Subcritical instabilities in small gap Taylor-Couette (TCF) problem are studied numerically when both cylinders rotate in opposite directions. The computations are carried out for a radius ratio A first exploration is focused on the study of spiral flows originated from subcritical Hopf bifurcations of the basic circular Couette solution. The second exploration addresses the transition from laminar flow to the usually termed as spiral turbulence regime characterized by alternating laminar and turbulent spiral bands which coexist even in regions of the parameter space where the circular Couette flow is linearly stable.