Jerez we know well from previous visits but it was still good to wander around again and take in a visit to the famous Riding School and go to a bogeda for a late afternoon sherry.
Tenerife South requires an arrival slot and there was an anxious moment when this failed to materialise; it needs to be quoted in the RMKS section of the flight plan, and to comply with Moroccan regulations, (IFR) flight plans need to be filed three hours before arrival in their airspace. In the end, all was well.
We took on a full load of fuel at Jerez; Teneriffe South has no avgas so we needed enough for our outbound flight and then sufficient with reserves to fly back to Gran Canaria after our walking holiday. This was a sector where Juliet Bravo’s extended range came into its own; we were able to easy overfly Morocco and save the couple of hours that any enroute stop there would entail and because we were going from Schengen to Schengen, there were no immigration/customs formalities either.
En route weather was generally fair; we took off and climbed to our initial cruising level of FL100 picking up a useful tailwind; as we entered Moroccan airspace, we were offered a climb to FL130 and more expeditious routing, which we accepted but the downside of this was a reduced tailwind, which later as forecast turned into a headwind. Leaving Morocco SW of Essaouira for a long sea leg, we routed over Fuerteventura, rather bleak looking, then south of Grand Canaria on the long STAR into Teneriffe South which added considerably to the route mileage. Mount Teidi on Teneriffe duly appeared and we began our descent with efficient vectoring by ATC amid constant arriving and departing holiday jet traffic.
Tenerife Tower remarked that they did not often see aircraft likes ours before giving us taxi and parking instructions; our handler was there to meet us and whisk us through to a hugely crowded arrivals hall where we found our Inntravel bus to take us to the nearby ferry and thence to La Gomera to walk.
Jerez to Teneriffe South: 853 nm in 5 hours 25 min