Wendy’s Diary 4 June 2013 – Storm bound, puncture repairs and Santander

The two catamarans are visible beyond the big sand
bar as are the mountains in the background

So my last entry ended with the arrival of our friends on Aquarelle, another Cornish catamaran. Very good timing that they did as the wind picked up and blew and blew and blew and blew (do you get the picture) a rather cold northerly westerly wind. The wind of course made the swell rise to a rather interesting 4 or more meters, which is something that keeps us well and truly in port. San Vicente de la Barquera was an excellent choice of harbour to get stuck for a week in a wind like this, and we found ourselves an anchorage in a channel between 2 sand bars which spent more time out of the water than under it. The boat sat on the sand for a couple of hours each day but never completely emerged from the water. The night the gale was due to arrive I spent in wakeful sleep worrying about it, to find that our spot was so sheltered that it was not an unpleasant anchorage at all except for at the top of the tide.

The waves on the sea wall.

An finally the calm after the storm - Aquarelle in the mid picture.

The town also has a good selection of shops and bars, so we didn't go without anything and

A visitor on the deck

kept in touch with family and friends through the wonders of the internet in bars providing free wifi with the obligatory beer or two (ok coffee if the sun wasn't over the yard arm). We shared several meals with Richard and Chris on either our or their boat which went down very well with a selection of wines and sangria during the week. 4 cooks all providing tips on the best way to cook paella could have led to “spoiling the broth” but the end was a tasty feast of seafood and chicken.

View of the Picos on our last walk

John ignoring the no walking sign as he was cycling
 - the waves at their largest were coming way above
 all the rock you can see behind him.

I mentioned the wind – but somehow omitted the rain – it rained and it rained and it rained (how many people reading this have heard John retell the Stanley Holloway story of “3 hapence a foot”?). This of course meant we had no shortage of water on board as well collect rainwater, something John is always keen to point out when it rains. In between showers Chris and I went for a few hikes, the first couple of times were laps of the big sandbar – for the most part the sand is firm and timing the walks to start just before high water we had just about enough time for two laps before the tide encroached too far. One of the few things I miss by living the cruising life is my girlfriends from the UK, so nattering away whilst wandering was fab. Our last walk went out along the coast path with spectacular views of the Picos de Europa. I measured it at about 3 miles when we got back – not bad 2 months after ankle surgery.

By the end of the week the wind and swell were dropping and the forecast for Saturday looked good for us to go our separate ways, a northerly wind allowing us to travel east whilst Richard and Chris headed west. After nonstop high winds for a week rattling the rigging it was lovely to wake up (although early at 6am) on Saturday morning to near silence. But something was not quite right – I was aware of what I thought was the sound of water “chuckling” as it passed under the boat, John however became aware that one of the bilge pumps was permanently on. He shot out of bed in search of the problem to find it under the galley sink. The top pointy bit of our Bruce anchor was poking in through the hull, bringing with it a nice stream of water that the bilge pump was thankfully dealing with rather well. On calculating times afterwards this had been going on for a good couple of hours before we awoke – very grateful that we have automatic bilge pumps. A towel stuffed in a cereal bowl, wedged in with a couple of pieces of wood over the hole halved the inflow of water - we were concerned what would happen as the tide came further in increasing water pressure.

The hole on the inside -
 after the boat had dried.

The minutes ticked by very slowly until high tide, and we made our way around to the slip, threw some lines to Richard and Chris (who had chosen to delay their sailing) and carefully settled ourselves between the old tramlines on the slipway to avoid any further damage. Time ticked by slower still waiting for the tide to go out again so that we could inspect the damage from the outside. It was market day and the town was very busy and John retold our story time and again to passers-by who were wondering what a British flagged ship was doing on their slipway on a Saturday morning!

The damage on the outside

We have a reputation for being the heaviest Heavenly Twins yacht in the water, and whilst this is quite likely true, it is also useful when you can pull out an electric angle grinder, electric sander, big tub of fibreglass repair and all the other bits and pieces required at a time like this. We had everything on board to carry out the repair and as soon as the hole was out of the water John set to work. In the meantime I set to on a job I have been putting off for a while, of scrubbing off some weed and slime that had grown just above the waterline making the boat look less pleasing to the eye. In between making the Skipper cups of tea etc it took me about 4 hours to clear both of the hulls outer sides and the rudders, by which time I ached too much to tackle the insides. Oh and just for a break in between, I scrubbed the barnacles and a couple of small settlements of mussels that had taken up residence on the underbelly.

Nice working angle!

preparing the hole for repair - it is a bit bigger now!

By the time the tide was coming back in the holes was no more and a local boat owner who also had his boat on the slipway thought that John’s work was of a very professional standard. If you are going to do a job well, choosing to do it on the one that might sink the boat otherwise is a good place to put in the effort and he was pleased with his work. We rewarded ourselves for a hard days labour with a beer, followed by a Spanish variety of caramel ice-cream from the local parlour which was amazing. At around 10.30 pm we floated out and sailed round to the fishermen’s quay, in anticipation of setting sail in the morning.

The forecast was still OK for sailing on Sunday so after a good night’s sleep we finally set sail for Santander, Aquarelle already on her journey eastwards in search of warmer weather. The sea was a little lumpier than we thought it would be (will we ever learn), even though the swell was down to less than 2 meters. In the 6.5 hours we both took a nap still recovering from the previous day’s hard labour, before anchoring behind the sandbar sheltered from the northerly wind. 

A walk on the beach 

In the morning the sun came out – blue skies, gentle breeze – this could only mean one thing – washing day! Rather a large bag of laundry had built up during the recent rainy spell so I set to by jumping up and down in my bucket (new model this year after the last one blew away in the wind) having a work out and getting the clothes clean. John meanwhile headed over to the Yacht club to collect a couple of parcels delivered there. Avid readers of my blog will recall that the some of the wind genny blades were snapped off in a very lumpy bit of sailing a few weeks earlier. All that time we spent in San Vicente with the wind blowing like mad, we had no wind generator. The parcel had arrived and within a couple of hours of returning to the boat we had it working again.

In the afternoon we took the dinghy up the river beyond Pedrena, although we had left it a little late and the tide turned before we had got as far as we had set out to and we turned back downstream. We stopped at a little quayside for a drink (brought from the boat) and went for a stroll up the hill through a very expensive and luxurious estate of individually designed mansions. At the top of the hill we reached a very grand set of (open) cast iron gates, and on passing through spotted the sign that told us we had just walked through a private road with no entry to non residents (on foot or by car). We carried on a little further until the view opened up again over El Palicio, our boat and another little vessel passing by called the Pont Aven. After taking a few photos we went back through the gates, the only signs of life we had seen were gardeners and the like, so thought we could risk it – especially as it was the only way back to the dinghy.

In the evening we went enjoyed a beer in the salubrious surroundings that make up the Royal Yacht club in Santander, with the sun beating down on the windows overlooking the bay. Playing “words with friends” on facebook in such surroundings makes me feel a little cheeky – so I made sure a flicked between that and the weather forecast if anyone happened to pass me by!

Yours truly! The deck chairs turn into mini sun beds.

Today has been dry and sunny again although the cold northerly wind continues to blow. We went ashore at Pedrena for fresh bread and to check out the local chandlery which is still the best one we have found in Spain. We were anchored about 150 meters off the high water line on the beach, but it was still enough for a lumpy fetch, so we took our books, a couple of drinks and our new deckchairs ashore and sat on the beach instead. With the backdrop of the Picos Mountains and Freya Frey in the foreground it was certainly a pleasant spot to spend a couple of hours.   On returning to the boat we decided to try and find somewhere a little calmer and are now anchored off of a beach with the rather curious name of Fango!

If you have managed to wade through my ramblings this far – well done. Whilst I write this diary for our benefit as much as anyone else’s, it is always nice to hear feedback – so do let us know what you think or just like the link on facebook if nothing else. Thank you. 

Wendy’s Diary 25 May - 135 Miles, expensive waves, and places revisited.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

Wendy’s Diary 16 May 2013 – Hiding from the waves.

Last time I wrote we were hiding in Foz waiting for the swell to die down enough to continue our sail eastwards. We enjoyed our stay there and explored up the river as far as the dinghy could take us (where a tree had fallen and completely obstructed the river). We also found a nice bar in town which had both excellent WIFI and views overlooking the beach. We moved anchorage a couple of times, but found the one up the river just before the railway bridge (too low to go under) was the most comfortable place to be.

Surf at Foz, stopping us from sailing but looks nice.

We finally made our escape late afternoon on Sunday (12 May) having carefully checked the entrance to the river for breaking waves before heading out. At the time we were anchored just inside the sandbar and I found that a quick shin up the mast gave me the perfect place for checking the said surf. The predicted 12 knots of North Westerly wind prompted us to raise the mainsail for the first time this year, in the hope of sailing without engines. However as soon as we were out to sea, the wind dropped to about 3 knots and the swell picked up to at least 2 meters. So an uncomfortable 10 mile passage along the coast to the river Eo, nice short name for a river! We did get to see some fairly spectacular breaking waves en route, crashing into the cliffs, and thankfully the entrance to Ribadeo is an all weather one, so we had no problem getting into the estuary.

Castropol in the late evening sun

With the swell being from the North West we thought that tucked just south of the marina on the west side of the river would be comfortable enough, but after a couple of hours and nearing darkness decided we would be in for a sleepless night if we stayed there. We up anchored and quickly headed across to Figuras, passed a huge ship in for refit in the shipyard there and ran out of water with the outgoing tide just passed the town. Behind the big sandbar we were protected from the swell at least until the tide came back in, so packed ourselves off to be expecting to be woken around 2am with the swell slapping on the underbelly gain. Thankfully it was nearer 4 than 2 so we had at least had some decent sleep, and after waiting until sunrise we then headed up stream passed Castropol on the left bank to a more sheltered anchorage further up the river.

The view from Castropol out to sea. 

Last year when we came into this river we only went ashore at Ribadeo, where after buying diesel for the boat were welcomed to stay on a pontoon during the day to do shopping, showering etc so long as we didn’t stay too long. They even had wifi on the pontoons, but the swell was coming straight in from the sea and it was too uncomfortable to make any use of it. This time, being anchored on the East side of the river we decided to give Castropol a visit. The pilot book describes it as the town where all the wealthy merchants had their houses built. It is perched on a headland within the estuary, the geography giving it river and sea views from 3 sides of the town. The former merchants houses were in general well maintained and there was little evidence of the crisis (recession) which is so blatantly obvious is most Spanish towns. We treated ourselves to a beer in one of the riverside bars (whilst collected the latest weather report) before dinghying back upstream to the boat.

Early morning at our anchorage half way up the river. 

The weather report was not looking good with the swell continuing to build, which was in evidence in our anchorage. So we decided to head even further upstream to Vegedeo, where there is a bend in the river and we were hopeful of a more peaceful anchorage. There is a large old quayside here which has silted badly over the last few years, but the channel in the middle of the river was wide and deep enough to stay afloat. At high water we took the dinghy up into the town (google earth is fab for planning such trips) and sussed out the local amenities. After hitting the bottom a couple of times we thought it best to head back down stream to the boat. The following morning we took the cycles ashore and went back into town (about a mile away) in search of groceries and wifi to check the weather reports again.

Our anchorage at Vegadeo

Lilies growing on the riverbank

The following day as high water approached we took the dinghy up the main branch of the Eo. The river is adorned with lilies, which I have never seen grow in such abundance (I admit to pinching one which is now adorning the saloon table). I was given one of this variety as a moving in present to my first house in Saltash and managed to get about 3 flowers out of it in the 6 or so years that I lived there. As you can see from the photo, in one patch there must have been around 50 flowers! There was also a very cute “harbour”. This had been built on a bend in the river and provided enough shelter for about 3 small boats. It was adjacent to a picnic area in a nature reserve, which had pictures and descriptions of the local wildlife including birds, fish and reptiles. We had seen a furry creature on the river bank on the way up, but neither of us had been able to identify it. Something around the size of an otter, but it was dry and fluffy with a longish tail, and on our approach it ran and hid amongst the weeds on the bank, whereas we would expect an otter would dive under the water for safety. 

The tiny "harbour" on a bend in the river Eo

The swell was reportedly getting larger, predicted to hit 4 meters before subsiding again several days later, so we accepted our fate in that our current anchorage would be home for a few more days yet. We have now been here for 4 days, it now being Thursday and this afternoon are off to check the weather reports again in the hope that the swell is subsiding and we can sail at the weekend. Frustratingly both the swell and wind direction are ideal for sailing East, but neither of us fancy the rough ride it would entail in the current conditions.  

We have had the opportunity of meeting a Paralympics silver medallist who is a member of the local rowing club adjacent to our anchorage. Every evening a selection of 1 and 2 man rowing boats paddle up and down the river past us, training for the next major event. The team has won a multitude of world class medals in both able bodied and disabled events, with photos and extracts from the press blazoned on the rowing club walls.  We have also caught up on the laundry and John as ever has been tinkering with his latest projects, not to mention watching a few episodes of Morse and House – we have the entire collection of both on board in case of such emergencies as this. 

Wendy’s Diary 9 May 2013 – The start of the journey eastwards

Before I start a reminder that my diary is my perspective of our travels, it includes very little techy talk (John does enough of that for the both of us J) but aims to tell the story of our travels onboard Freya Frey, our 26ft Heavenly Twins catamaran.

Last time I wrote up my diary I was in France with 22 staples holding together my scar from having the plate removed from my ankle. The nurse removed them with only one not wanting to part company with my leg and took more time to remove than all the others put together. With the exception of that one it was not as painful as I had thought. I was pleasantly surprised at how soon I was able to walk again, but decided that a couple of weeks in Cyprus staying with my brother and family would be the perfect recuperation before heading back to the boat. I was right, it was lovely and my scar healed nicely whilst I was there.

Towards the end of April I returned to Spain, where John had finished most of the jobs on the list that were marked as “to do before we sail”. He had of course saved the scrubbing the bottom task for my return and we ran Freya Frey up the beach in Ortigueira (with permission) and pressure washed down her hulls. The benefit of the type of antifouling we have (something called Coppercoat) means a pressure was all that was needed and it doesn’t cause pollution like normal antifouling. Neither does it need replying annually, although after 9 years John thinks it has finally reached the stage of needing replacing so we have already put that on the list of tasks for next winter.

The beach BBQ

John had made many friends during his winter in the town and they were all keen to meet up and share some time with us before we left. This meant that our social life for the last week we were there was pretty hectic, with plenty of visitors to the boat, a final saunter up the ria with some of them, with excellent pasties for lunch provided by local Cornishman Tony. Another day Tony and his wife organised a BBQ for us by the beach at Espasante, where about 10 of us gathered and John entertained all with a borrowed guitar. 

The pipers came out on our last day in town

On Sunday 5^th we finally said goodbye to the town and headed down the Ria to an anchorage just inside the entrance so we could get an early start the next morning on the falling tide. Unfortunately the boat swung during the night and we went aground just before we woke up so had to wait for the tide to come back in before leaving. We aborted our first attempt as the waves were too big on the sand bar (John got rather wet when one crashed in over the side) so we went back to the shelter of the anchorage before trying again when the tide was higher. A couple of hours later we had no problem leaving the ria, although this did demonstrate why the port of Carino just up the coast made a much more convenient fishing port being accessible at all states of tide.

Our anchorage at Barquiero

Our route around to the next Ria to the East (we are heading back to Audierne for La Route De L’Amitie) took us in the following directions: North West, West, South West finally South.  For almost the entire journey the wind was on the nose and we were not able to pull the sails out, very frustrating that it followed us round the headland as it did. It was only a short cruise of 4.5 hours, so not too much fuel used and we arrived safely in Barquiero. We had visited this port by car and it reminded us of a little Cornish Fishing Village, nestled in on a hillside. We were surprised to see another yacht anchored in the river and shared a couple of cups of coffee with the French owner. His ability to flip between English, French and Spanish was incredible and he would use all 3 in the same sentence. We decided a new word was called for that expands on the existing Espanglish and Franglais.

The view of Barquiero from our walk.

Some graffitti that made me smile on a shaped stone

We set off for a dinghy trip under the bridges to visit up stream as recommended by the pilot book, but the Ria was quite wide and the wind had picked up so we gave in and went ashore for a walk and a beer instead (not a bad alternative J). Early on Wednesday morning we headed out of Barquiero on the tide to our next destination of Foz. This time we had a gentle swell heading in the same direction as ourselves and a south westerly wind so we hauled the sail and enjoyed the journey. There was only a couple of hours when the wind was strong enough to sail only, with the rest of the time a bit of motor was needed to keep the speed reasonable.

Foz was somewhere we had considered visiting on our way westward last summer but could not do so as the swell was too great on the sand bar. It was a little on the shallow side half way up the tide as we entered, but we had been overtaken by a fishing boat at the entrance so we had a guide up the river to the old fishing quay. Now in summer spending mode marinas are for emergency use only, so we bypassed the tiny visitors’ basin in search of an anchorage. John dropped me and my bike on the quayside and I cycled off for fresh provisions whilst he guarded the boat from his deckchair on the foredeck. Later in the afternoon the wind picked up again and we took advantage of the high tide to head a little up the river and hide under the shelter of a hillside out of the wind, in a very peaceful anchorage. It is in this anchorage that I am writing my diary and hopefully it won’t be too long before we get to a wifi bar to put it on the blog. 

Wendy’s Diary March 2013

Those of you who follow the blog but are not in touch with us in any other way will have noticed a lack of diary keeping on my part. The last entry I made was 2^nd September – more than 6 months ago.  So here for a potted history of the winter:

View from the marina

Night time in the marina

We both failed to find any work locally so I decided to look further afield and realised that I could earn more in a week than I could in a month in Spain – (even if I could find anything there) so explored the option of returning to the UK. In the meantime we needed to find somewhere to moor up for the winter and decided Ortiguiera – where we had spent several weeks in the summer and John had enjoyed the World Celtic Music Festival whilst I had sojourned to the UK for my mother’s 80^th birthday.  A pontoon birth including water and unlimited electricity is charged at 100 euros per month, regardless of boat size. With shops within easy reach of the marina and a lovely setting amongst mountains made it a no brainer of a place to rest of for the winter months.

There were several job vacancies in London that I felt suitably qualified for so caught a plane to stay with John’s cousin (to whom I am very grateful) in Lewisham in the hope of finding something. I had several interviews with temping agencies in my first few days, two real interviews with 2 different London universities within a week or so and started work with one of them two weeks to the day after I arrived in the UK.

Sun rise at the entrance to the Ria

This set the course for the winter and alternately I returned to the boat for a weekend and John came over to the UK to stay with me. I spent my weekends without John catching up with friends and family around the UK and we spent Christmas with my sister’s family in Birmingham. My son Jason decided to return from foreign lands during this time and joined me in London and immediately got himself a job just off of Oxford Street in an Oriental restaurant. He had left Cornwall for the Far East and Australia the day after we set sail in June 2011 during which time I hadn’t seen him in the flesh, so it was lovely to spend some time with him. It is amazing however how little one can see of each other whilst living in the same house when one is working office hours and the other restaurant hours! By the end of January he was ready and had sufficient money in the bank to return to his favoured island of Phi Phi in Thailand and is now happily running a beach bar there.

A reunion with my children in Cornwall in November

The holes left by the screws
near the top and the 22 staples

At the end of January I finished my job and headed back to Spain and the boat. I didn’t stay there long before moving on to France where I am now writing this, to stay with my friends Annie and Philippe who had taken me in when I broke my ankle 18 months earlier. A conveniently timed stay has included a return visit to the surgeon who last week removed the plate and screws from my ankle, thus hopefully ending the story of that injury.    I am sitting with my feet elevated, 22 staples holding the scar together (very neatly I must say) waiting for next week when the nurse will kindly remove them (ouch x 22) and I can start walking again (I am back on crutches in the meantime).  John is back in Ortiguiera preparing the boat ready to set sail as soon as I am fit enough to do so and the wind and swell are kind enough to go in the desired direction. Watch this space for where we go next.

So that is the short history of our winter, not spent in a way we had imagined before we set sail nearly 2 years ago, but as we have learned, there is no such thing as normal when living this lifestyle!

John's toys - measuring bridges!

One of the problems we have encountered in Spain is that the charts do not show drying heights, nor do they show (generally, at least) clearance heights under bridges.  As devoted creek crawlers this is a nuisance, especially as it is very difficult indeed even to get an estimation of the height of a bridge.

However, when I was in Lidl yesterday, I spotted this ultrasonic measuring device (with a built-in laser pointer) for £9.99.  Now, we can go under a bridge in the inflatable and measure the exact clearance, and so have a clear go/no-go call on whether we should attempt to pass under it in the main boat.

The idea is to survey first in the dinghy and then (allowing a safety margin, of course!) to make a call on whether we go up to anchor.  I'll report later on how we get on with it!
  

Wendy’s Diary 2nd Sept 2012 – Is it really September already???



Our anchorage at Redes

We are still in the same set of Rias that I wrote my last diary entry in, the day after I wrote that entry our starboard engine decided do cough and splutter to a stop and the initial diagnosis was a blown head gasket, so John ordered one from the UK and we waited for its arrival. Not a bad place to wait, with the other engine happily ticking away we have been able to move around to the various pretty spots within the Ria, but not wanted to go further afield.



We had met a “local” called Rocco – one of the many people who have summer holiday homes in Ares and asked his advice on the best place to eat for John’s birthday on 17th August. We had assumed he would recommend somewhere in Ares, but no, he suggested going back to Murgados to one of the sea food restaurants there.  He had a favourite which his family had been going to since he was a boy and it was still run by the same family.  So, after a stamina building breakfast of coffee and croissants on the foredeck we set off on our bikes to our previous anchorage just the other side of the headland. Rocco’s comment of, "Oh, if you come from Cornwall the hills will be no problem!" was one we reminded ourselves of en route. Our recommended route took us out the back of Ares to a 15^th century church, all locked up but interesting to see how weather beaten it looked but still standing solid at the top of the hill. Well, it was the top of the first hill, but not the big hill that followed which had us pushing the bikes for quite a while before finally reaching the summit. The ride back down is always fun, after first making sure that hats and baggage are firmly attached it is lovely to feel the wind whizzing past. A further small(ish) hill up into town and back down to the sea front finally led to our destination.



Octopus for John's birthday lunch

The Casa De Mar was a very quaint old building, interestingly whilst it was on the waterfront the restaurant was at the back with no views, but had a cosy feel to it.  Anyone who knows me well knows I am not a big seafood eater, I am trying to expand but there are limits, which included the Octopus that John had for a starter. I just can’t bear the thought of munching the tentacles with the suckers clearly visible, but can cope with supping a glass of wine whilst John enjoyed this local delicacy. We both had merluza for mains, which was cooked in a very very light batter, not like English Fish and chips, but was very tasty. White fish I can cope with so long as the bones are mainly removed, and it doesn't have its head still attached!

After a gentle stroll around the seafront, we unlocked the bikes and headed back on a different route to Ares, this time finding the shorter, less hilly version which was just as well bearing in mind we had full tummies. We rewarded ourselves with an ice-cream back on the seafront at Ares before returning to the boat.



The shanty town on the outskirts of Coruna



Towards the end of August we sailed around into the next part of the Ria – you don’t actually go out into the Atlantic proper as it is still within the headland of Ferrol. Whilst the pilot books don’t mention it, we had google-earthed the river behind Coruna and thought we could probably anchor in there. We found a delightful little bay behind the main beach, totally protected from wind and swell and so spent a couple of days there. At low tide there are old walls from some sort of marine processing that come into view, and we did sit on the bottom, although not completely high and dry. The other side of the bay had a small shanty town, people living in very old dilapidated caravans with sheets of wood covering gaps. An enormous mound of scrap metal was in the centre of the settlement – perhaps suggesting their means of survival. Incongruously there were always a selection of relatively new cars and vans parked outside. It was weird to see the two sides of the bay within the river having such contrasting standards of living/wealth.

We had anchored in Coruna deliberately as we were waiting for our first resident visitor since leaving the UK in June last year. Ann flew into the airport about 2 miles away from the boat and John cycled to meet her with my bike folded up the rack on the back of his. He had the uphill trudge and had assured Ann that it would be an easy ride to the boat and her suitcase would sit behind him in place of my bike. She arrived at the boat having thoroughly enjoyed the ride, an unconventional airport taxi service!

Ann with Sangria in one hand and book in the other "having a nice time"

We spent a week mooching around the ria, back to Ares and Sada with the weather not at its best although we did manage a sunbathing day at Sada and Ann chilled out in the hammock for a few hours getting a bit of suntan. The phrase, “Did I tell you I’m having a nice time?” became a source of amusement due to its frequency.

A firefighting plane filling up with water alongside our anchorage

The weather forecast of strong south westerlies meant we headed back to Coruna two nights before her flight, we left Ares at around 9pm and so had a sailed with the sun going down and the moon rising, which cast a spectacular moon-path across the water once we left the lights of the town.  We wanted to spend a day being tourists in Coruna and so decided to put the boat in a marina for the first time since Hondarrabia back in April. We chose the old town harbour believing it would be more sheltered and booked in quite early on the Monday morning. Unfortunately it used the “multihulls pay 50% extra” rather than basing the costs on length times beam, so we handed over 27 Euros for a night's berth.

We headed into town, strolling round the old square with it all its restaurants, which reminded Ann and me of Venice. We wandered on through shopping streets and gardens before coming out at the seafront near the newer marina. Ann had offered to treat us to lunch and as we walked by the club nautico someone was updating the menu outside. It looked a good selection for the princely sum of 9 Euros per head for a 3 course meal, wine and coffee. The "menu del dia" in Spain, the workers lunch, is often under 10 Euros per head. We sat in the 3^rd floor bar with fantastic views of the bay and enjoyed a tasty lunch.   



Hercules





In the afternoon we strolled up to a park with a selection of standing stones with a resemblance to stonehenge, and a second set of granite stones that are common in Galicia. The path then took us to the oldest working lighthouse in the world (according to the pilot book) the Tower of Hercules, a magnificent building that dates back to Roman times.  







Back to the boat for Ann’s last night with us that turned out to be a rather sleepless one! The fishing boats passed by so frequently and at a speed enough to lurch the boat that we hardly slept a wink – I certainly wouldn’t recommend this as a comfortable berth. In the morning Ann took the more traditional taxi back to the airport and we made the most of being plugged into shore-power by baking a cake (electric oven), and each using a full tank of hot water to shower – what luxury. The wifi at the marina was very poor, hosted by a provider that required a logon, which logged us off within minutes and sometimes seconds of logging in. This was another perceived benefit of spending a night in a marina which didn’t come to fruition.



We left the marina late afternoon and headed back to Ares in the hope that the long awaited for tool to replace the head-gasket might have arrived at the local post office. I contacted Amazon, got a tracking code and discovered that it still hadn’t arrived in Spain 2 weeks after ordering it, whereas the head gasket had taken only about 3 days to arrive. I cancelled the order as a lost cause. However in the meantime someone suggested to John to check that it wasn’t water in the oil rather than the head gasket.  That proved to a good piece of advice and John has spent about 5 days in the engine room finding one problem after another. Two things here – the size and location of our engine rooms makes them more suitable for “The Borrowers”, the other being the string of faults he has found and mended which are all beyond my comprehension, is a very long string!

Finally last night around 9pm as I was sitting in the saloon comfortably reading, John announced that he had got permission to go on the slipway free of charge for one tide, so we needed to move NOW. This meant he could do the next in the long line of jobs that kept self creating, unblocking a seaccock. Ok, so I got up, did the deck hand work and soon we were tied up on the slipway. Back to the saloon, tucked up with my book an hour later, and with the typical English politeness John asked “Would I like to scrape some barnacles off the hull??” Now that was a good question – would I like to, er No! Would I, I guess whilst we have the opportunity of being on a hard slipway then I suppose I should make the effort. 11pm, in the dark, with the aid of a torch I was half sitting half lying under the boat scraping off the damn things! Boat bottom scraped, my bottom wet, my hair wet, but thankfully not cold – time for a cuppa.

“Oh, by the way, we will have to move the boat when the tide comes in at 3am.” Gee thanks for that one. So somewhere between the two we snatched a few hours sleep, and hauled the boat along the wall at the appointed hour,  had another cuppa and went back to bed until daylight, when we had to move the boat again. This time, with the engines on, and woohoo, two engines!!

We left the engine running for long enough for John to test whatever it was that needed testing, and he is now saying with fingers crossed that she seems to be running ok. And hopefully the head gasket doesn’t need replacing after all. Leaving the engine running means a tank of hot water, so we took advantage and had a hot shower, had some breakfast and then went back to bed. Woke up at 12.30 and it is now 5pm and I am thinking about lunch. My body has no idea what planet it is on, but my brain hopefully has been in gear enough for this to be intelligible!!