I have been thinking for a
couple of days that I must write my diary as so much has happened since my last
entry. I was astonished to discover on opening my last entry that it was only 9
days ago. It feels more like twice that – in a good way as we have packed so
much in – as you can see from my header 135 miles apart from anything else. We
route plan at 4 miles per hour, although we have done most of these recent legs
at over 5.
On 17 May we left Vegadeo
for a previous favourite of San Esteban de Pravia. Once we got out of the
estuary for the first 10 miles or so we managed to sail without motors at a
cracking speed. Typically though, the wind dropped and we had to add motor
power for the remaining 40 miles. It was a long haul and we were glad to reach
the safety of San Esteban, where we anchored in the basin. The thing I
particularly like about this port is that it is completely sheltered and with
the swell that prevails out at sea, a sheltered anchorage is always very
welcome.
We went in search of the
wifi bar that we had frequented last year to find it looking decidedly closed,
so after a short walk along the quayside returned to the boat for an early
night. The following morning we went back ashore and the local shop keeper
informed us that the bar had merely moved into the premises next door. We went
into the new bar building and recognised the same waitress from a year before.
Astonishingly she not only recognised us but she also remembered our names – we
could have only been in there 2 or 3 times before, a year earlier. We checked
the weather report and decided that an early start the following day would set
us in good stead for our continuing journey East.
We do all of the boat
navigation on Central European Time, which is one hour behind local time. I had
got confused with the times and so miscalculated the departure time and we rose
bright and early the next morning, an hour before we needed to. This gave us
plenty of time to walk out to the end of the sea wall to see the state of the
waves rather than just rely on the weather forecast. Whilst the swell in the
entrance to the river was on the lumpy side we thought it looked calmer once
out at sea so decided to set sail as planned.
The exit was even lumpier than
we had anticipated and it did not settle once clear of the estuary head. The
sea was “confused”, in that swell and waves were heading all over the place and
they were not insignificant in size. I was feeling queasy after a very short
period of time, but it continued to look more promising once we got a bit
further out, so we decided to stick with it rather than head back to San
Esteban. When the sea is in this state
it is necessary to hold on even if you are sitting down, and even then it was
hard to stay put.
There was a clattering
noise of something not right and by the time it happened a third time, each
time coinciding with a particularly big slam of the boat between waves we
started investigating. Bearing in mind I was feeling very queasy by this stage,
looking around for something not properly strapped down was not something I
relished doing. We thought it was one of the folding bikes, so I tightened the
straps on those so they wouldn’t budge, then another loud and damaging sounding
clatter and I observed that it definitely wasn’t the bikes. Another crash and
John worked out it was the wind generator blades hitting the shrouds that
support the pole it is fixed to. The boat was flexing so much as we slammed
that the gap was compromised and the blades hit the wires. After donning his
lifejacket he crawled out to the stern to assess the situation. He watched as two of the blades snapped off
and we made the call to head into Aviles to sort it out. Within a few minutes
the remaining blades had hit several more times and John was concerned the
entire generator could be lost. He headed back out again and somehow managed to
lasso the remaining blades and tie them down, thus preventing any further
damage. Once he was safely back in the wheel house we changed course again back
to our original plan and after another half an hour the sea state did finally settle
and the journey became easier.
My only real fear during
this event was not that the boat was unsafe, would capsize or anything like
that, but that John may lose his hold and be thrown overboard. The likelihood
of my being able to turn the boat round and find him again in those conditions,
never mind get him back on board are rather slim. We have a general rule not to
leave the wheel house in rough seas unless essential and we discussed all the
possibilities in detail later that day to make sure we had learned everything
we could from it.
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| The boat on the wall in Ribadesella |
10 hours after setting sail
that morning we finally made it into Ribadesella, with a swell larger than
desirable for making an entrance but despite the traumas of the journey John
handled the boat very well and steered us into the safety of the river. When John switched the engines off, an alarm
beeped and on investigation he discovered that during one of those particularly
big slams, an electrical fault had occurred resulting in the loss of one of the
alternators (something that charges the battery when the motor is on).
The location is stunning
with a backdrop of mountains and it was a huge relief to be tied up along the
town quay (free) away from the swell and waves. It has an international
standard canoe club and there is usually someone paddling past whenever you
look out. We spent a couple of days here, then with another feasible forecast
we headed back out in a much gentler sea for just over 2 hours to the very
peaceful anchorage of Niembru. When we came here last year we were a little
unsettled to discover that the entrance is not visible until you are nearly
upon it, and it just looks like you are sailing into a cliff face. We expected
the entrance to be easier to find this time, but even with the advantage of our
track clearly marked from our previous visit on our electronic chart, it
remained well hidden again until we were uncomfortably close.
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| The peace and quiet at Niembru |
Once inside, with the
additional excitement of riding a wave into this narrow entrance between rocky
cliffs, we found our anchorage which is only accessible at high water and even
then only around spring tides. This means of course that the boat spends most
of the time sitting on the clean white sand rather than afloat, and after all
the swell in the last few weeks, a night of complete calm was very welcome. A
significant amount of tree felling around the bay had taken place since our
last visit and on a walk we discovered that a decision had been made to remove
all but one (the largest) of the eucalyptus trees from the area, which are not
native and rather take over the vegetation if left unchecked. Picnic areas have
been repaired and added to, new signage added and the hillsides generally
tidied up of undergrowth, opening up the views out to sea. This remains one of
my favourite places despite and/or because of its complete lack of
facilities.
Determined to cover a few
more miles eastwards, we set off again after just one night to our current
location of San Vicente de la Barquera. This trip was another 22 miles covered
in a little over 4 and a half hours. I felt a little fragile again on this leg
and took respite in the cabin whilst John happily helmed whilst listening to a
collection of podcast on his Ipod. The swell in south Biscay remains an
unpleasant fact of life here, even if it is generally going in the same
direction as we are. We entered this wide estuary and headed for the eastern
channel, being unable to access a previous anchorage due to the low state of
tide. We passed a yacht in the process of resetting their anchor, and this
being the first British yacht and only about the third yacht in total we have
encountered this year, John as you would expect decided to introduce himself.
They came over that evening along with a bottle of wine and we had an enjoyable
evening swapping stories. They are from the channel isaland of Guernsey and
have headed south in search of warmer climes, and as with the UK, the warmer
climes have wandered off somewhere else!
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| One of last years photos from San Vicente - when we could see the snow on the mountains |
Yesterday morning we were
invited back to their boat for morning coffee during which time John offered to
give a Spanish lesson to Penny that afternoon. Our anchorage had turned a
little lumpy with quite strong winds at high tide, so I decided to go for a walk
whilst John took his class. He dropped me off on the eastern side of the
estuary and I walked round across the bridge that was once the longest in
Europe, and back along the western side of the estuary out to the headland and
sea wall. It was definitely not my sort of sailing weather; the waves were
crashing hard into the breakwater and regularly shooting 20 feet or so up into
the air and over the wall. I was pleased to be able to walk the couple of miles
or so without any discomfort to my ankle, and was glad of the opportunity of
the exercise.
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| Maid of Honor setting sail for Ribadesella |
We met up again in the
evening and had a lovely meal sharing a selection of “raciones”, plates of food
a bit bigger than a tapas but not a meal in their own right. Prawns, sardines,
octopus, chicken, cured ham and mussels were amongst the offerings, brought out
a few at a time, and we had a most enjoyable evening. We met up again for
coffee this morning aboard Maid of Honor and at lunchtime they set sail for
Ribadesella.
We took advantage of the incoming
tide to move to a hopefully more sheltered anchorage nearer to the town, and
dinghied ashore for a quick wifi catch up and shop. Then late afternoon friends
form Cornwall, Chris and Richard sailed in on the high tide and anchored a
couple of hundred meters away. We last saw them back in February and it was
good to catch up on news over wine and nibbles on our foredeck, it being just
warm enough to sit outside for a change so long as you wore enough layers! When the clouds clear the snow top mountains reappear, but haven't seen much of them.
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