation, I drove right to the other side of the island to see the Fiesta del Carmen, where they take the statue of the Virgin Mary on a boat to bless the fishermen. I've been here 17 years, and it was the first time I've actually got there to see it. I was hoping it would all happen with the golden evening light, but it was dark by the time the boats left the harbour. It was still beautiful.


It was beautiful.