Yacht Aditi

Flip-Flopping the Ria’s

After departing Coruna we made 7.5 knots under sail – for an hour! After tacking ever slower a few hours later the wind tailed off to another 4 knot headwind so we made for Corme. Anchoring in Corme is like anchoring on a roundabout within a harbour with the centre completely full of marine farms. There is about 100m of useable sea between the fish farms and the beaches or rocks so it’s a case of picking out a spot deep enough within the doughnut ring to anchor. We arrived in darness and left in fog so have no idea

Caving for food and Ria De Camarina

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

All Swell in Coruna

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

Living in a Dolphinarium

Like living in a Dolphinarium as we were surrounded by fins this morning; too many to count. Reckon we are the attraction for the dolphins rather than the other way around. We are currently hard to trace as marine traffic AIS relays rely on volunteers to pick up the signal and pass it on to the web; I guess nobody in the Ria is doing that at the moment.     Looking north at anchor in Viveiro           The marina entrance to Viveiro                   Octopus from the Pulperia

Head in the toilet

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

Sold down the Ria

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

Crosstown Traffic

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

Biscay Beckons

We had a lovely last evening in Camaret. Having spent the day cleaning the ship below decks, donuting and shopping for provisions we then sat in our dog house in the centre of an almighty thunderstorm which Camaret anchorage appeared to be its epicentre! This was just before we had to pick up Jean-Charles, Sepherine (I apologise if the spelling is incorrect) and Eleanor from the dockside of course. Paul had to bail the dingy and get a bit soggy when he played taxi driver. We met Jean-Charles in Yarmouth 3 years ago when we and another boat with Derek