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!

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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.