Fliss………………………
Lazy sail yesterday from Isla de Norte (only 6 miles) to Bayona.
I really enjoyed the trip as I navigated the passage whilst Pete sun bathed, strange really but he seems to be doing this a lot at the moment. It’s really easy navigating with the GPS but we noticed yesterday that it put us on the wrong side of a westerly cardinal. When we leave here I’m going to do it taking bearings and using the chart only. Looking at the chart it seems an easy journey as when you get out of Bayona you turn left missing the rocks. I’ve got a lot to learn but it’s great when you don’t have to consider tides.
Bayona, um! Strange place! Quite pretty but definitely a tourist resort. Lovely old town, nice beaches and shops that sell lots of pointless stuff (like good old English seas side resorts).
When I get to a big city, Lisbon I think, I’m going to sort out my wardrobe as all my clothes are to thick. Pete did warn me.
We walked a long way yesterday outside of a gorgeous old castle and then we walked inside the gorgeous old castle (now a hotel but you can pay 1 Euro to walk around the grounds). We walked up the seafront and then down, up & then down, get the picture! A total of 10km’s we think.
Last night we watched Italy win the world cup with the locals, very nice!
Another blistering hot day today and we have to sort out gas and connectors and get some provisions in as yesterday all the real shops where closed.
The marina is very basic but the very nice man told us on registration that our boat was 10 meters, we argued it until he showed me the tariff, 10m 19 Euros 12m 33Euros, he said that as it was our 1st time he would only charge us the 10m fee.
We visited the local very posh yacht club and where told to “bugger off” actually he said it was “members only”.
Anyway all in all lovely it’s been lovely in Gallicia and I’m sorry to leave the Ria’s but really looking forward to Portugal.
Pete……………
Yesterday’s sail was a gentle lollop, we played a bit with Nadezhda around the Islands, picking up accelerated air between the islands and then set off for Bayona. Being in a marina is not as nice or easy to moor as being at anchor since we have to mess with all the mooring lines. However, the pilot book suggested that the local marinas do not like people anchoring and often go out and move them on. The local yacht club told us we were not welcome and, having resorted to a cold beer on the beach, we could not get the girl to serve us! Welcome to Bayona.
The marina has no real facilities and so the clothes washing will not get done and I think we will simply re-provision and move-on. I had thought about getting some more fuel but the small moored boats clustered around the fuel berth leave no room to swing a cat…..re-fuelling can therefore wait until another time.
My main concern now is cooking gas. We have two bottles and we are well into our second. The local bottles come in two forms, both of which have different connectors to the English ones. One of the local varieties is too big to fit into our gas locker and the other (camping gas) variety are a bit small. The guy at the local petrol station (Repsol) did not have connectors for either but told us “Manyana” so we will go back today and see if he has acquired one. Communication with the locals is difficult, the guide book says that the Spanish are as anal about their language as the French and the Brits …. We should have learned at least the basics of Spanish but both of us are poor language learners and we cannot learn every language of the places we will visit.
(F: Pete is actually doing quite well as he can order a beer & wine, ask for bread, eggs & he knows how to say that he doesn’t understand.)
Eggs is easy, simply say “werewolves” in a Chinese accent!
Anyway, Portugal tomorrow….another language that we do not have the any information about on-board. Apparently, they tend not to expect foreigners to learn their language and therefore the going may be easier.
Tuesday 11th July
Pete…………
We motored into Bayona bay where a British yacht was anchored that we had taken piccies of as we both had sailed-in. We offered to send them by e-mail but we think that maybe too many beers the night before had made him forget his e-mail and we took his address and had a chat as we juggled the boat just a few yards from his. He was spending 4 years away and was again heading South so maybe we will meet again?
He told us that the weather forecast was force 7 and possibly gales for the region and we checked the Navtex system we have on-board (which concurred). However, out pictorial Grib file showed no sign of strong winds close to shore but we still decided that whimpishness is the better form of valour and we decided to head a little North back to the Islas de Ceis and spend the day in the sun and on the beach in lovely surroundings (for free – of course). The day was a little windy but not as the sea-area forecast suggested, our second (alternative source) Grib file showed that the winds were about 50 miles offshore as a shallow low pressure system off Spain & Portugal met with a big high pressure system in the Atlantic.
View from Bayona Fort
Wednesday 12th July
The Navtex forecast again told of winds of Force 7…we avoid these if we can! However, the Grib forecast still forecast that these were to the West of us so we bit the bullet and set-off South to Portugal. Yup, We had some serious Atlantic swell coming from the area of higher winds but not a lot of wind ourselves. The jib refused to fly and the boom of the mainsail had to be tied back to stop it flinging around as Nadezhda was rolled from side-to-side. We were eventually going at less than 2 knots. Our target destination was Porto but we resigned ourselves to Viana de Castelo and stuck the engine on. We passed into Portugal at 14:40 BST and lowered the Spanish cutesy flag and raised the Portuguese one.
Of course, the wind picked-up big-time when we were 30 minutes away from Viana (just to make mooring interesting) and it went cold enough to don fleeces. However as we motored up the river to the marina, the wind became like a sauna and we stripped-off again. We were lucky to get a pontoon mooring and tied-up and almost passed-out with the heat…………welcome to Portugal. It is now 20:00 BST and 33.5 degrees Celsius! Serious Betty’s!. There is a 2-week festival going-on on the waterfront (bookselling??!?!) and we have been serenaded to typical Spanish (oops, Portuguese) guitar and vocal ballads over a amplification system, very nice!
Fliss
Firstly, it is very, very hot and I have just had a cold shower, a bit of a shock but very welcome.
Pete didn’t mention the fun & games last night. At 7:30pm we decided that as all the other boats had left we would explore the island. Very nice and loads of jumping fish. The interesting part when trying to get back to the boat as suddenly there was breaking waves. I jumped into the “rubba-dub” and so did Pete and each time we did a wave hit us and took us straight back to the shore with a real soaking. Pete amused me trying to row on his back with his legs flailing! Very funny!!!!
Well we made it back after the 5th attempt and decided to move too more protected anchorage (it was blowing).
Again we have been fishing and caught zip… I spoke to a Spanish lady and she was amazed that we hadn’t caught anything, her suggestion was too say “Peche Arrivee” so far they haven’t and to be truthful it don’t want them too as I’m quite happy with tuna out of a tin, I don’t like the thought of bashing something over the head.
It was quite exciting dropping the Spanish flag & hoisting the Portuguese flag, onwards & upwards.
By the way the guy on the boat was called Colin and he was from the East End of London.
PS; Pete………..
Luckily the Portuguese serenading has stopped. Ok for ten minutes, but getting a bit doleful. Hopefully they will get the Led Zep tribute band out later!
Friday 14th July 2006
Fliss………
Hello all! Well here we are in Viana do Castelo and due to leave lunchtime for Porto.
It’s a really nice city lots of little side streets, fountains and very quaint.
Yesterday we recorded 46c on the barometer in the sun which did make walking really hard work but we wandered around the old city and visited a shopping centre. I bought a skirt and Pete bought shorts and a hammock (in preparation for the Caribbean).
When we checked in, the marina guy gulped when he checked the depth of Nadezhda (it’s wrong on the ships paper as it shows 2.35mtrs) we told him that she does only draw 2mtrs. Last night on the way back from the yacht club I said to Pete that when we arrived the depth was only reading 4mtrs and given it was springs and that the tide had reached it’s peak it might be worth checking the depth. Well it turns out we were sitting in 30cms of mud. (reading was 1.7mtrs).
Last night the festival started again (they celebrate anything here) I suspect that they might just have a festival to celebrate opening a new bottle of Port.
The music is something to behold a mixture of a cat being tortured and a flock of agitated seagulls. I recorded it on my phone just so that on our return we can share it with you, bad luck Robyn you’ll be the 1st! It finally finished at midnight.
Today is cloudier, thank god as yesterday was unbearable they must be having a heat wave as the locals are finding it hard.
I really like it here as it has a lot of character but it’s again time to move on.
It’s only 30miles to Porto, which is meant to be nice, but the marina at Leixoes is meant to be minging with dead cats & dogs floating around.
Pete………..
41 degrees, 41 minutes, decimal 65 North, 8 degrees, 49 minutes, decimal 32 West
(by C-Map calculations, this puts us on dry land – the Marina must be new).
It has been much too hot to do anything apart from slink along on the shadowed side of the street. At 18:00 hrs yesterday, the temperature reading was 38.5 degrees in the shade. Our only respite was to spend one or two hours in the shopping mall which was air-conditioned. This was followed by a walk back to Nadezhda with our food and wine provisions in two rucksacks – Phew!
Later, we will pay our harbour dues and ask if the Marina is a similar depth all-over so we can be assured of getting-out without blocking the main fairway by going aground. I don’t really want to go aground because it will scrape-off the antifouling on the bottom. So, we reckon that we will have 2.2 metres depth by 14:25 BST and hope to leave then.
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