After leaving Luarca, we motor sailed in the cold and the rain to San Ciprian. Unfortunately I seem to have only a 2 hour threshold for the cold before my fingers, nose and toes all go completely numb. Even in my 10 layers of clothes, super sailing salopettes and jacket, the only solution is numerous cups of tea with biscuits and an interesting form of sitting running for at least one whole song which can then be changed to sitting rowing to another song. When it is not raining, another solution is to become boat slug and sit in the sleeping bag. I will never win any races with my super non speedy rope pulling etc. But in the slug bag, I am completely useless and therefore I have to leave all the work to the boys, shame!
Having just put anchor down in the industrial port of San Ciprian, the engine decided to start alarming a hideous high pitched beep. More silent panicking for me! Thankfully boys seem to understand things like engines and Mark easily worked out it was due to a split in the impeller. Fortunately he had had the forethought to buy a spare one before we set off and was able to successfully change it with no major dramas. Panic over. Not that I really understood what the thing did anyway but at least no more annoying beeping!
With a window of good weather, we left San Ciprian and decided to continue on overnight to try and make up some time. Thankfully it did not rain and so I spent most of the time in the slug bag. We passed out of the Bay of Biscay playing eye spy and 20 questions until the sun set. We then took turns on getting a few hours kip in between star gazing, shooting star spotting and not getting mowed down by huge fishing trawlers and tankers!
The next day we arrived in a small ugly fishing port called Lax and put anchor down for the night. We set off again in the morning, only to realise as the waves got bigger and the wind gustier that we had got the wrong day on the weather report and were heading straight into a storm. Back we went into the bay and anchored down again, only this time we were pushed about all over the place due to the increasing waves. Across the bay was another small port called Corme so we decided to move over there in the hope of mooring up against the port wall.
Corme, also marvelously named Costa Da Morte, is possibly the friendliest place we have stopped at so far. Most of the village came by the boat to discuss our mooring efforts when we arrived, with lots of 'oohs & ahhs', letting us know we'll be moving back and forth all night and that we should move forward due to the fishing boats returning.
We went for a little wander around the village, returning to the boat to find the fishing trawlers had returned, dwarfing our little bateau in comparison. The fishermen were also extremely helpful and suggested we moor up alongside them for the night to allow them to have more room against the wall. They gave us extra ropes and pulled us alongside them. It was very exciting to see inside the fishing boats, watching them sorting out all the huge nets but it wasn't so fun having to climb onto their boat and then try and jump across onto the wall with the boat constantly moving away from it, especially with Tom laughing at me!
The fishermen moved us back against the port wall the next day and after more discussions, they gave us more ropes and even found us extension cables for the electricity. We are once again playing the waiting game hoping for the weather to calm down before we can move on. So back to playing backgammon, biscuit eating, film watching, walks in the rain and even a team jog!
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