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.
