Christmas in Ayamonte

Didn’t actually manage to get any dinner last night, as we had people over for drinkies and nibbles and it went on until after 10. Andy fell asleep in the cabin and I nipped out for some patatas fritas. (That’s chips to you.)
Christmas seems to have started, then.
It’s been some time since I last posted a blog, but that’s because I’ve been busy.
We eventually managed to prise ourselves out of the anchorage up the Rio Guadiana. It’s lovely up there, peaceful as well as sociable amongst the other yachtspeople who go up there to have a look and end up staying there for years, sometimes. Some of them have bought houses in Sanlucar. However, there’s the rest of the world out here. So one day we got up early enough to get the tide downriver and here we are, at the mouth of the river, in the marina at Ayamonte. It’s a good place to be in a yacht for the winter, as it’s very sheltered from weather and currents and there are shops and supermarkets very close to the marina. Ayamonte is a reasonably sized town, with normal life going on, even out of the tourist season, unlike some of the coastal resorts which are ghost towns at this time of year. We do notice, however, a lot of people hanging around all day, as there is little work to be had outside of the summer season. Like many Spanish towns, it has very attractive buildings and plazas. At the moment they are lit up with Christmas lights.
Christmas is celebrated slightly differently here. It seems to focus around family and food, like most of Spanish life. They do give presents, but they’re not as important as in England. They do put up decorations, but not so much as in England. The decorations tend to be mainly nativity crib scenes and lots of 3 kings outfits. You do see Father Christmas, as well, but not so much as in England. They certainly don’t go in for Christmas cards at all, (nor birthday cards.) There does seem to be widespread panic buying in the supermarkets in the last day or two, though, just like in England.
I was getting a bit stressy about the responsibility of the bit of money my Mum left me. I wanted to do something with it, but I didn’t quite know what. I stuck it in the bank and watched it flop on the floor in a useless heap. I’d been trawling the internet looking at property for sale in England and Spain and occasionally reading news headlines to see if the recession was lifting. Being here in the boat meant I was feeling cut off from any possibility of being able to act. So at the beginning of December I flew to Bristol and drove to Cornwall and spent a week (mainly in pouring rain), looking at property for sale in Cornwall. I couldn’t afford to buy anything there that I wanted to own. So I left the holiday apartment I was in (oh, it was so lovely having rooms to walk around in, hot water out of the taps, my own shower and TV) and drove to my old home, the Isle of Wight. I was able to stay with some old friends from Stroud who have moved down there, and again enjoyed a comfy bed, shower, TV and all the home comforts. Anyway, I found what I was looking for, which is a top-floor flat in a lovely Victorian house in a quiet residential road, very close to one beach and quite close to 5 other beaches. It has a view of the Solent from the sitting room window. It has a garden and a garage. It’s also in close walking distance of shops and a pub, which is also, quaintly, the Post Office and tearooms. And it’s mine. Or it will be in a few months, once all the legal stuff has happened.
So the plan at the moment is to set off towards the Med, once the weather looks a bit more like it. Then sail up the coast of Spain and France and head back to UK through the French Canals. I need to be back in the UK by the end of May, as I’m flying to NZ for 6 weeks to get in the way while daughter no. 1 produces my first grandchild. Yay! I’m now knitting a baby cardigan, which is the first thing I’ve knitted in about 25 years (since daughter no. 2 was on the way.) It’s going to be the dead of winter in NZ at that time of year. Terrible planning on Sarah’s part, I feel. Andy will join me in NZ and then we fly back to UK and move into our new flat and see what happens next.
While I was in England, enjoying being in a house, which was lucky as it was absolutely freeeeeeeeeeeezing over there, Andy stayed on the boat and took the toilet pump apart. Euggghhhh! The diaphragm in the pump had split. It would be simple job, if it weren’t in a boat. As it is, it took him days to get it apart, source some replacement bits, find the screws and things he dropped in the bilges, and get it back together again. At least we now have a fully functioning loo. I was so glad he did it while I was away. He kept me updated by email, telling me he was fragranced with eau de toilette!
Since I’ve been back on the boat it’s hardly stopped raining long enough for me to get out and do my Christmas shopping. I’ve done now, though. We have a “tree” which is a bunch of greenery I picked from the gardens round the marina car park. We also have our solar-powered fairy lights strung round the cabin. It does look festive, and, as I said, we had neighbours from a couple of British boats over for drinks last night. I think Andy’s recovered now.
Just left for me to say, merry Christmas to all of you, and I hope you have a marvellous new year.
You’ll be gratified to know that it’s still raining and the forecast is for it to continue for at least the next seven days.........................
It’s not as cold as in England, though.

“Drying out”

Help! This is really scarey. I'm sitting in the boat which is leaning backwards at an alarming angle and sideways, as well. We're leaning up against a big concrete wall, with the keel resting, now the tide has gone out, on a concrete slipway. We're tied to some stone benches and a couple of willow trees, with a line from the top of the mast to stop us tipping right over.

“Actually,” says Andy, “it looks like there's quite a lot of zinc left on that anode.”

“Aaagh!” I say. “Is that so?” We've got to sleep at this angle tonight, except that at about maybe 2 o'clock in the morning the back part of the boat will start floating again. By 4 o'clock, we'll be properly afloat again, until early morning, when we'll start bumping on the ground again and lying at an alarming angle. The scariest part is walking from the front of the boat to the back and feeling it seesaw and boink on the ground. I'm going to try and cook a meal, now, but I think the potatoes will all slide to one side of the oven. The other thing is, we won't be able to pump out the toilet. It's going to have to be a bucket!

For the uninitiated, all boats with metal in the water have to have sacrificial anodes made of zinc attached to their bottoms. Thus, the zinc, being lower down the electro-chemical series, dissolves in preference to your boat. It's to do with having different metals in salt water, which actually form a kind of battery. If you want a proper explanation, look on the interweb. Don't ask me. I asked Andy, but I'm not sure he really knows.

Changing the subject, to try and keep my mind off the fact that I'm sliding off the end of the bunk here, we went almond-bashing last Friday. There were about 8 of us who went upriver in our dinghies to a finca owned by an English guy. His almonds haven't been picked for about 10 years, he said. In order to get a better crop, they need to be picked. There's not much of a market for them, apparently, as it's cheaper to make almond essence out of chemicals. Since these chemicals are thought to give you cancer, though, he thinks the market may be coming back. I think he hopes to get organic status and flog them at inflated prices in London.

So, we dragged great big nets and spread them under the trees, then hit the trees with long bamboo poles. Some of the almonds fell into the nets. It was jolly hard work, when you're used to lying around reading detective novels for most of the day, but it was good fun to get out and do some purposeful activity. We all came back with big bags of nuts, which Andy has been setting about with mole-grips while I eat what he's cracked.

We were less than impressed with the French-Canadian guy who turned up with his three kids and stood around talking to the owners Italian wife while we all sweated and beat at the trees, dragging nets-ful back to tip into the trailer. He then upped and left with a bucketful of ready cracked ones! I think he needs to be told the story about the Little Red Hen. Just because he sails his boat and doesn't use an engine, and always rows ashore because he doesn't have an outboard, and they all play sea shanties on the squeezebox and pipes. Pah! At least us dysfunctional ones who brought our kids up on TV all mucked in as a team and had a jolly good time.

Up the river again.

Oh it's mighty good to be back on the water again! It was very good to see my daughters in England and to play with our granddaughter, but...

I found England too busy with too many cars, too many people, in too much of a hurry, too much gloom and doom coming out of the TV and the radio, and too much background music and noise. It also rained too much. Apart from that, it was OK.

We were met off the plane in Faro, and I kept wondering where all the people and cars had got to. Marvellous. After a peaceful night on the river, we came back upstream to Alcoutim/Sanlúcar to wait for the easterly winds to change into something more favourable so that we can explore further eastwards along the Spanish coast. Meantime we are doing lots of jobs on the boat using all the stuff we brought back with us.

Olives Update

I looked it up. You have to soak them in salt water for six months, then transfer them to a mix of vinegar and salt water which can be flavoured with herbs, garlic, etc, etc.

Rio Guadiana

We’ve not been socialising much for the last few days, which is a relief for my liver, although after a week or two of being joined at the hip to Andy with no-one else to play with, I start to rebel against the shackledom. This morning I insisted on dinghying ashore on my own and doing the shopping while Andy mended the starter switch on the Yanmar.
I rowed to Spain, as the bread is better from that side. The Portuguese bread up here is construction quality. However, the beer is cheaper at the bars on the Portugal side. It’s jolly handy being able to go either side of the Rio, depending on what you want and what time it is. We’re anchored about 20 miles up the Rio Guadiana, which is part of the boundary between the aforementioned countries.
It’s very peaceful and simple and just lovely up here. The sides of the river are overhung with bamboo, pomegranate trees and weeping willows and beyond the banks the hills roll away for miles and miles on each side. There is very little traffic noise; just the gentle clanging of the bells on the sheep and cattle which graze on the banks, except close to the hour when the church bells in Sanlucár (Spain) start to chime, say, ten o’clock, then the ones in Alcoutim (Portugal) start to chime nine, then the other church on the Spanish side starts up, then the other one in Portugal... At 5.15pm today, Andy said, “I’ve only just had a cup of tea and I was thinking of having a beer. Silly me, it’s only just gone 5.” He has his watch set to Portuguese time. “But in Spain in quarter past six!” I said. So we had some olives and a glass of Vino Tinto. There are olive trees all over the place here, just laden with the little green darlings. I’d like to find out what you have to do to them to be able to eat them, though. They are very bitter and utterly unpalatable if you try one straight from the tree. (Note to self, Google it next time we’re on the wifi in the Biblioteca.) We have been eating delicious sweet figs straight from the trees and lots of almonds picked up from the ground beneath the trees. Nearly all the pomegranates, though, have split open and are dry and sour as there’s been no rain here since May.
We’ve been exploring on foot and by bike along the side of the river and over the hills. You wouldn’t believe what a time warp it is once you get away from the coastal towns. It really hasn’t changed very much in centuries, except that most of the little fincas are empty and derelict. The landscape is the same and the same people are sitting around the village bars. There are donkeys hobbled which are still used for transport and ploughing and beautiful horses, ridden in ancient looking saddles with leather stirrups. I’m trying to find someone who’ll let me ride their horse, as there don’t seem to be any riding schools round here.
Anchoring in the river is a bit of a hit and miss affair, as the currents run very strongly at the height of the ebb and flow of the tide, and sometimes the wind gets up. Boats regularly shift, sometimes quite alarmingly. A couple of hours after we anchored the first time we suddenly found ourselves shooting backwards downstream at a terrific rate and managed to get the engine going just before we crashed into another anchored yacht. We’ve had to move twice, but now seem to be well stuck into a nice patch of mud. We also only swim off the boat at slack tide for fear of being swept away! The water is not at all cold, although it is a bit muddy. We’ve become more brazen about swimming in the nude, as otherwise your cossie gets too dirty! It doesn’t matter about us, as we’re brown anyway! We can also have a hot shower from our solar bag afterwards. It’s still very hot in the day here, but cooler at night now that the sun is setting earlier.
There are people living in boats here who came for a couple of days to have a look and have stayed for years. Some have moved ashore. Many of the usual single blokes in their boats. There are a few English families living in the old fincas, without electricity, using a boat to get to the shops. Not that there are many shops. There are two food shops each side and a couple of bars. There is one ironmongery sort of a shop on the Portuguese side. There’s a fish van that calls, a bread van and a butcher’s van. I saw someone selling clothes from a van today.
In a couple of days we shall motor back down to the mouth of the river and put into the marina at Vila Real de Santo Antonio as we’re flying to UK for a visit. I’m not looking forward to being back in the town. After Culatra we had a few days in Ayamonte and were both in culture shock with the traffic and noise and just the amount of stuff there is in even the small towns that we can manage to live quite happily without. Up here in the hills, sometimes all you can hear is the sound of the insects happily buzzing about their business, and at night, to the accompaniment of the cicadas, the view of the stars is just astonishing without the light-pollution. We can see the Milky Way quite clearly. Still, it has to be done. I miss my girls and little Esmé is growing up. We also have a long list of stuff we need for the boat which we can’t get here.
We shall explore further along this coast, the Costa de Luz, when we return for our first winter aboard.

Culatra - little Carriacou in Europe!

I’m glad I came now. This place is wonderful. The sea, although not as warm as that in the Caribbean, is at least not cold. We’ve been swimming every day off an almost empty beach. Miles of sand, clear clean water, and it doesn’t freeze your whatsits off. But first I have to tell you about all the stuff we’ve done before we got here.
Sines (pronounced Sinch) was a lovely little town on Portugal’s west coast. We liked it there, but the sea wasn’t warm enough for us and it suffered from the Atlantic fog. We also didn’t get much sleep because of the bands playing nearly all night, very very loud, because, guess what? They were having a fiesta. This time it was Our Lady of Somewhere, or the Virgin of somesuch.
Shalini, Heymede and Fair Joanda, three British boats with whom we had socialised on and off since the Rias, turned up and we drank several jugs of sangria – a dangerous and seductive drink. It tastes benign, but this just leads one on to buy another jugfull. Oh dear.
We planned to leave early one morning to make the long trip round Cabo São Vicente (the Land’s End of the Iberian Peninsula) only to be beset by the FOG. We waited for another couple of days, which was good, as we got to see the rescue services and harbour officials showing off what they could do. They created an “oil” slick of popcorn, then put booms in place and a big scoopy thing on the front of a boat and “hovered” it up – well, most of it, anyway. Then we went ashore and followed the procession as they brought a statue of the Virgin out of the church and carried it on high, in a solemn procession, with the Priest and marching bands and a choir, and Uncle Tom Cobbley, through the streets (for quite some way) stopping to pray from time to time, then they loaded her onto a stinky fishing boat, all decorated (as were most of the fishing boats) with flags and palm leaves and flowers, and everyone piled onto boats (carrying coolboxes full of beer!) and paraded her around the harbour. There was much jollity and drinking and hooting of horns.
We eventually set off and managed to round “the cape”. It did remind us of our first long voyage in Sally when we brought her from Holyhead to Poole. After 50 odd hours at sea (the last 12 of which had been horrendous), we rounded Longships Light at Land’s End at dawn and got into Newlyn, the little fishing harbour, where I was never so glad before or since to tie up and have a cup of tea. It wasn’t so bad rounding S. Vicente – we were in teeshirts and shorts all day, but Baleeira did remind us of Newlyn. Just a little fishing harbour, nothing to encourage the yachtsmen at all, least of all the price of beer in the local bars - €2.50 for a 33cl bottle of Sagres! Also we were unable to find a supply of fresh water. Talk about the hunter/gatherers – we spend most of our life looking for available taps, fresh veg, bread, and from time to time, Camping Gaz bottles. The Pilot Book says that you can get water from the place where they sell diesel to the fishing boats. Well, you can’t. I asked the dive shop, who had a hose running out all over the floor and they said no. I accidentally wandered into the Doca da Peixa (literally fish dock, I think, but it’s where the fish are sold on the quay) and, using international sign language, ascertained from a minion that I could fill up my container from the tap marked Agua Potavel. When I came back with my other containers, I was met by the man in the blue official shirt with Doca da Peixa embroidered on his heart, and was told in no uncertain stream of Portuguese invective that I couldn’t have water and what did I think I was doing wandering in there in the first place, damn cheek. I couldn’t understand a word of what he said, but he made himself pretty clear, all the same. I smiled and got on my bike.
Portimão, east of Lagos, in the heart of the Algarve tourist development, must have been a stunning place once upon a time, and would be again if you could get rid of the tourists and the accompanying annoyances, like ribs towing squealing teenagers on bananas and the dreaded jetskitoes. Whoever invented those, eh? Still, we had a pleasant stay, and the violent wash from the speeding fishing boats, all wanting to be the first ones in with their catch to get the best prices, was much more annoying than the tourists. I was actually thrown off my seat onto the floor of the cockpit one day when the combined wash from a fishing boat and the “pirate” ship that takes trippers out to see the caves hit Sally at anchor. It was also an hour in the dinghy up the river to the nearest Pingo Doce (a really good Portuguese supermarket) and back, still having to ride the wash from the fishing boats, ribs, pirate ships, ferries, navy ships, etc. We never got back dry. It was an art keeping the bread dry.
There was a really nice bar on the beach, though, on the Ferragudo side, which is less developed, with lots of sofas and floor cushions. Very relaxing. I tried the Cataplana, which is a very nice kind of fish stew. We had some good walks along the cliffs and looked into the caves. That coast line has a most interesting geology. Quite majestic. While we were in Portimão we were accompanied by a fleet of huge international racing yachts from all over the world competing in the Audi Med Cup. Wow. They made us look puny. It did mean that there was very loud music every night, as the crews all had to party, party, party. We’re used to it now.
But here we’ve found a haven. It’s like a Caribbean island. We’re anchored off Culatra, which is a small island (really a big pile of sand) in the lagoon where the rivers from Faro and Olhão meet. There are no cliffs here, it is sand dunes. It is part of a designated Nature Reserve and seems to be immune to those that build tourist developments. The beaches are used, but you only have to walk little way to get a large stretch to yourself and many people seem to enjoy swimming and sunbathing as nature intended. It’s a lovely freedom to be able to swim naked. Oh, and the best thing is, it’s cheap. The beer in the bars here is only 80 cents! We’re hanging around here for a while before we move on to explore the Rio Guadiana, the boundary, then we’ll be back in Spain.

Catch up from Portugal

Well, I thought it was about time I wrote something in case you think we’ve drowned. We haven’t. We’re fine. We’re now in Sines, which is south of Lisbon, in Portugal. It’s hot and sunny, but the sea is still rather bracing. I managed once round the boat and back on board for a solarbag shower yesterday. Andy didn’t go in as he was put off by my screams.
Too much has happened for me to tell you everything here. You’ll just have to wait for the book to come out.
A very brief resumé, then:
At Portosin we failed to hire a car (no es posible) to see ElCurro and La Rapa das Bestas (where the wild horsemen of the Spanish mountains grapple wild horses to the gound, cut off their manes and brand them with a hot iron to show they’ve “tamed” them.)
Hung around in the next Ria (Ria de Arosa) waiting for another Curro up the mountain, which we went to but it was rained off.
I wanted to go home as I was sick of living on a boat with only Andy to talk to, so we headed north back to Muros.
I changed my mind when we met other English people to talk to and went to the all night dancing of the Fiesta (the Virgin of Carmen, patron saint of fishermen, this time) and we headed south again.
Andy nearly had a nervous breakdown.
Saw lots of interesting stuff in between.
Have a scan down the photos for some of it.
Catch you l8r.

Yay!

Good news! Colin and Tui arrived in the Azores on Friday night. Phew! We don't have to call out the Coastguard Helicopters.

Santiago de Compostela.

I went to Santiago De Compostela, Liz didn’t; she was struck down by Migraines, and an over exposure to my company. I went alone, braving the bus system and everything and got there all by myself. See if you can spot the difference between my mangled use of the enlish languaguge and Liz’s more polished prose.
I’m sure you’ve all heard of this place, I hadn’t until I visited Northern Spain for the first time, but then, as I am constantly reminded, I am a bit of a cultural barbarian, favouring The Honda Outboard Motor Maintenance Manual to the works of Jean Paul Sartre. The more attentive reader may remember the Blog covering our visit to Luarca where I took a passable snap of the scallop shell symbol that marks the pilgrim’s route through Spain and France to this, if I can mix my religious persuasions, Mecca.
Our main reference work on board to Spain, the Lonely Planet, babbles on about Santiago ( Saint James to you and I) and a stone boat that carried his remains for reasons that seemed a Good Idea At The Time from the Holy Land to the Atlantic Spain. When docked , they carried St James’s body inland some 17km inland before burying him. They then decided not to mark the grave or anything and return in their stone boat. Some time later a hermit suddenly thought that the grave of Saint James might be somewhere near, and using a handy Guiding Star found exactly the right place. The second part of the name of the place – Compostela - comes from this star-following malarkey.
The excellent Wikipedea give a slightly less unbelievable explanation as to how the place got there, but one way or another there it is. Arrive and you can see there has been an overly keen interest in building religious structures, churches, cathedrals, and shrines for quite some time. More than you can shake a stick at.
For the non RC visitor the cathedrals etc look absolutely fine from the outside, but enter in and they seem very alien indeed. Gold leaf, or probably just golden paint, and statues of the Virgin Mary, and others that I’m sure weren’t mentioned at my Methodist Sunday School: Saint Salome? Perhaps I just wasn’t paying attention at the time, but I’m pretty sure there are far more luminaries in the RC version than the one I was pointed at.
There are loads of people here, coachloads of them, and we are all armed with the same map. This means that if your peaceful appreciation of the Cathedral’s impressive interior is spoilt by, say 40 Germans piling into what was a quiet corner, then the same thing will happen at the Church of Saint Sebastian ( A nice example of the extended cast version of Christianity, have you heard of him?). That said I really enjoyed my wander about. I found museums, art galleries, exhibitions as well as the religious buildings I expected. Obviously I didn’t actually go into any of the secular ones, as I Would Not Have Understood.
Crowded, but not excessively so, I took three and half hours to do the recommended 3 hour route.
The map also gives a , and here I quote, “ A tour around the parks and gardens bordering the old town, with views of the monumental quarter, convents, monuments and singular contemporary architectures” Not put off in the slightest by that last bit I set out.
Where did everybody go? Suddenly the Pilkington’s Detective Agency, in the guise of the 40 Germans, had been given the slip, and I was on my own Paseoing like a professional. This was much better, in the parks and staring at big views, I felt like I should be there, rather than an imposter in the churches. The only problem was, if I took a wrong turn, that the Pilkington’s Detective Agency weren’t around to set me back on the trail, pardner. Ok I knew I was lost and had a map, so if I grunted at a local and pointed at the map, then they would know, by a process akin to osmosis, that I just needed to be pointed in the right direction. Let me tell you doubting Thomas’s ( I’ve heard of him) that this actually works, with me answering the unintelligible response to my grunts with a cunning mixture of Spanish-for-beginners, and for reasons even I can’t fathom, French and English, I managed to keep on the path. Then I hit on a more successful plan, this is hard to explain, but surprisingly easy to implement: you simply ask people who can speak English for directions, and suddenly there is no language barrier at all.
My wander around was a joy, marred only by some of the “singular contemporary architectures”. I just don’t get this building inside out, covered in rust, or just looking like it might be OK when finished stuff, but then I found something I liked, The Remodelling of Aveinida Xoan XXIII, and there’s a picture of the thing too. The glass roof offered a sense of space that nearly made paseoing seem like a sensible way to pass an hour or two. My visit was nearly at an end, I turned a corner and entered the intriguing Pracina de Penas, and there my eyes took in a sight I didn’t think possible. Was it a mirage or some kind of holy intervention? The place is famous for it after all. Glimmering in a halo of pure light I beheld a sign, and I finally realised why people tramp over the Picos de Europas to get here. Could it be true – “O Triangulo Das Verduras – Restaurante Vexetariano” a veggy restaurant! The first one in over a thousand nautical miles.

Another Blog from Portosín

Andy’s gone off to Santiago de Compostela on his own on the bus today. I’m staying here feeling weedy with a slight stomach upset and a migraine. I’ve managed to get some washing done and got the shade tent up over the boat, which helps enormously. It is very hot here.
You can see from the pix that Muros was a charming little town with winding lanes, stone steps and fresh water springs. It was like being at home in Chalford, only warmer, by the sea, and everyone speaking Galician Spanish. We were charmed and amazed by the trouble that the locals went to decorate the streets with colourful patterns for the Festival of Corpus. They started on Friday with cutting up box-loads of flowers and fennel and other leaves. On Saturday there were still lots of people doing the cutting up, while others were beginning to mark the road with chalk using a cardboard template. Saturday evening they were making the lovely patterns with coloured crystals. There was an elaborate picture of two swans and a moon at one end of the trail. On Sunday morning they were hard at it making patterns from the petals and leaves and setting up altar tables with astonishingly white cloths, edged in local lace, candles, and floral displays with lilies. Some people were hanging banners of the Spanish flag on their balconies. The bells were calling the people to church several times that day. We walked the length of the decorations from the swans to the church, which must have been over a mile, through the charming lanes, being very careful not to tread on any of the displays. The fragrance was intoxicating. In the evening we waited outside the church, with the band and other spectators until the people started to come out. They eventually set off in procession with some altar boys in front carrying candles and crosses on tall poles, then came several men carrying banners on tall poles. There was a bunch of boys and girls, walking in pairs, all dressed up in white dresses and sailor suits. The girls were carrying baskets of flowers. Then came the priest in his ornate robes with six men all carrying a pole to hold the red and gold canopy over his head. After him there was a band playing a mournful and solemn march tempo. They didn’t follow the trail, but walked down to the main road which goes along the harbour side. We nipped down for a cold one at a bar and waited for them to come past. They walked the length of the main road then up to where the swans were, but kept stopping all the way. Once there the priest had a swig of the wine and some bread and there was a choir of men and women all dressed up in penguin suits (men) and matching blouses (women) and some ceremony (which we missed but wouldn’t have known what they were doing anyway.) Then, they carried on marching slowly, but this time they followed the trail of flowers back to the church. They tramped all over it all, stopping for more ceremony and swigs of wine at various “altars” along the route. On Monday morning, when I went ashore to buy bread, it was all gone, swept away.
That was when I got swamped by the waves getting out of the dinghy and had to go the supermarket absolutely dripping. We’d been awake most of the night because of the strong winds and we must have got up at least 6 or 7 times to check that the anchor was holding, which it was. On the way back in the dinghy the transom fell in half and poor old Hondy fell right in. Luckily we had her tied to a bit of rope and Andy got her back on board, but then I had to row about half a mile against a very strong wind, with a bag of shopping between my knees, trying to keep the bread dry, while Andy nursed Hondy on his lap.
We motored off across the Riá a few miles to Portosín in search of shelter and a good night’s sleep.

Portosín is not very charming at all and the marina is very expensive. We’re paying just over €20 a night here. It was only €9 in Camariñas. Okay, the showers are bigger here and there is wifi. There’s also a washing machine and driers, but you have to pay for them, anyway. It’s a bigger marina and not so friendly. We’re only staying here because it’s the nearest place to get the bus to Santiago de Compostela. However, I’m not well, so we’re a bit stuck. That’s why I’ve sent Andy off on his own today. I want to leave here. We may go back to Muros, where we anchored for free. It’s not good if the wind’s strong from the north and east, though. Still, it’s time we moved on. There are more Rías to see.
Oh. The effort. It’s too hot. I want to go home. I don’t have a home. I don’t think the nomadic life suits me at all. It’s nearly all finding a supermarket then finding what you want in it. We have to shop little and often as otherwise the stuff goes off. I’m thinking of writing a book called “Round Spain Without a Fridge”. Andy loves not going to work and messing about with engines and stuff. He spent yesterday taking Hondy apart and putting her back together. She runs now. Hurray! Before he did it, though, he had to mend the dinghy transom. He went to the hardware store for nuts and bolts and came back saying they didn’t have any. The woman offered him hinges. I went back with him and showed her a bolt and nut and washer. We got some. They’re not stainless, but they’ll work for while until we can get stainless, or they’ll just rust in place until they fail again. The ancient dinghy, Achilles, needs a repair, as the ring that holds the rope round the edge by which we lift it, pulled out. We did try gluing it, but it failed again. When Andy was trying to test out the Honda he first had to mend the transom and fit it to the already broken dinghy, which he tried to blow up, but the pump broke. So he then had to mend the pump. At the end he had a sense of achievement of getting broken things to work again. I’d been out and bought tomatoes. Aaaaagh. It’s driving me nuts.
As my friend, Helen, said, real nomads take their families and lives with them, not just their Andys. It was more fun when I had a life outside of the boat and Andy. It’s not a nomad’s life, but a life of being on holiday all the time. It’s not as good as you’d think. Imagine eating only chocolate. You’d be craving mashed potatoes, even the peeling of them first.
I think it’s time for my siesta. It’s getting very very hot. I expect Andy will be back with lots of photos for me to post on the blog.
Hasta luego.

Muros and Portosin.

I've put on a load of pix and will write some more when I get around to it. I'm suffering a bit from getting too hot today. I went for a swim, but it was freezing! We hope to get the bus to Santiago de Compostela tomorrow.

We had huge fun and games the other day in Muros when the dinghy broke and the outboard fell in. Later,on our way to Portosin to get out of the wind, we lost our deck brush overboard. Despite our rigorous training our B.O.B recovery took about 25 attempts. I'm glad it wasn't me in that cold water waiting to be hauled out. The brush doesn't seem to have suffered at all and it was gratifying to find it floats. Not sure about poor old Hondy yet. (That's the name Andy calls the outboard motor.)

We're in desperate need of some stainless steel nuts and bolts (pernos y tuercas)to fix the transom on Achilles. (That's the name of our aged blow-up dinghy.)

Camariñas

The windows are steamed up. There are wet jackets, trousers, shoes, socks, hats, and more draped all around the boat. There’s a bucket of wet clothes, washed and rinsed and waiting to be hung out to dry. The floor is damp. My shoes are damp. My trousers are damp. The wind has been shrieking round the mast for the past 3 days: the rain hammering against the coach roof. The wind generator is whizzing round fit to bust – it’s a wonder the boat doesn’t take off, but it’s well tied to the pontoon, with extra ropes. It’s June and we’re in Spain!
Last night Andy, Colin and I climbed into our foul-weather gear, boots ‘n’ all, and intrepidly made our way up the pontoon and beat our way through the extreme weather to a restaurante, where we had a very nice meal of fresh caught fish – the fishing boats still go out, even though most of us yachtsmen are hiding in the marina. There are even some yachts (large ones, I might add) that still keep coming and going – gawd knows why – why would anyone choose to go out in weather like this? There were warnings of Force 10 storms on the Spanish Meteo this morning. By the way, Andy didn’t eat the fish, but amazingly, after asking around at several establishments, we found one that was willing to cook something for a “vegetariano”. The woman had even heard of the word and didn’t look at Andy as if she couldn’t understand how he was still standing upright when he obviously had no pulse. We also sampled the local speciality: Pimientos de Padrón, which are little green peppers fried whole in very hot olive oil then sprinkled with coarse salt while still sizzling. They are very good.
So, I’m down to one novel left to read. After that, it’s “Heavy Weather Sailing” or “Storm Tactics”, both enough to put the fear of god into anyone even contemplating going near a boat. I’m going to have to brave the outdoors and ask on all the British boats here if they’ve got any books to swap. They must have. What else are they doing holed up in their cabins? Apart from looking at weather forecasts on the internet, of course. It is supposed to be improving tomorrow and going to be nice for quite a few days after that. Colin is planning to leave tomorrow for Muros (probably motor-sailing with little wind and in the wrong direction) then set out for The Azores on Saturday. We’ll probably leave it till Friday to go to the Ría de Muros, as we think we’ll get more help from the wind then. It’s supposed to get a lot easier once we’re round Finisterre, with warm balmy weather, a south-going current, and the northerly Portugese trade wind. It can’t be any worse than this. Then it’s steadily southwards, we hope.
Camariñas isn’t a bad place to be stuck in bad weather. The supermarcados are near the marina, there is fuel to be had at the quay and the showers are hot. Hidden away in a maze of cobbled lanes is the best bread bakery I’ve ever been to. (That’s saying something as my father was a Master Baker and Confectioner and I grew up with the run of two bakehouses and three shops.) The O Forno Novo (Galician for the New Oven) is a small bakehouse where trays of hand-crafted loaves are heaved into and out of the ovens and when you’ve chosen your warm loaf, the lady in the corner weighs it to sell it by the kilo. If you want a smaller loaf, they’ll cut it in half for you. It’s delicious.
We’ve also managed to get out for some walks, sometimes it even stopped raining for some of the time. We, with Colin, went for a long tramp out to the lighthouse on Cabo Villano. It took us a couple of hours along a coast path, past tiny fields of potatoes, sweet corn and cabbages, past a tiny chapel of the Virgin of the Mount. As we climbed up the hill to the base of the lighthouse we could see the rain coming in over the sea. The wind was strong enough to lean on, as it whipped up spume from the waves smashing onto the rocks beneath us. They call this bit O Costa da Morte. You can translate that Galician for yourselves. Amazingly there was a museum about the history of the lighthouse out there. I think we were the only visitors that day, or maybe that week. The receptionist there must have been even lonelier than the old lighthouse keepers were in the days before automation. We walked back through the wind farm. The whole of the coast we have seen from Gijón onwards, through Asturias and Galicia, is all wind turbines and forestry. It’s very green. That’ll be the rain in Spain.

Floating again!

Well on Tuesday the sun came out and the anti-fouling arrived. After one day it was on the bottom of our boat. Thursday evening we were launched back into the water. It was quite scary being on the boat as it was rolling backwards down the concrete slip, held only by a fork lift truck with a ripped tyre. We had to guess what all the men were saying, and communicated, as usual, by a mixture of Spanish and sign-language. Anyway,we got the boat afloat, turned it round, and off we went on our first voyage for 7 months. It was all of 500 metres to the pontoon!

We're still here. Our plans to leave were held up by Andy spending a day taking the outboard motor for the dinghy to bits. There were lumps of rust in the carburettor. Then our friend, Colin, turned up after a horrendous crossing of Biscay, during which he weathered two storms and an engine failure as he tried to come into Cedeira in the pitch dark in a gale. I'm so glad it wasn't me. He's here recovered now and it's great to hang out with him for a bit until he sets off for the Azores.

We hope to go out into the Ria tomorrow for a shake-down, before leaving on Monday, maybe. As ever, it depends on the weather/swell forecast. Yesterday was blistering heat, as we scrubbed and hosed down the boat in our swimming costumes. Today there's a thick fog in the Ria and a cold wind.

We've also bought a gismo for the computer which will give us mobile phone access to internet for when we need weather forecasts in places without wifi. Hopefully this will save us some marina charges.

Andy's out buying cerveza. We're eating dinner on Colin's boat, Tui, this evening. He dined on Sally last night.

The rain in Spain stays mainly in the Ria de Ares.

It's been pouring all night and all day and it's cold and the paint still hasn't arrived. even if it does, it's too wet to use it. Andy's taking the boat apart inside trying to source and stop the water which is coming in and soaking everything in the nav table. It's not that much fun. The Concello internet still isn't working, so I put on my foul weather gear and took myself to the Biblioteca and the free wifi.

Time to go back for a glass of wine now. At least that's cheap here.

Here we are again....... Back in Ares

Prepare yourselves to catch up.
Andy and I are recovering from our heart attacks at the price of “pintura de anti-incrustante” (antifouling paint) in Spain. It’s expensive in England, anyway. We usually pay about £60 or so for 5 ltrs every year, but were left open-mouthed when we bought some from the boatyard here and it was a stonking €180 for 2.5 ltrs! Luckily it turned out that we’d bought the wrong stuff and were able to return it for a refund. We’ve ordered some from the same guy in England where we’ve always bought it and it’s £100 for 5 ltrs, delivered to Spain in a van. Trouble is we now have to wait for it to arrive. They said it should come today. As our friend, Colin, said, why don’t we cover the boat in gold leaf? It would be cheaper and the barnacles won’t stick to it. Colin is on his way single-handed to the Azores, mad fool. We’re hoping to meet up with him somewhere here in north-west Spain in the next week or two. At the moment, we’re not going anywhere, as we’re still on the yard in Ares. At least the sun is shining. For the first week we were here it was cold and raining and I was missing the turquoise blue of the Caribbean sea. All that swimming has faded into a distant memory now.
We did enjoy a couple of weeks in England staying in a delightful holiday cottage in our village. I can recommend Christine Felce’s Didi http://www.cotswoldaccommodation.co.uk/ for self-catering or B&B if any of you or your friends fancy a holiday in Chalford. We were very busy, shopping and shopping for clothes and things for the boat and seeing people and dandling young Esmé (who is now 1 yr old and gorgeous.) We hadn’t bought any clothes for about 2 years and most of what we had been wearing in the Caribbean all winter had worn out, what with the sweat, the sea and the sun damage. I think the same has happened to my skin. We also had dentist’s appointments and eye tests.
As I said, our time in the Caribbean seems long ago. It was interesting and relaxing and a lot of the time I was bored. However, that was one of the things I wanted to find out. I now know that I don’t want to live there. There isn’t enough for me to do. It is also too hot to want to do anything. It was getting very very hot during March and April as the sun came directly overhead and I was glad to be leaving. I was also looking forward to going back to Europe, where there is some kind of civilisation: the streets are cleaned, there’s architecture, art and music and people wear underwear. I know there’s music in the Caribbean, lots of it, but, well, it isn’t exactly Mozart. It’s just loud.
We made some good friends out there, though. We had a little party at the pizzeria on our last night. I’ll put some pix on here when I can get some decent internet access. We usually do have a very good free wifi signal from the Concello, but it’s not been working for a day or two. I went there today, but it was shut for the festival of Santa Rita who is the patron saint of civil servants, can you believe? This meant that the Biblioteca, the other place where we can get free wifi, is also shut for the day.
Meantime we’re waiting for Pedro to come and fix a little bit of damage to the floor of our heads (boat toilet, to you landlubbers). During the winter they had some fierce weather here and Paco and his men had put some extra props under our boat. One of the wedges they’d driven in had bent the hull slightly, which had pushed the floor up inside and cracked it. Paco is used to more modern boats which have thinner hulls and can flex more. We don’t think there’s any damage to the hull, and they are going to fix it for us. Mind you, Pedro has said he was coming every day for the last 3 days, and we’re still waiting. It reminds me of the Caribbean all over again. However, we can see him working on other boats. It’s not that “a man needs to rest”. They are very busy because at this time of year everyone wants their boat fixed up and got ready to go back on the water for the summer. They work funny hours here, though. Start at 10am and go on until 2pm. They start again at 4.30pm and work until 8pm. We eat our meals at English times, and are quite out of kilter with the locals. We go to bed when it’s still light and they’re just having their dinner.
After seeing a lot of friends and family in England, I felt quite lonely when we first got here. We had made a lot of friends in Tyrrel Bay, Carriacou. It was easy. They spoke English , were into boats, and had lots of time to hang out. Here they speak Spanish. Actually, they speak Gallegan, which I can’t understand at all. They can understand me when I’ve worked out what I need to say in my best Spanish, but when they answer I just stand there looking stupid. I’ve had a lot of practice at that. Also, we’re going to be moving on, as soon as we can. Maybe this is why I feel the need to write my blog again. An outlet for my need to chat.
I’m used to living on the boat on the yard now. I think I’m getting thinner, as I’m up and down a ladder about 50 times a day. I haul containers of water up. I haul the night-time bucket down. I ride my bike to the toilet many times a day. I also use it to go the shops. Even though this is a very friendly little place where people are helpful and polite, we carefully lock our bikes up every night. We haven’t forgotten the inconvenience and frustration caused when they were nicked in France. Still, it will be very nice to be floating again. I just hope that the anti-incrustante arrives soon.

Life Goes On

As it says, life goes on here. I haven't felt inclined to write much lately. It began to feel like a restriction to have to remember everything and everybody to write about. Then it began to feel like I was obliged to do stuff I could write about. So, we're carrying on sailing, swimming, walking about and meeting people and making friends and eating and drinking.

I will write again, when I feel like it, but I will still be putting pix on, so keep tuning in to look at those.

Getting used to it.

I'm getting used to it here.

More sailing

Well it's been a ripping couple of days. Andy and I took Cocoa, the little boat belonging to Hutch, into the mangroves with a bottle of fizzy white and some left overs for lunch. (Rice with a mess of sweet potato, plantain, beans, pumpkin, onion, garlic, chillies, peppers, aubergine, callaloo, ginger, nutmeg and hot pepper sauce in coconut milk. We sailed across the bay into the mangroves and dumped our sail on the beach. We then rowed into the mangroves and let the wind take us all the way down to the end, about a mile, or so. We drifted while we drank Buck's fizz and ate our lunch and fended off trees when we bashed into them. There were a lot of brown jelly fish in there and oysters growing on the tunks of the mangrove trees. These trees put down long shoots downwards into the water, where they grow roots. The best bit was siting comfortably in the stern while making Andy row me all the way back out of the mangrove. My goal is for him to develop a six pack like Beckham's. Haven't made much headway in that direction so far. More of a barrel than a six pack.

Anyway, after we sailed back, finished the wine and had a swim we went to the pizzeria, where we managed to firm up on an invitation for a sail with Frank Pearce on Tradition. She is an old Carriacou workboat which he has restored and this was her inaugural shake down sail. It wasn't long, but it was really fun. There were about 8 of us crew all hauling and heaving on the ropes. This is a wooden gaff rigged boat, not a winch or an electric button in sight. It was most interesting. Once we were back on her mooring and sucking up beers and a wicked rum punch brought along by Andy Smelt who runs a sail loft here, we saw Nutmeg sail into the bay. We had met Ollie and Sarah and their two little girls on Nutmeg in France and Spain last summer. They crossed on the ARC (Atlantic Rally Crossing) in November/December. We shall be meeting up with them again soon for drinks and to point them at the sights.

I'm going to start cooking now as Ted is coming for dinner before he disappears to England for 6 weeks. He seems to think we've volunteered to take care of the sailing club while he's away. HEEEELP! At least I'll be able to put Acting Commodore, Yacht Club, Caribbean, on my CV!

Getting some sailing in

Well I suppose I’d better drag myself onto the keyboard to tell you what we’ve been up to. Oh, it’s such an effort. I feel myself being sucked deeper and deeper into the space-time continuum that masquerades as normal life here. We always used to call this place “the land where no one gives a flying fuck.” I have not changed my opinion. Do you know that song that goes: “I’m busy doing nothing, working the whole day through, trying to find lots of things not to do. I’m busy going nowhere, isn’t it such a crime? I’d like to beeeeeeeee unhappy, but I really don’t have the time.”? That’s my life. I love it.

We have done stuff, though. We went sailing on New Year’s Day with Chris Morejohn in Hogfish Maximus, which he designed and built himself. It was really a most interesting boat and he was a most interesting man. He’s done so much stuff, building boats, houses, painting, making sculptures. He’s just finished building himself a house in the Bahamas. His boat, a 34ft sailing yacht, has a flat bottom and a big centre board which is winched into position, giving a draft of about 7ft. It sailed brilliantly, which is just as well, as he doesn’t have an engine in it, so he had us tacking through the anchorage and between the islands and reefs. It points well to windward and is a good stiff sailing boat. It has lots more room inside than a conventional boat of that length has, and he can pull up the board and beach it!

One afternoon, I took out Hutch’s little Mosquito, called Cocoa, with the distinctive red, gold and green sail, while Andy sailed one of the Optis. We just tooled around the anchorage, looking at the boats, and trying not to hit them. The owners don’t like that. I find these little dinghies really uncomfortable to sail in and I was glad to put the thing back on the beach and go for a swim.

We did enjoy, however, going for a sail with Ted and his son, Josh, in the Yngling which belongs to Jeff, who owns the boatyard. He has a lot of boats. Collects ‘em. I think people sometimes take boats to the boatyard and forget to collect them again. He also gets hurricane damaged boats and fixes them up. He has a motor yacht which he rescued from the bottom of the bay after the last hurricane. The Yngling is quite a big dinghy, which is sailed by women in the Olympics. She was the best sail I’ve ever had – slips though the water like nobody’s business. We were hoping to get a team together with Ted and sail it in the regatta coming up in a week or two, but Ted’s just told us he’s going to England for 6 weeks to try and sort out an education for his children. Thoughtless bugger. I don’t think Andy and I are up to racing on our own. We could learn a lot from Ted and were hoping he’d give us a lesson in deployment of the spinnaker, although we’re not sure if “Little Bloody Mary”, the Yngling, has one.

We also had a fun day out this week in Lady M, which is a 57ft ketch built in a traditional style, except that she’s 33 tons of ferro-concrete. We sailed up to Union Island with Captain Bananas, had lunch off Frigate Island, and sailed back. Captain Bananas is an American with, shall we say, a chequered past. There seem to be quite a few blokes like that around these parts.
As far as the house goes, Joy has now brought us another curtain. We’re still waiting for the last one. He’s not keen on getting us another bed, so we’re going to have to borrow one if we get any guests.

Do you like the pic of the little post office? It’s a bit of a hot walk up there to collect any post. I went up there on the morning of Friday 2nd Jan and a guy hanging around the rum shop next door told me she was supposed to open at 10 am, but that she’d probably be there at about 10.30. I went for a walk and hung around under a tree for a while, but she never turned up at all. It was the Friday between New Year’s Day and a Saturday, so she evidently thought it wasn’t worth her while to open at all.

Andy is still fibre-glassing away on the GP 14, in between mending the Optis. It’s all one step forward and one back, though. He only does a couple of hours a day on them. As he says, a man needs to rest!