A glass of vinegar Madam?

We took the bikes for a great bike ride round the only flat (ish) area we could find near San Vincent de la Barquera visiting a very old town and finding some good tapas for lunch. We shared our anchorage with a couple of Spanish boats; when we got back from our ride we settled down to a fine dinner but as we looked out across the bay there was  something that looked very not right with one of our neighbours. His boat was significantly down by the bows, almost as if he had sprung a leak and I would have shot over there straight away except that the skipper was sat nonchalantly in the cockpit sipping a glass of wine – surely he would have noticed the angle of his boat? All must be ok. As time went by I was sure that the bow was getting lower and lower in the water. I waited until I could bare it no longer, I couldn’t just sit there and watch his boat sink from under him even if he did know what was happening! 

I jumped into the dinghy and set off to see if all was well. There was quite a drinks party going on in the cockpit and although the skipper spoke no english one of his party did and they assured me all was well despite the odd angle. However, just as I got back to the boat the skipper shot up to the bow and was rushing around the bow with some urgency, they clearly hadn’t understood me properly and it must have suddenly dawned on the skipper what I was on about! The next thing we saw was the bow popping up like a cork. The mooring line must have got caught over the bow at its full length and it had pulled the bow down into the water as the tide had risen – he was very thankful to us for letting him know although how he missed a 20 degree slope on his gin and tonic I do not know!

Fresh milk seems to be something of a problem to get in Spain, I guess the locals all dring UHT milk which manages better in the heat because that is all you can find in the supermarkets. However, for milk lovers help is at hand! Fresh milk is dispensed in a macine filled every day from the local farm cooperative – bring a bottle, put a euro in the slot and away you go – very quaint!

On Sunday we took a bus from Llames to Gijon where there was a cider festival. Cider is a big thing all along this coast so we felt obliged to partake in one of these mass tasting sessions - buy a glass for 4 euros and taste as many of the dozen or so breweries that we passing out their wares.

They have an interesting cider tradition here; the cider must be poured from a great height , the pourer looking steadfastly forward whilst doing his best to get at least some of the cider in the glass, it is said to improve the taste considerably. We decided that it was a self regulating method of avoiding dunkeness as the drunker one got the more would miss the glass and end up on the floor rather than down the drinkers throat! Waddy fought his way forward through the crowd to our first tasting point whilst I stood back with Woody. Waddy returned with a full inch of cider to taste in each glass – there was to be no getting drunk here!

 It was unbelievably awful!!! If the pouring made it taste better goodness knows what it tastes like without – it was rather worse than poor quality vinegar! Seeing the delighted drinking going on around us we quickly decided that we must have got a duff batch and we should try another brewery which we duly did – twice more- the best we could say for any of them was that we hoped it served as a good disinfectant in the drains!

Fish is plentiful on this coast and is there is a 

thriving fishing industry; everywhere you look there are small pleasure fishing boats and people fishing from the piers. However, we are finding them illusive! We have 3 lines, 24 hooks, 14 weights and a fishing expert in Waddy and yet they still managed to evade us. On a very pleasant 4 hour slopalongplacidly type of sail at perfect fishing speed trailing pretty well all our gear we got – absolutely nothing once again. As we arrives at Llames harbour there where so many locals out fishing that we decided to stop the boat and try stationary fishing, surely we would get something here. 10 minutes in, Waddy got a bight – a massive bite!! It fought hard for several minutes but it wouldn’t get any closer. Slowly it dawned – he had caught the bottom and was in danger of loosing the tackle. Not to be out done Waddy jumped in the dinghy to fight his rock – and won after quite a fight loosing only the end weight.

This was getting silly, indeed, the following day on another attempt we literally had the fish swimming in circles around us without a bite – I swear they were laughing at us! Running away from the laughing fish (we think they were mullet, we didn’t want them anyway, lousy eating) we found a lovely anchorage in the Ria de Vilaviciosa where we dried out on the sand for the night.

We did have the last laugh at least with the fish; we finally got two bites, one of which we landed that was the biggest mackerel I have ever seen by a huge margin, it fed both of us for two meals – I normally have two on my plate!

.

From Villaviciosa we set off on the last leg to Gijon where I was leaving the boat for the winter. We hauled the boat out on wednesday and spent a couple of days putting her to bed for the winter.

From Gijon I had a long haul home because of the ridiculous rules about bringing pets into the UK; despite chips and pet passports it is still very difficult. It took a flight to Paris (Woody simply came on as hand luggage as in all European countries except the UK), 3 hours to Calais, 3 hours crossing the channel via the tunnel in a taxi hired from Folkstone (the only way to get a pet across the channel as a foot passanger) then train Folkstone to London, across London and up to Stockport – all for the sake of the dog!! Still, as you will have gathered from the blog he has been well worth it; at 7 months old he must be in the running for the worlds best traveled canine!

That bring our adventure to an end for this year. Thank you for reading, I hope you have enjoyed sharing our adventures with us. The blog has a ‘hit’ counter, its gets an enormous number somehow. I have often wondered who from; this year I got a comment from a lady in the Ukraine out of the blue – the power of the internet!

Moondance out.

A bit of a hairy ride!

Santander is a lovely city, different from the moment we sailed into to the grand entrance to the river despite the greyness of the day. 

We anchored close to a little beach and headed into town for supplies and an explore.

 One of the grand buildings is the head office of the Santander bank, purely phycological of course but it certainly gave the impression of a good solid place to have your money with!

After exploring the city on Saturday we headed off to the other side of the bay behind a long sandy peninsular to get away from the crowds. Well, that was the idea. 

On Sunday we left the boat for a delightful bike ride through the rolling countryside behind Santander. When we got back to the boat that we had left all on its own in the morning, half of Santander seemed to have joined us -

I like Spain. There is a lovely atmosphere here; Mediterranean, relaxed and slightly rustic - and nice and warm of course!


A little bit of the charm is the bells that seems to ring at all times of the day.






Like most of the building, the churches lack the elegance of the French churches but have a rustic charm of their own.

Whilst anchoring Woody disappeared for a while. At 45' long it isn't that big a place to loose a dog, but then that  depends on the quality of his hiding place; we found him in the anchor locker unable to get out!

Having a Woody and a Waddy aboard has been the source of some confusion!




We left Santander on Monday afternoon with a spanking following wind and had a rather longer sail than planned. There was a 3-4 meter swell out at sea, exciting when it got under the stern and the boat surged ahead riding the wave but we soon discovered a problem with it. We were headed for a river for the night. Like most rivers it had a sand bar at the entrance and the pilot book warned not to try and enter at low tide if a swell was running because the swell could break on the shallow bar. It was just about high tide when we arrive so I figured we would get in despite the swell; I was wrong. I could see the waves breaking on the shore as we approached but there is usually a gap in the breakers at the river entrance; not here. As we got within a few hundred yards the swell was getting bigger as it developed into rolling waves as the water depth reduced. As we rode the crest of one of the waves towards the entrance I rapidly decided that surfing into a river with an entrance no wider than 50 metres was a bad plan! I threw the helm over, gunned the engine and high tailed it back out to sea.

It was now getting late. It was 6 o'clock, the next harbour was 16 miles away and sunset was at 9.30. Whats more the pilot book warned of another sandbar and the tide would be running out when we arrived which would increase the size of any waves on the bar; I was beginning to think we might end up with a night at sea!

We had a strong wind behind us and made a good 7 knots which put us at the harbour mouth at 9pm. Happily the entrance was set at 45 degrees to the swell thus much of its force was killed by the entrance walls. I approached with considerable caution with my eyes glued to the depth gauge, I could still see waves breaking in the entrance but they did not look big. As long as the depth remained greater than about 4m I would continue in. The standing waves caused by the tide running out at about 2 knots made for a bit of a hairy ride but the depth held and with considerable relief we entered the most beautiful harbour I have seen yet. I took this photo as the sun set.

We had found a real gem in San Vincente de La Barquera (even the names are great!)

Swimming dogs and drinking chocolate!

For the next few days from Hendeye on the Spanish - French border the winds were very light so it was the iron sail that got us from place to place (God bless the internal combustion engine!)
We arrived in San Sebastian at fiesta time, lots going on but marginally more crowded than Oxford street on Christmas eve!

We were joined by Tim and his girlfriend Lucy for a few days which was lovely.

A little tapas fortified Tim to test just how quickly he could loose the potential energy gained by climbing some of the impressive local limestone and coming up with a new sport of dinghy surfing!

Woody has now taken to doing his Titanic bit in the dinghy as well as the bow of the boat, the only trouble is that he is rather enthusiastic when coming ashore or back to the boat and has a tendency to leap ashore or aboard from his position in the dinghy bow.





Melanie generally hangs on to him to prevent an unplanned swim but coming back to the boat alone with me after the morning bread run he got a little over enthusiastic to get back on the boat and leapt when we were a good 2' away...... when he landed the boat was not where he hoped it would be! I hoicked something of a drowned rat out of the water and showered him down but he was not allowed back down below until he had dried off!





On Sunday Tim and Lucy flew home and Melanie also left to go back for her next cough clinic and visit to Mum.

My friend Mark came out to join me for a few days as we continued west to our next port, Castro Urdiales where we moored alongside the harbour wall with these rather splendid old buildings as a backdrop.








We are now surrounded by some pretty impressive mountains; Mark and I donned walking boots to climb the local 2000' peak. The coastline is also very impressive with some mighty slabs of rock dropping vertically into the sea.










Like monks all over the world the monks here have found some pretty wacky places to get closer to their God!

















Yesterday Mark left for home and I was joined by Waddy, my first mate and chief chef from the Irish trip.

Unfortunately for him the trip suddenly turned a bit too Irish as the rain came in and the wind sprung up from nowhere. 

We had a hard beat in 20 knots of wind to Santander .

It has been so long now since I beat into a heavy wind that i forgot to close the sink inlets which, when the boat is heavily leaning dip below the outside water level and the sea comes back up through the drain


 - thats the drinking chocolate and olive pot swilling around at the back of a rather tipped kitchen worktop!

Fortunately there is a little window just above  - just in the right place to bail out through!

Arriving at the Basque country

After Arachon we had a brief stop at Cap Breton but it would have given Blacpool a run for its money so we moved on pretty quickly. Heading for the Basque country we passed Biarritz on our left. What once might have been a very classy seaside resort for the French elite is now a rather horrid concrete jungle. As the whole of this coast is known for its surf we did not anchor off and go ashore (there is no harbour); our pink dinghy does not surf well!








It was just 20 miles to the point where the coast turned west and the Basque mountains loomed large.

Just before pulling into the river that splits France and Spain we passed this rather super chateaux built in 1880 by a frenchman who spoke 17 languages and had done a lot of travelling; the whole of the inside was decorated in weird and wonderful designs from all over the world!

We moored up on the French side of the river (first mate and little helper at the helm) - this would be the last opportunity for the rather super pastries that we have enjoyed and would miss! 

The Basque region is fiercly independant  (remember the Eta bombings of the '70's?) and the people (and local language) are certainly different from other regions of France and Spain. The Basques are said to be descendants of a Celtic tribe (the one that didn't end up in Scotland, Ireland or Brittany!) drive over the Pyrenees by the Romans in the 1st century BC.
The pilot book told us of an interesting conundrum about mooring here. It is courteous and common practice to fly the flag of the nation you are visiting in the rigging; some also fly regional flags which should be flown immediately below the national flag. So the choices if moored in the Rio Bidasoa on either side are:-
1. Fly the French flag with the Basque flag below - and upset the Basques and the Spanish
2. Fly the Spanish flag with the Basques flag below and upset the Basques and the French
3. Fly the Basques flag and upset the both the French and the Spanish
4. Fly no flag at all and upset everybody - !!!
We plumped for the Spanish flag as we intended to moor on that side but ended up on the French side with our Spanish courtesy flag up so I think we added a 5th line!

We noticed early on in France that the French authorities do like their rules- they are even worse than the Germans! I particularly liked this sign at the trail head of the coastal foot path in Hendeye, the French side of the river.

No dogs (on or off the lead)
No bikes
No cars (on the coastal footpath) or motorbikes 
No matches
No tenting or sleeping outside
No wandering off the footpath

- the game is to spot what you are allowed to do.

However, what I love about the French is that they just ignore them all!

The other thing we have noticed here is how slim they all are, very few over weight people - cheese and red wine must be the answer (not forgetting the afternoon snooze)!

Not having had any mountains for a few weeks we hired a car and headed inland to do some walking in the Pyrenees Mountains. They have their very own Snowdon here, 3000' high, a few miles in from the coast, it even has a Victorian rack and pinion railway! The other similarity it had was the people, thousands of them despite picking a back route up! Oh well, it as a lovely day in the mountains.

 We have had our first sortie into Spain. Cycling over the river the change was extraordinary with everything looking distinctly poorer. However it did also look very Spanish! I am looking forward to exploring the rest of this coast.

Things that go bump in the night

Our next stop after St Nazaire was the pretty island Ile d’Yeu. We have struggled with nice anchorages off the west coast of France because there are so few natural inlets and coves so we have been forced back on marinas. We found just the place to anchor on the south coast of the island but even here the swell snuck round the corner somehow so I lifted the keel and tucked right in close inside a load of moorings for what we hoped would be a good nights sleep far from the madding crowd. We did have a lovely barbecue on the beach where Woody discovered a taste for Stella and pistachio nuts! 

Our quiet night however was not to be. At 3 o’clock we were woken by a gentle ‘thump, thump’ at the back of the boat – I knew that sound , it was the rudders nibbling the rocks! I shot out of bed and sure enough the tide was very low, the wind had changed direction and left us a little too close to the rocky shoreline. Wearing nothing but a quickly donned jumper and a smile I jumped into the dinghy tied conveniently to the back of the boat with the outboard engine on and pulled the boat away from the rocks. There are several things that need doing before the boat can move so Melanie whizzed round getting things ready as I held the boat away from the rocks with the dinghy; ‘nearly there’ she shouted - just as the dinghy engine cut – I was out of petrol. Now we would have to move fast or we would be right back where we started and the tide was still falling. I leapt back on board as Melanie went for the anchor, up it came and we motored out beyond the mooring to resume our nights sleep. Alls well that ends well!

After a good walk on the island we raised the anchor and headed for Ile de Re and La Rochelle. France has suddenly become very Mediterranean here; the water has warmed up to pleasant swimming temperature, we are surrounded by pine trees and crickets and the houses are all white with clay half round tiles. Unfortunately it has also become very, very busy – the whole of France seems to be on holiday here! Marinas are full, beaches are packed and bike paths are like rush hour. We did manage to find a couple of places at this little sea food bar on our bike ride of the island. 

Langustine for lunch and I bought a small bag of oysters for tea!

Wanting to try and escape at least the crowds of yachts by going to a less holiday cruise friendly place we decided to make a big hop to Arachon, 100 miles south of La Rochelle; an easy overnight passage. The Gironde just south of La Rochelle and the gateway to Bordeaux is the last big river on the French Atlantic coast. From there the coast is long and straight with only a couple of harbours before Spain, Arachon being the first so we are now very much on our way to Spain. With a couple of days in each of the two harbours on the way we should be there in about a week. I am excited; it will be different and rather more adventurous than France, it is not a common cruising ground.

Wind has been hard to come by since things turned warm . We waited until about midday before leaving in the hopes of getting a sea breeze but it was a long time coming – look at the surface of the water -I have seldom set out on passage with quite so little wind! 

Although late starting the breeze did pick up in the early afternoon giving us a pleasant sail for the first 40 miles doing 4 knots over a calm sea. Sundowners under the colourful spinnaker on the fore deck as we slipped slowly south – it can be a tough life at sea!

As the sun dropped we were joined by a school of dolphins that played in the bow wave for a while, always a magical moment. The wind dropped with the sun and we had to motor the rest of the way.

Arachons’ claim to fame is Europes largest sand dune at just over 300’ high. We walked easily up the gentle slop of the seaward side but the lee side is steep and apparently skied down! 

Later in the day the hordes descended and it looked just like a sand hill covered in ants!

At last we did find the perfect anchorage behind a long sand island, pretty and, once all the day trippers had left, quiet. A beautiful scene as the day drew to an end, the sand dunes on one sides and the sunset on the other. 

However, you guessed it, even here our perfect anchorage was not to be. We were woken at 6 o’clock by cockle boats literally going in circles round us! We had anchored in a little inlet out of the current and I guess the cockles had picked the inlet for the same reason and the fishermen knew it!

After breakfast we headed ashore with our bikes and left the dinghy tied to the railing of some steps. You would have thought that as it was the top of the beach it was a reasonable assumption that it would also be the top of the tide. A reasonable assumption but wrong as we found out upon our return to find the dinghy rope under several feet of water! Oh well, I was looking forward to a dip anyway and it had to happen sometime – better here than in Scotland! The high tide also meant that getting our gear back into the dinghy was quite a drama with a 2’ swell coming onto what little beach there was but we got everything back to the boat over 3 trips by coming alongside a slipway between rollers, throwing a bike on board and making a run for it!

From Arachon we are bound for Spain with a quick stop at Cap Breton, the only harbour on the final 100 mile stretch to Spain. Late afternoon the mountains of the Spanish Basque country loomed up out of the haze as we pulled into Cap Breton for the night.

A most unpleasant swim

The day before Melanie arrived back Woody and I went for a bike ride to explore an area of salt ‘farm’.

In the middle ages this area to the west of Vannes became wealthy from its salt resources. There is a low lying area behind a peninsular well protected from the sea that the tide just covered at very high tides. Myriad little dykes were made to trap the salt in rectangular ‘farms’ then subdivided into little pools. The trapped water was then evaporated off in the sun until the salt could no longer stay in suspension and it settled out; the salt was then scrapped from the bottom of the pool, allowed to dry and barrowed off.

You can see the salt settled out in the picture to the left.

Incredibly this is still an industry today, done exactly as it was 500 years ago using the very same pools, beautifully maintained. This is the sort of thing you expect to see in the rice paddies of Asia, not first world France! Still, it must make them a living. Many of the ‘farms’ seem to be private, a few of them selling salt at the side of the road at £1 Euro per kg – hardly gold dust!

I picked up Melanie from the train station in Vannes on Friday and we went to explore the city of Nantes. It was rather disappointing after some of the beautiful old places we have seen so far in Brittany. 

There was however this rather supper castle built in the 1500’s that took over as the base for the final years for the dukes of Brittany.

France has an odd attitude to dogs. The majority of people shy away from Woody and we heard one mother telling her child to keep away from him. We guess because they are worried about rabies. No dogs on beaches, no dogs in castles and certainly no dogs in cathedrals. However, we have a solution! Bought to carry Woody on longer walks as puppies should not walk more than half an hour in the first six months, we have a dog ruck sack that has become our Woody smuggling bag. Once tucked up inside you would never know he was there; it got us into the chateaux no problem and has even had Woody inside Notre Dame in Paris – not a lot of dogs can say they have been in there!

We locked the bikes on the dockside overnight as we were going to use them the next day. In the morning my heart sank as we rounded the corner in the dinghy to see my grey bike hanging over the water by the lock and Melanies bike gone except the front wheel still secured by the lock. I had taken the precaution of removing the saddle posts to make them useless to a joy rider. With no seat, no wheel, useless to anyone I decided Melanies bike could not have been stolen but must have been thrown in the dock just for the hell of it. I was very puzzled that they had managed to get the wheel off Melanies bike; I realised later that they had found the spanner in my bike bag and used that. What lengths they had gone to for this mindless vandelism.

The corner of the dock was a smelly mess of froth and rotting detritus. If I was right then the bike was below that lot. The bikes are too precious not to have on board; I knew from the boat depth gauge the water was only about 12' deep, I was going to have to try and retrieve it. Ear plugs in and mouth firmly closed I slipped into the stinking water after brushing a dead eel out of the way. Taking a deep breath I went down feet first, dreading what the bottom was going to be like. I didn’t get very far, I bottled it. Back on the surface I gave myself a stiff talking to, took another deep breath and duck dived down, down – it went dark – my hands touched the bottom - I groped around – nothing – back up. On the second attempt I touched a metal frame – bingo! I tied my rope around it, shot to the surface in triumph but as soon as I started to pull I knew it was not the bike, it was too heavy – I had found a portable railing. Check the spot – down again – more metal – this time I knew I had it, I felt the spokes. Tie the rope on and back to the surface – I had got it.

Back on the boat I cleaned the bike up and all was well. Not so with my bike sadly, the back wheel was badly buckled, it would need a new wheel. Still, if there’s one thing that can be repaired anywhere in the world it is a bike. I soon had a new wheel from the local bike shop, new rear cogs as well because my cogs didn’t fit the french wheel and we were back on the road.

When Woody had been with us for a month or so we went to dog training classes. One of the things we were told about was to brush a dogs teeth from time to time. Yeh right. Can you imagine – open and say aaahh while I scrub you teeth and gums! You can imagine the result, it wasn’t going to happen. 

We are realising that Woody can be quite smart when he wants to be, usually when food is at stake but he must have taken on board some of this talk. A toothbrush is a good cleaning tool to get in awkward places on the boat and I left mine on the deck one day. Woody spotted it and – yes, away he went -top teeth, bottom teeth, molars – !

After a few days with this tooth brush however he decided it was not for him, he found himself a real mans tooth brush!