The Port of La Luz and Las Palmas LOCATION   The port of Las Palmas is located in the mid Atlantic, in the Island of Gran Canaria, which is part of the Canary Archipielago and belongs to Spain since 1478. It is situated in longitude 15º 25' West (Greenwich) and latitude 28º 09' North, having as a support the city of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria with almost half a million inhabitants. The port which at the beginning of this Century had a wharf of just over one kilometre in lenght and some 300.000 square metres of sheltered area, it has developed to have sheltered basins and anchoring zones including some ten kilometres of berthing wharves, about 2.000.000 square metres of floating zones and one and half million square metres of land. HISTORY The port of La Luz and Las Palmas commenced as a port at end of last Century. Precisely it was one hundered years old in 1983. Fort it’s magnificient condition for anchoring, the bay was called Las Isletas by the early navigators in their expeditions to Africa and America. It did not as a port until the XIX Century, urged by the necessity for the vessels to be supplied during the beginning of the commercial maritime lines between Europe I and the continents of Africa, Asia, America and Oceania. Afterward, whit the arrival of the steamships and the end of the sailing navigation, the use of the oil fuels was considered the product to operate the motors. The port of Las Palmas continue to develop in a progresive way and it reached the number of vessels calling to 16.000 wiht a tonnage of 60 millions. DESCRIPTION The port of La Luz and Las Palmas is mainly a port of services, ready to attend to anything from supplies to repairs, not forgetting the cargo operations, discharge, transhipment, transits or inspections (main classification societies have their own offices). It is connected by air with all the main cities of the world. It has 10 kilometres of berthing area capable to attend ships of all types, from the supertankers to the luxury yachts, whit depths between 10 to 22 metres. It has two entry mounths known as Outer Port and Inner Port. The first has a breath of 500 metres and the second 700 metres. Las Palmas Bay is sheltered from the winds comming from the three quadrants, therefore it guarantees a permanent service throughout the year. The prevailing winds are northeast and northeast/northwest. With a land space of 1.400.000 square metres it allows any type of handling. Under cover space is 26.000 square metres and the open sapace is 820.000 square metres. At last, calling at Las Palmas offers double advantages: a splendind service station to attend what a vessel may demand or a comercial operation, and also the fact of felling at home wiht all the services of a great metropolis at your disposal.