Today is Saturday 25th of August. 3 months today we will have started the ARC.

We left La Coruna for Corme. The high winds of yesterday have left another uncomfortable swell and the forecast force 4 has not shown up. We are yet again motoring …..

Russell had wanted to wait a day for the swell to settle but today we were forecast wind and tomorrow we were due nothing. Not wishing to motor for another 50 miles, I felt it was better to take the wind. The forecast was to be on the nose for the first part of the journey west, but to go north west during the day. This would be favorable and also give us a good angle once we had cleared the headland and started our descent south down the west coast of Spain.

We had planned to leave at 10am and just take the trip as far as Corme, an anchorage 35 miles away. We would then spend the next day in Corme and in the late afternoon continue to Muxia. The forecast had strong winds in for the day after and we wanted to be in a sheltered marina. It seems every 3 days you get strong winds. Just before leaving it started to rain and we decided to have a coffee, this was a mistake as our delay meant that when we got to the fuel berth the tanker had arrived and we had to wait 40 minutes for it to deposit fuel and wait for the tank to settle. I took the opportunity to go and get some bread and milk. I found a little shop and armed with my phrase book and some hand gestures managed to buy it, plus cream and lovely strawberries. Spanish is in some ways like French and I keep finding myself reverting to French rather than Spanish.

 

It was a good job we filled with fuel as again the forecast seemed to fail us and what breath of wind we had was on the nose. We learned that the left over swell was immense and we needed engine power to push us through the uncomfortable sea. Oli looked a bit green but no one was seasick.  We were not alone, as a few other boats were also motor sailing. The seas calmed as we rounded the northern tip of Spain and started heading south. We tried sailing briefly but were only making 1.5 knots and had 15 miles to go. We then tried fishing, but no luck.

We started doing some school work, despite protests that friends back home don’t go back to school until September. The school work does help on passages to keep the boys up on deck and out of mischief. We learnt about nouns and pronouns. It is 20 years since I finished my English a level so I am grateful to the work book explaining things first and giving good examples and exercises.

It seems very odd being so close to a rather rugged coastline that would not look out of place on the film set of Jurassic Park and still seeing 75 meters of water on the echo sounder. The Chart plotter is becoming a good aid to navigation and I hope that the rocks are where it says they are. They seem to pop up sporadically and you cannot see them as they lie beneath the surface. The swell hitting rocks is putting up some impressive plumes of white water. I guess there are too many to put some visual mark such as a buoy, so paying attention is vital. The peninsulas are covered in wind turbines.  Despite being in Spain we are still in jeans and jumpers.

We started to go into Corme but decided against it as the swell was quite something. It is quite a way to get into the bays (called Rias) before you get shelter so we didn’t want to waste time going in to find it was too uncomfortable.  The other yachts behind us carried into Corme and we continued to Muxia, arriving a few hours later.

We negotiated the entrance with all its covered hazards. It becomes unnerving when you drop down to 10 meters under the keel. The swell was so large that the hill with a small building was playing peek a boo. Once into the bay and in shelter of the big rocks the swell subsided and made entry into the new harbour easy. We had no shortage of berths to choose from. For some political reason this marina has never been finished and is not allowed to charge. It has pontoons completed in summer 2010 and electric meter boxes  complete with taps but the water is not attached and the electricity was apparently turned off this week. Despite it being free it is virtually empty (you can count the boats on one hand) and a steady stream head to Camarinas marina on the other side of the bay.

Muxia has a lovely beach 5 mins walk from the marina and has 2 supermarkets.  I suspect that the locals are unhappy that the marina is being overlooked by visitors as I am sure the tourist trade would be beneficial. The streets seem pretty deserted, but there is a steady stream of religious visitors to the town as apparently the Virgin Mary came here on a stone boat.

The only thing that we have not managed to obtain is internet to check weather. We have now worked out how to get a grib file but as yet have not tried it using the sat phone. The next trip is 25 miles to Portosin.

The boys seem to be settling into the hour of maths and English a day and hopefully I can use the time to keep the blog up.  

There is more strong winds forecast for Monday so I think we will be here for a few days. Our next trip takes us around Finisterre, which looks like a pretty horrible headland. Let’s hope we will be sailing round it rather than motoring…