Month: July 2013

Our last mission in A Coruna was to find a supermarket. We had a useless tourist map so with a bit of googling we marked where the shops should be. We found the street but couldn’t see any signs for a supermarket or any kind of shop. We must have looked lost because a lady stopped and pointed underground. We had to go 3 stories underground to find the supermarket! Then it was the long walk home with heavy bags. We left A Coruna and stopped at Corme for the night. It was a rocky night and the mossies found

We moved ahead of an expected strong south westerly on Sunday which is to be followed by a return to north winds on Tuesday. Yesterday’s passage from Viveiro to Coruna was spent 2 miles off the northern cliffs hugging the coast. We discovered that the win does the same and so despite turning through about 180 degrees during the journey there was a headwind the whole way. Add to this a confused 2m swell which we had to take mostly beam on we rattled and rolled on a journey that seemed to take forever into an anchorage just outside La

Our meeting with San Miguel has had to be postponed and as my expert friend Juan Manuel rightly informed us it’s a hard find in this area. Beers are Mahou, Bodegas and Galicia Estrella the latter of which we found to be very good as recommended. Anyway back to the toilet – double trouble – both the outlet side was flowing back in and the suddenly the fresh water flush side went on full permanent flow dumping our fresh tank water non-stop into the toilet and out to sea. All pumps were flicked off at the switch panel and the

Arrived Ria de Vivero 8pm last night after eventually getting in a good 18 hours sailing. Set the auto-pilot to navigate by wind for the last 140 miles and it blew us here along with another couple of yachts who departed Camaret around the same time. Fantastic bay with a pod of dolphins playing in the harbour. Large, calm and deep anchorage. Probably going to get the tender out and spend a few hours ashore. So far we have clocked up just 5 hours ashore in total as there is much to do on and around the boat, however, now

At 0900 hrs we cut across a shark which was headed along the Biscay continental shelf. Just below the rail at midships it turned first to the bow then decided to had round the back and glide off into the distance. From that point on we have had dolphins leaping into the air and crashing down about a half mile off. Then came the whales! No idea what the prevalent species are but they appear to be about the same size as our ship and are normally cruising north east. We have had them dive under our keel and have