11th Sept in Sada

Tues 4th
Stopping in Viveiro ‘til the weather window arrives. Met Darren & Vicky off Nocturne who had arrived late last night and anchored off until this morning before coming into the marina. Did a bit of exploring around the old town and bought a jigsaw for 11 euros.

Wed 5th
Met Sergej & Isabelle ( and their 2 children, Alec & Katie [4 & 19months]) from SeaWalk, another Dutch boat. The social life is picking up now and we all have similar objectives to get as far along the coast as possible before getting stuck for the winter. SeaWalk (at the moment) are hoping to go to the Caribbean for a while, Nocturne have to attend to another boat that they were lifted from (by helicopter last year) before they head off to the Caribbean also. A lot of the time has been spent discussing plans, objectives, weather and past experiences… the price of red wine.. the greatness of each other’s Prime Minister… the wonders of the universe… the best places to get tappas… the things we miss most when away on the boat.. etc etc .
Also met Richard and Sabina off Hoya who have cruised this area for at least 20 years and have recently bought a house here. They will be heading back to Falmouth soon.

Thurs 6th
SeaWalk gets lifted out to change the prop back to the original fixed 3 blade rather than folding 3 blade because they loose too much speed motoring. All went OK although the dock area for the lift out by travel-hoist was a tight fit. Carolyn has a day cleaning and polishing the topsides and Trevor uses the jigsaw to make the plank of wood from Santander into a (3 in 1) fender board / boarding plank / ladder by cutting to size and cutting out foot-holes. Still having problems getting decent WiFi connection.

Fri 7th
A little more cleaning and had a chance to practice some more obscure Spanish trying to get a WiFi booster – must be getting better at saying the few words I know because the locals talk back very fast – as if I should understand..! Carolyn is having some therapy (looking after the under 5s) and misses all the ‘wee ones’ back home. C also went with Sergej to try to organise a present for Diana who has a special birthday soon.

Sat 8th
The big event of the day is to have a BBQ at the local park in order to have an early celebration for Diana’s birthday ( actually 11th Sept) – so we all make something to eat that we like and take along some drinks – load up the folding barrows / trolleys and walk through the town, Serg & Isabelle follow on bikes with the children on the bike seats.
What a great day … loads of lovely food, a little bit of wine or beer and the disposable barbi’s worked a treat… the people in the restaurant next to us in the park wondered why they had spent so much money and we were having the better time…
We played hide & seek with the kids and boules; there was a small play area for the kids and the beach a short walk across the road. Diana had a good time and was surprised to get a framed picture of Jaap in his hammock (working , eh??) and a Tee-shirt with the area map on.

Sun 9th
We catch a train to Ferrol (Diana, Jaap, Carolyn & Trevor) so that we can explore a little further – we (all boats) are all very ready to move further along the coast and have checked the weather so it will be a mass exodus from Vivero tomorrow. When we get back to the marina we call in to say to Serg & Isabelle that we will be leaving in the morning & find out that they have also decided to move along to Sada tomorrow.

Mon 10th
We leave first at 6:10 am because we are the slowest boat, Vicky and Darren are already up & getting ready, the others will not be too long behind us. Richard and Sabina may be setting off for Falmouth today so we wish them well with the passage. It’s dark until about 7:30 or 7:45 but there were not too many fishermen out in their wee boats so we get to the high seas without any problems. When it gets day light we can see Nocturne a couple of miles behind and catching, SeaWalk comes on the radio to ask where we are and what the conditions are like – not too lumpy – not too much wind ( but it will get worse). It turned out to be a great sail to Sada (best average boat speed for a long while) we motored for the first 4 hours and then had the wind pretty much astern, so we were goose-winged for most of the day ( the wind following the turns at the headlands as we turned to make our course). As the wind picked up we reefed and were still making good knots. We had stayed further offshore and sailed most of the way but a couple of the other boats had been closer to the shore and experienced a couple of nasty blasts of wind that caused a broach ( not too bad but enough to tighten the sphincter); we didn’t have the same problems. We had about 11 hours at sea and the others were all in Sada Marina ready to take our shorelines and provide a glass of refreshment….

Tues 11th
Catch up with laundry by using Diana & Jaap’s washing machine (on the pontoon), do some shopping and plan a trip to Santiago de Compostella. Pay the marina fees and plan on moving to Camarinas on Thursday. Still need to prepare the photos but I haven’t forgotten.