After a quick decision yesterday morning we pressed on out of Camarinas and
arrived in Bayona at about 2am local time this morning. So what’s been happening
over the last few days?
Last Thursday was a day of down-time and relaxing before meeting up with
the other crews in the bar of Club Nautico. High winds and rain dictated little
progress over the next few days and the daily rota was to have breakfast potter
about and then head to the bar and bemoan the lack of decent sailing conditions.
Up until yesterday morning (Sunday 8th) the wind was constantly over 30 knots,
day and night. On Friday we concluded that it might be worth trying to organise
a trip to Santiago de Compostella. Discovering that the barman (and President of
the marina/yacht club and probably the whole town) spoke German, Torsten (from
Infinity) was despatched to rustle up some form of transport as 8 of decided to
go on a day trip on the Saturday. Bright and breezy at 10 am we all assembled
outside the marina club house to discover that a 40 seater coach had turned up
to ferry us all. At that moment 3 French sailors decided to randomly join us on
the coach which made it feel at least a quarter full.
We had a great day in Santiago walking the streets and witnessing the
“smells and bells” of mass in the Cathedral. Its a very quaint city with lots of
bars, cafes and restaurants that seemed to be predominantly empty – and streets
full of walkers doing the Way of St James pilgrim trail. Your correspondent also
found a rather comfortable place to relax just outside an official building
(photo to follow), Trevor had a quick tickle from a plastic lady(!) and the
nearby beach was also wonderful (see photo!)
Fortunately the weather in Santiago was better than in Camarinas where, by
all accounts, there was torrential rain all day – and we were welcomed back with
an absolute downpour (see photo). All the crews are getting slightly suspicious
of the travel brochure for the ARC Portugal seeming to show constant
sunshine....we’ve yet to see that! The day was rounded off with Geoff heading
underwater (thanks for Torstens floating compressor) to remove the final pieces
of junk still attached to our prop.
Sunday dawned and with the prospect of a visit from WCC official, Andrew,
the weather brightened and we woke to the sound (or lack thereof) of no wind.
Andrew confirmed our worst fears in that he suggested we’d been making all the
bad weather up and we really should be in Bayona by now. Chastened by his
castigation and, to be fair and more truthful, a view of the GRIB files the
skippers were unanimous in their decision for us to move on and try and get to
Bayona bearing in mind that there were plenty of places to drop into if things
got tough.
John and Trevor could hardly contain themselves and were out of the
starting blocks in Seclusion before the rest of us had even though about putting
on our foulies. Infinity, Ca Canny and Zoonie travelled in convoy motoring South
into strong headwinds. Zoonie had a slight (!) hiccup in the form of an engine
malfunction (blocked fuel lines) but were seen to execute the text book
response to that (sails up and head out to sea) before some in-flight
maintenance spurred the engine into life again. Whilst dry, the winds were
strong and just before Finisterre we only had enough time to exclaim “wow, look
at that” when a very quickly formed tornado was upon us. Stuart bravely clung to
the helm as Ca Canny listed violently to port and starboard. We’d love to have
been able to report that there were several fishing trawlers circling above us
in the tornado it was so large and powerful and we were so brave in surviving it
but in reality our fenders got blown into a tangle at the stern. A quick radio
message to Infinity enabled them to avoid the oncoming twister, which soon
turned into a full blown water spout.
Just as we were rounding Cape Finisterre, Bob and Barbara (Zoonie) decided
quite sensibly to pull into Portosin due to their concerns about the engine and
Infinity and Ca Canny continued southward. (Photo off Finisterre)I can only
guess that Torsten and Hille (Infinity) were fed up with motoring as they soon
raised the sails and started to tack into the wind. Our skipper decided he’d
prefer to just get there and so we kept the engine running all the way into
Bayona where we were warmly welcomed by Joel into our berth 2am this morning
after coming through some squalls worthy of a bit part in the film “A Perfect
Storm” which only seemed to hit when Ian and I were on watch. A day of cleaning,
drying and re-provisioning has ensued (Ian and Stuart have spent a suspiciously
long time going to the shop and I suspect there is a bar involved....whilst I
sit here and write this blog).
Tomorrow looks like another quiet day – I need to find a pair of trousers
as we have a formal welcome reception tomorrow evening and my shorts don’t come
up to the dress standard required (apparently), and then we head off again on
Wednesday.
More later.......