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!

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.