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!