Home of the Armada and azur blue waters

On to A Coruna on the north western tip of Spain, the oldest town in the province of Galicia. A Coruna is mentioned in Irish myth about a Celtic hero (they get everywhere!) by the name of Breogan who came to the Iberian coast and built a tower here. There is in fact a tower here, the Tower of Hercules which dates from Roman times which may or may not have started as Breogans tower!
We weren't sure about the welcome here, it was only 400 years ago that a fleet of 130 ships left A Coruna with the Spanish Armada and got soundly whooped by Francis Drake (once he'd finished his game of bowls at Plymouth Hoe), Drake then popped down to A Coruna the following year and gave the town a good spanking for its cheek!


All was well however although they still required insurance documents, ships papers, passports and a form completed saying where you came from, where you were going, the height of the mast, what the boat was made of.......only stopping short of the colour of the skippers underpants! These they duly copied and filed, never to be seen again. Oh well, jobs for the boys I suppose.
The Tower of Hercules was fascinating. The tower, built by the Romans as a lighthouse lit using olive oil stood tall for 1500 years , quite a monument to Roman building but by the 17th century it was falling into serious disrepair. Even in those days they treasured their antiquities and not wanting to loose the tower altogether they built a 'modern' stone skin around the outside and extended the height by 5 meters for a new light. When you go inside you can see the whole of the inside of the original Roman structure; very impressive.




On one evening that we were anchored in the harbour the big boys were out racing. This fellow must have had his wife on board who wanted to take the opportunity to dry the bed sheets! (An expensive days sailing!)











From A Coruna it was south west and the winds are firmly behind us, quite a treat after 5 years of beating into the prevailing winds. The north west coast is know as the 'Costa del Muerte' - the coast of death - hmm! There are two versions of the name; the first is from the ancients who believed that the west coast was the end of the world and offshore was where the dead folk lived so the coast was the meeting of the dead and the living or, more recently, the coast of death was the home to thousand of ship wrecks on this unforgiving Atlantic coast. Either way - take care! It is rugged indeed but the scenery is beautiful.

Round the great Cape Finistere, famed as the most westerly point of Europe, (actually it isn't but it nearly is and makes a good stop for the tourist coaches!) we stopped in at Corcubion, the home of lace making in Galicia. Before the industrial revolution caught up with the cottage industries of Galicia hundreds of women could be found gathered together making all manner of beautiful lace items. With a pattern fixed to a cushion, many lengths of cotton each length wound a spool would be interwoven and run around pins stuck into the pattern. The clacking of the spools as the women fingers flew across the pattern must have made quite a symphony!


We were told by some folk we met in A Coruna that rounding the great cape the temperature would take a significant step for the better. An old wives tale? No, it really did! With jumpers on in the breeze on the north side we were down to tee shirts on the south side with exactly the same wind - extraordinary but rather nice! The sun was out with a vengence for the next few days and we discovered what Melanie had come for, golden beaches and azur blue waters, even warm enough for Melanie to swim!

Engines; who need them?!

The weather has improved as promised AND the second fuel tank has proven to be free from the dreaded diesel bug - all is well with the world!
From Viviero we headed west,  Barquerio, Ortigueria and then onto a gem, Ria de Cedeira - golden beaches, forested peninsulas and beautiful sunshine! Navigation in the rias was however something of a challenge. As they are flooded river valleys the whole estuary looks like it has plenty of water  but much of it is covered by only a few feet of water even at high tide with plenty of depth only in the river channels themselves. We are quite used to this in the UK and simply follow the marked channel keeping the red bouys on your left on the way in. It sounds easy enough, the trouble is that this is not the UK and the Spanish seem to take rather less care of their seafarers! Heading for our anchorage up river and following the marked channel into Ortigueria  I duly rounded one red channel marker heading for the next one along. I had several meters of water under my keel when the depth suddenly dropped, not just a bit - the next thing I knew was we ground to a halt in 2 meters of water - we were on the bottom!  Happily Moondance has a lifting keel so a press on the up button and I was able to back off, scratch my head and consider the situation. There was an unusually small distance between bouys so either the bouy I was headed for marked a significant dog leg or..........

Some hours later we went for a walk along the bank of the river and all became clear. You can see the bouy I turned at in the back of the picture; the bouy I was heading for (in the foreground) was well out of position and a few hours later was high and dry on a mud bank! I wonder how many boats that out of position bouy has put on the putty.















Woody was pretty chilled about the possibility of being stuck on a mud bank.














It was all worth while though, it was a beautiful place.

We decided to spend a couple of days in Cedeira; it was time to tackle the generator.
The generator provides a quiet and efficient source of power giving us 240 volts to run the  battery charger. I had been unable to start it since getting back to the boat this year so we had been relying on the main engine's alternator to charge the batteries.
The generator is run by a small diesel engine, fantastically reliable machines, all they ask for is clean fuel and compression in the cylinder. I quickly established that there was fuel getting to the engine (the generator happily runs off the starboard fuel tank, unaffected by the diesel bug problem), that only left compression. As diesels have no spark plug but relies on the mist of injected fuel being squeezed very hard to cause it to go bang and run the engine.  Pressure was leaking out of the piston so no compression and no bang - almost certainly a problem with the valves not seating properly which let the air in and the exhaust out; the cylinder head would have to come off to take a look.

Sadly nothing is easy to get at on a sailing boat, no nice big engine room for Moondance, just a little hole in the floor for me to squeeze into.

3 hours later, 2 seized bolts removed, 1 set of nuckles skinned and instead of a partridge in a pair tree one sense of humour failure - but the cylinder head was off.









There were obvious signs of corrosion on the valves (the small circles inside the bigger circle in the picture), probably caused by condensation over the years. The valves would have to be replaced and the cylinder head refurbished. A call to the agent and 700 Euros later, Bobs your uncle, a refurbished head on its way. Did I mention that boats were a bottomless pit to throw your money into?! I will pick the refurbished head  up in a week or so and send them mine a bit further down the coast and guess what? Another few hundred Euros to get it fitted and the valves reset, a high precision job and beyond my abilities!
Moondance rolls on southwards.

Heading for the Med

The boat has spent the winter in Gijon, half way along the north coast of Spain. The backdrop to this old city is some spectacular mountains, the Picos De Europa, so called by the early Spanish sailors because they were the first thing they saw of Europe as they came over the horizon on their way back home.
We flew into Gijon on Sunday 30 April and had a day on the boat unpacking from the winter then set off for 5 days walking in the Picos. The Picos are dramatic; they are geologically very young and made of limestone, being so soft the winter snow melt quickly carves very deep and steep sided ravines in the rock, spectacular indeed. There was still some snow around in early May making for very pretty icing on the cake.
Back at the boat another days work had us back in the water and ready to go. With an excellent forecast of 15 knots of easterly wind behind us and blue skys we set off west for the Rias (river estuaries) of Galicia, a couple of very pleasant days sail a way. It wasn't to be quite like that!

Having left in glorious sunshine the sky soon clouded over and the wind started to increase. Before long we were bowling along with the sails reefed in 25-30 knots of wind (force 6-7) and surfing at 9 knots down the front of the 4 meter waves. Moondance is a very seaworthy boat and, although tiring from the considerable rolling caused by the swell behind us it was pretty exciting, if a little chilly - Melanie had pretty well everything she possessed on, this wasn't quite how the trip had been advertised!
We spent the night in the pretty but rolly harbour of Luarca.

As the Spanish weather forecast had been somewhat erroneous I looked at the British shipping forecast which reaches as far south as the Spanish west coast - easterly (good), force 5-7 locally 8, hmm, a windy day then! Still, that was pretty much what we had had the day before and we had a long way to go - at least it would be fast! Fast it was with lots of surfing and rather too much rolling, 5 hours later we were just 10 miles from our destination of Vivero, the first of the Rias.
With big following seas Henry (the autohelm) did a sterling job of keeping us on course.

It was time to give the batteries a charged so as I have a problem with the generator I put the engine on in neutral for an hour, or so I hoped. After just 20 minutes I heard that sickening spluttering sound that tells you that you have trouble on the way. Sure enough the engine died. That doesn't happen to my engine, well, not I realised since last time - off the west coast of Scotland 5 years ago when the fuel supply was clogged with diesel bug, that thick gloopy organism that grows in the water-fuel interface in the fuel tank creeping up and biting you when you least expect it.
I was pretty sure it would be a fuel blockage which would require me to have my head in the engine bay for 20 minutes. Diesel fumes and a rolly sea would only have one result - a very green skipper - it would have to wait for calmer waters. We had sails, plenty of wind and it would be an easy sail into the calm waters of the Viviero estuary (famous last words!)
Half an hour later I changed course 20 degrees to round a headland and head for the estuary. With the wind dead behind us I would need to gybe (swing the boom from one side to the other). With that much wind it would go with a fair old whack so I hauled in the boom to minimise the swing and put the helm over. The boom went over, whack, just as expected but the whack seemed rather excessive even for that wind and a viscious flapping noise told me that all was not right with the world. The main sail had parted company with the rope holding it to the end of the boom and was now pressed hard up against the mast and rigging - useless.

The loose end of the outhaul

Hmm, 2 methods of propulsion down, one to go, I now only had the genoa at the front of the boat.  I was getting a little edgy with the old saying of bad luck comes in threes. Still, the wind was behind us and blowing us along the coast not towards it. If, God forbid, I lost the genoa for any reason we would not end up on the rocks before at least having time to pour a G and T! Still, Woody was pretty unperturbed  by the whole situation.


Happilly I didn't loose the genoa and we were soon inside the headland of the estuary. We had a couple of miles to go to a calm anchorage but to get there we had to sail through the Doldrums in the wind shadow of the headland, just a zephyre of breeze coming from one side then swinging 180 degrees to the other and back. Tricky sailing but at a graceful one knot of boat speed we slipped quietly into the anchorage and dropped the anchor. First job? A nice hot lunch and a wee stiffener!






Later in the afternoon I stripped down the fuel system and sure enough, the dreaded diesel bug was back with a vengeance. To get this much gloop from the tank in just an hours motoring it must be pretty bad in there. It was so bad that it had blocked the pipework into the filter before even getting to the filter to block that!

I cleaned out the pipework and refilled with diesel from the other tank; it was time to give it a whirl and hope to goodness that the bug had only got one tank and not both. After an hours running I opened up the filter again praying that it would be clean; the Gods were with me,no more gloop had appeared. At first sight the starboard tank is not affected but it will be a nervous few days when the engine is running never sure if I am going to loose it again until the cleanliness is proven.
Watch this space!





In the meantime the weather has taken a turn for the worse, we woke up this morning to a very damp world, the soggy drooping flag somewhat summing up the mood but the sun promises that it is on the way!