Corme - Costa Da Morte

We have finally left the Bay of Biscay – HOORAY! Although only just and have had to stop again in the small fishing port of Corme. Unfortunately the forces of nature have been against us for most of the journey hence the reason it has taken us so long to go such a short distance. The whole time we have been heading west, we have been hit in the face by strong westerly winds and now we have started to go south, the wind has changed to southerlies. There have been times when the wind and  current have been so strong, we have travelled at a gentle walking pace with the engine on and backwards without it! We are trying to put up a good fight or maybe more of a long continuous battle.

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!

 

 

 

Plodding along, slowly but surely.

The main part of the storm died down and a window of opportunity finally opened to leave Gijon. The weather is still being unkind to us though and we seem to always have horrible choppy seas with either no wind or strong uncontrollable gusts. We have spent nearly the whole time on motor going very slowly. I worked out at one point that we were moving at the speed of an average walker!

We are still stopping each night at an anchorage point or in a port itself as it's too tiring being bashed about all day and night. Since Gijon, we have been to Ria De Aviles (industrial hell), Cudillero (very pretty) and we are now in the port of Luarca hiding out from more storms.

Luarca

Methods of entertainment include playing a lot of backgammon at which Tom is annoyingly good, especially as he's so competitive he can be intensely irritating! Downloading and watching a lot of Fringe and Flashforward... if anyone has good film suggestions, please feel free to share with us and planning when and what we are going to eat next, very important parts of the day! Tom also found a lobster/crab pot and so Mark and him have put mussels and chorizo in the bottom of it. Surprisingly enough, they have not caught any yet!

 

Hopefully we'll be leaving here tomorrow for the next port of Tapia but once again it will be weather depending. In the mean time we have just bought more biscuits and sweeties to keep us going and here are some other random photos from the journey so far...

Washing

 

 Gay!

Gypsy lady on the gypsy boat.                       

Rocking the hot new look, shorts and socks pulled up (Tom's idea)

Proper sailing!

 

Tourist time!

Still waiting.

We are still in Gijon awaiting the 'mar gruesa' (I have translated this to mean gruesome sea!) to calm down. It's still very windy and rains all day. We are managing to occupy ourselves with daily walks to the supermarket just to look around and watching endless films on the computer.
The excitement of the day was buying a heater so now the boat is finally toasty warm and dry, hurray!
Hoping to leave Monday if the weather clears but here's some idea of what it is like...

 

Now we wait..

We spent 3 nights at Santander, 1 in the marina and the other 2 at anchor in the harbour. The marina was very quiet and a fair distance out of town but very pretty with helpful staff and a shop where we could get the sail mended. I did offer to stitch it back by hand and then thought better of it remembering how rubbish I am at that sort of thing!

Once in town we had a wander about along the sea front, bikini beach (lacking in bikinis!) and up to Magdelene Palace on the headland. After that we hired the free bikes and cycled through Llama park and back into town. Anyone who knows me well, will know that I have an aversion to bikes and that is why I would like to thank Shorty, Coops and Cotrozzi for their patience at re-teaching me in the park last Summer. Once I had got the seat lower enough for my feet to touch the ground and in very wide cycle lanes on the pavement, I loved it. I feel I now have lots of cycling to catch up on and want to at every possible oppurtunity!

We left Santander harbour with bright sunshine and blue skies but unfortunately no wind, therefore having to motor for 2 days. With the autopilot on, there was plenty of time for reading and we are now experts at fishing. We have caught numerous baby tuna, killed, gutted & cooked expertly by Tom but if anyone has any good recipes for what we can do with them, it would be greatly appreciated.

 

We are now in the port of Gijon, once again awaiting good weather as after having no wind for so long, we were suddenly hit by another storm of gusty winds and rain. Luckily it had been expected and our plan had been to come and shelter here until it passes. So far, Gijon does not seem the most exciting of places but maybe that was because everything seemed to shut after 12noon on a Monday!

Today we will be getting further weather updates and then the waiting game begins...

 

 

Not Quite As Expected

We have arrived at Santander, a city on the north coast of Spain. We are at anchor in the harbor, surrounded by pretty beaches and fishing boats. The entire contents of the boat are drying on the deck in the sun making us look like a chinese laundry gypsy boat. Mark is finally sleeping having been up for 24hrs and Tom is lying in the tender trying to decide whether it is warm enough to wash himself in the sea today.

This is our second well needed break after setting sail on the Big Adventure. 10 days straight to Madeira was the plan but unfortunately the elements have not been favourable to us ever since we decided to leave. We planned to leave La Rochelle around the 15/10/09 but were delayed due to bad weather. This was a perfect opportunity for a few practice sails, try out our extremely fetching wet weather gear and get a feel for the boat. All went well and we eventually managed to leave late on the 22/10/09.

It took us quite a few hours to even get past the islands of La Rochelle as the wind was constantly wanting to push us back and it started to rain but we were all still in good spirits, wrapped up in the excitement and our sexy wet weather gear and wellies! Once out into the Bay of Biscay, I can honestly say, things went from bad to worse. Huge 7m swells, wind pushing us in the wrong direction, constant rain and all in the pitch black of night. We were meant to be taking it turns to have 3 hour sleeps but that didn't go to plan either with sea sickness from the constant rolling of the boat, unable to eat anything other than biscuits and cereal bars due to wanting to vomit after just 30secs of being inside and the never ending cold from the wind and rain. Unfortunately being 'a girl' I got myself into a right state, having not eaten for 2 days, I got so cold and felt so sick that I had to lie down and leave the boys to it. I am so grateful to Tom being with us as I cannot imagine going through everything we have so far with just Mark and I. Although, having caught 2 baby tunas and a mackeral with his new rod, I did not appreciate them being left in a bucket under the sink whilst struggling not to vomit!

After nearly getting ploughed down by numerous trawlers and tankers in the night, Mark decided we should stop to get some sleep and we headed for the nearest land point south. Ortucho, a tiny fishing village on the north east coast of Spain. We were welcomed in by dolphins playing in our wake and anchored in the bay surrounded by caves and lots of moody fishermen. We took the tender onto the village and lasted all of about 5 minutes of being stared at by the locals before heading back to the boat where we all slept in preparation for whatever the weather was going to throw at us next.

We left the next day, 26/10/09 with strong prevailing winds, blue sky and sunshine. We were hooning at 6-8knots, surfing the waves and finally enjoying sailing. We were making really good progress once out in the deeper water and decided to try and go as far as we could before the wind changed. Night fell and for a time we had a bright half moon guiding us through the huge swells that had started forming. As the moon disappeared, it became harder and harder to control the boat with swells rising high up behind us with a strong side wind. Once again it was decided we needed to get back to shelter and attempted to turn south causing a huge rip in our mainsail. I will honestly say at that point I was very scared. Watching Mark going up on deck to pull the sail down whilst the boat was being bashed about by the waves was all a bit too much. We ended up motoring for 8 hours whilst fighting with the waves to our new anchorage point. It's a relief to stop, dry everything out, re-stow everything that flew out on to the floor and for Mark to finally sleep.

From now on we will be taking our time and getting regular weather reports to hopefully avoid any further stormy nights  and then hopefully I can learn more about the fun sailing and not just the scary stuff!