1 September 1992 Falmouth
The weather is still pretty horrible so we worked on various jobs on the boat.
2 September 1992 Falmouth
The weather is still horrible so we worked on various jobs on the boat.
3 September 1992 Falmouth to Santander, Spain (Day 1)
We have a good forecast for the next few days so we set off at eight o’clock in the morning. Then we had to come back because I had forgotten to post the customs form saying that we were leaving the country. We set off again at nine o’clock.
It was a fairly grim night beating into a Force 6-7, cold wet and windy. We were getting gusts of 35 knots which is just short of a gale and the motion of the boat was pretty violent. Poor old John got an attack of seasickness and retired below to lie down with a bucket by his head. Glenys and I had taken Stugeron tablets and were feeling rough but could cope with the nausea. John was convinced that the best place for him to be was in his berth, lying down and throwing up into his bucket every so often. Personally I feel better staring at the horizon and taking big breaths!
4 September 1992 Falmouth to Santander, Spain (Day 2)
The wind dropped during the morning and the seas settled down. Motored all day and night in a flat calm. The damn autopilot did a 360 degree turn for no apparent reason. I am starting to feel better and had a small glass of wine with dinner.
5 September 1992 Falmouth to Santander, Spain (Day 3)
Blue skies, a flat sea and a 10 knot wind. To celebrate our good fortune, Glenys cooked an English breakfast which we ate while watching dolphins playing in the bow wave. Life is good sometimes.
We can only carry enough fuel to motor for 40 hours, so we couldn’t afford to motor too much this early in the passage. I’ve decided to motor during the night and to try to sail during the day. My logic is very simple – we can lounge around during the day and play with the sails to try to get as much boat speed as possible. It would also be too depressing to do night watches and only travel 25 miles in 12 hours.
Just after lunch, I plotted our position on the chart and found the we were at one of the deepest parts of the Bay of Biscay with a depth of about 4,300 metres. I found this very exciting and just HAD to go for a swim. John and Glenys didn’t seem too keen on the idea for some reason.
I cautiously climbed down the transom ladder and put my toe into the water. It was freezing.
Discretion being the better part of valour, I retreated back onto deck, donned my wet suit and then bravely plunged into the water. It’s a very eerie sensation swimming so far from land in water which is so deep. Goodness knows what lives at the bottom of the ocean and might take a fancy to a nice plump Neville. Two circuits of the yacht and that was enough - been there, done that.
Having dried off, my next hair-brained idea was to take some photographs of the boat sailing along - we had nothing else to do after all. We pumped the dinghy up on the foredeck, lowered it into the water and then attached our outboard.
The outboard is not my favourite device. I bought it from a man in Sussex when I knew nothing about outboard engines. It’s a very old Mercury 3.5 and I often have trouble starting the engine. Glenys was very worried about the fact that I was leaving the boat in the middle of the Bay of Biscay, but John was on board and was more than capable of sailing Glencora to “rescue” me. The exercise was very worthwhile because we ended up with some good photographs.
During daylight we have seen very few other boats, but John has become convinced that the Spanish fishing fleet waits over the horizon until his night watch and then deliberately starts to close in on us, surrounding us with their nets! They are “Purse-Seine” fishing, which involves pulling a very long net between two boats and then closing the loop to catch the fish. No doubt a very fine way to catch fish, but a nightmare to a sailor who could get caught out by sailing straight into the middle of it all. They use very powerful flashing lights on the boats at either end of the seine net which are visible from a great distance. John spent most of his night watch manoeuvring to avoid the fleets with their confusing lights.
6 September 1992 Falmouth to Santander, Spain (Day 4)
At five o’clock in the morning, we were motor sailing and John noticed that the oil pressure was reading low. Having already blown one engine up, I panicked and changed the oil filter before putting in some fresh oil. Nothing like having my head stuck inside an engine compartment early in the morning to make me feel seasick!
The day continued to be fine with a light wind against us again. The wind dropped at six am, so we put all the spare fuel into the tank and motored. We picked up a fair wind at ten o’clock and sailed towards the entrance to Santander.
One of the most exciting parts of sailing is approaching an unknown harbour. Unfortunately, the charts that I have of Santander are very small-scale charts which means that there isn’t a great amount of detail shown. I have a pilot book but that doesn’t give very good information either. I’m worried.
7 September 1992 Falmouth to Santander, Spain (Day 5)
At one o’clock in the morning, we were about five miles from Santander, I had to make a decision about whether we stayed offshore until daybreak or whether we attempted to enter this unknown, foreign port. I couldn’t face another night at sea so I decided that we would continue. As we got closer to the approaches to the port I flicked on the radar and tried to reconcile the lights that I could see with a trace on the radar. It seemed very peculiar to both John and me. There were many bright white lights and traces on the radar which didn’t match our charts. We cautiously continued hoping that the Spanish hadn’t built a new breakwater. We spent a very traumatic hour slowly approaching these bright lights until eventually we found out that they were very large ships at anchor. Breathing a sigh of relief, we carefully threaded our way through the ships and into the port of Santander.
The entrance started off as a very wide bay and, as we passed a rocky island to starboard, it quickly narrowed to a river about 50 metres wide. The pilot book stated that we should anchor just off the Club Nautica in good holding mud at a depth or five metres. We slowly moved down the river at 3 knots and eventually found what we thought was Club Nautica. We then motored round in circles trying to find a spot which was about five metres deep. Most of the river was 10 to 12 metres deep and the only place that we could find that was five metres deep had lots of small boat moorings in place. I decided that Glencora was too big for these moorings so we found a place off to the side, which was about 10 metres deep.
Now came the fun part - we had never anchored Glencora. In fact, I had only ever anchored once, which was on a lunchtime stop, with a sailing school, in beautiful calm conditions. Anchoring a heavy 39 foot cruising boat while exhausted, at three o’clock in the morning, in the pitch black, in a Spanish port was a totally different proposition. John’s experience of anchoring wasn’t much better than mine having only anchored his 26 ft yacht for lunchtime stops.
Anchoring is a Black Art. If you ask any group of sailors about the best way anchoring a boat, you will get a different answer from everyone. The size of anchor, the type of anchor, whether you should use chain or rope and the procedure for anchoring are all very emotive subjects – strongly contested in bars all over the world.
The first thing to do is calculate the length of chain required for the depth of water that you are intending to anchor in. The length of chain required is 3 to 7 times the depth of water (depending on wind and sea conditions.)
The sailing school procedure for anchoring is to lay out the correct length of chain onto the deck of the boat, tie the end of the chain on to a suitable cleat on the boat and then lower the anchor over the front of the boat so that it is just touching the water. When everything is prepared, the boat should then be turned into wind or into the tide (depending on which is stronger) and then the anchor is gently lowered until it hits the sea bed. At this point the boat is allowed to drift backwards while the anchor chain is slowly fed out, laying it along the bottom. The weight of a boat drifting will slowly dig the anchor fluke into the sea bed and the chain will then become tight. The boat’s engine should then be put into reverse, backing the boat away from the anchor, thus digging the anchor further into the sea bed and ensuring that the anchor is holding. Easy!
Leaving Glenys at the wheel, John and I walked to the front of the boat. We opened the hatch at the front and stared down at the windlass, which is a very simple device which helps to control the anchor chain. It has a clutch which allows you to feed the chain out of the chain locker in a controlled manner and, in our case, has an electric motor with a foot switch to pull the anchor chain back in. While back at Fox’s marina, I had diligently painted white marks on the chain every 10 metres and I had stripped down and repaired the windlass. Unfortunately, I had never used the windlass in anger. John had no experience of anchoring with a windlass.
We pulled some chain out of the chain locker. I lifted the anchor from its place in the anchor locker and, with much grunting and groaning, hung the 45lb anchor over the bow roller at the front of the boat. I made sure that the windlass clutch was tightened up so that the chain was held in position. So far so good! All we had to do now was to manoeuvre the boat into position, use the windlass clutch to slowly pay the chain out until the anchor hit the sea bed and then slowly pay out the chain as the boat drifted backwards.
With Glenys at the wheel, we manoeuvred into position and I gently pushed the clutch lever forwards to pay out some chain. Nothing happened. I then remembered that there was a small lever which locks the windlass wheel in place. I tightened the clutch, undid the locking lever and then slowly pushed the clutch lever forwards. Nothing happened. I gently pushed the clutch lever forward a little bit more. Nothing happened. I gently tapped the clutch mechanism. Nothing happened. I hit it a little harder. Suddenly with a great roar, the anchor plunged into the water and chain started to scream out of the windlass at great speed.
I frantically pulled the clutch lever back, but it still took me about 30 seconds to stop the chain. John and I stood there for a minute in total silence.
We decided that we didn’t know how much chain we had paid out so we decided to re-anchor. Unfortunately, when the chain had screamed out of the windlass, a small piece of nylon called a ”Chain Stripper” had broken. This insignificant piece of plastic which only costs £3 makes sure that the chain does not snag on the windlass capstan thereby preventing it from jamming. It took us 20 minutes to pull 70 metres of chain up from the sea bed, because the damn windlass kept jamming every two metres or so.
Our second attempt was a little more controlled mainly because we paid the anchor chain out by hand - having decided that the windlass was far too complicated for us to cope with at four o’clock in the morning. We attempted to back the boat up, but the anchor did not appear to hold. We had a third attempt but still couldn’t get the anchor to hold - I nearly cried. We decided to go find the marina that was mentioned in the pilot book.
Unfortunately, we had no charts of the port and the pilot book only gave a brief mention of the marina which “was further up the river.” In England, marinas are very clearly marked and the channels through a port are very apparent. Not so in Spain. We cautiously motored up the river following the big ship buoys but came to a point where small fishing docks started to open up to our starboard. After following the edge of this channel for a few minutes, I decided that we had missed the main channel up the river and that we ought to find it again. We looked around and spotted the green and red buoys for the main channel about 800 metres away. I cautiously pointed to boat towards these two buoys while keeping a sharp eye on the depth gauge.
The depth started at about five metres by the fishing docks and slowly started to decrease as we headed towards the main channel. Suddenly the depth went from 3.5 metres to one metre and with a big thump we hit the bottom. We were aground in the middle of a Spanish port at 4 o’clock in the morning. Not quite the landfall that I had in mind.
I quickly put the engine into reverse and slowly, majestically, we ground and bumped our way off the bank which we had hit. I took an executive decision and decided that, because we didn’t know where the hell we were, we would go back down the river and try again to anchor by the side of the Club Nautica.
We eventually anchored off the yacht club at five o’clock in the morning. We had changed our anchoring technique so that we laid the anchor chain out on the sea bed but didn’t bother to power the boat backwards. I put out 50m of chain which was more than necessary in this depth of water, but we still didn’t know whether the anchor had set properly. John and I spent 10 minutes staring at and feeling the anchor chain, but our only reward was strange rumbling noises. Glenys made a cup of tea and then I said that I just had to go to sleep. John (bless his cotton socks) gamely volunteered to stand anchor watch until daylight. Unfortunately, it started to rain and it didn’t get light until fairly late. He didn’t look his best when I got up at 8 o’clock!
After a cooked breakfast, John and Glenys went to find the Spanish customs to clear us and the yacht into Spain. They were passed from one government building to another until they eventually found someone who was willing to sign a piece of paper. The piece of paper that we were given appeared to be a temporary importation document for the yacht rather than any customs clearance. What the hell, at least we tried!
When going ashore in the dinghy, we met Neville and Margaret from “Bonnie Day” who were anchored next to us. They were going into town to do some shopping. Our first real yachties.
Just after midday we raised anchor, motored up the river and found the marina. We booked in, and caught a taxi into town where we got very drunk on Vino Tinto and Tapas. Welcome to Spain!
8 September 1992 Santander, Spain
Glenys and John caught the ferry back to Plymouth and left me at the boat.
9 September 1992 Santander, Spain
I worked on the boat. Glenys met her mum in Plymouth and got back onto the ferry with the boys.
10 September 1992 Santander, Spain
Glenys and the boys arrived back in Santander. We went to the beach.
11 September 1992 Santander Marina to Santander Beach
We left the marina in the middle of the afternoon. We stopped off at a fuelling berth in a fishing port. While I was filling up the tank it overflowed (probably because of back pressure). Diesel went everywhere. They wouldn’t take a credit card and we didn’t have enough pesetas, so we ended up paying in US dollars at an outrageous exchange rate – cost us an extra £15!
We then motored out to anchor off the Playa de Magdalena Beach, which is beautiful.
12 September 1992 Santander Beach
We had a great day on the beach and then motored back to the marina in the evening to get my wash bag that I had left behind. We went back and anchored off the beach again.
13 September 1992 Santander Beach to Gijon (Day 1)
I worked on the boat sorting out the second anchor cable while Glenys took the boys to the maritime museum. When they came back, we went to the beach again for the afternoon.
We left the anchorage at half past seven in the evening bound for Gijon 100 miles along the coast. We motored for about two hours then had a nice 10 knot wind to sail.
All was going OK until just before midnight when we hit some sort of fishing buoy. The rope for the buoy had caught around the rudder or propeller and we were dragging it along. We hove to and I pulled in the buoy and as much rope as I could. The water was about 150 metres so there was a lot of rope. The rope seemed to come clear when I had a lot of slack, so I dropped the lot in and the buoy disappeared into the night.
I was very worried that the propeller had been damaged, so when the wind dropped about two hours later, we did a lot of praying before turning on the engine. Thankfully all seems well.
14 September 1992 Santander Beach to Gijon (Day 2)
We arrived at Gijon just after lunch. Unfortunately, it was low water and there are a lot of nasty looking rocks on the approach and it is quite tight. We berthed on the nearest pontoon in 2.7 metres of water.
We looked around Gijon in the afternoon.
15 September 1992 Gijon, Spain
Glenys did jobs on the boat and I took the boys to the beach.
16 September 1992 Gijon, Spain
I did various jobs on the boat, including changing the engine oil filters and oil. We went to the fuel dock and filled up with diesel. We met Andrew and Sara on a Princess 33 (power boat) who were en route to Tenerife. They had crossed the Bay of Biscay from Brest. I was quite shocked to find out that they had stocked up with diesel in jerry cans and then just thrown the empty jerry cans overboard when they had used the diesel.
17 September 1992 Gijon to Ria de Ribadeo
Craig’s 3rd birthday and the poor lad has a swollen gum above a tooth that has gone bad. Glenys went into town to get a dentist to check it out and they gave him some antibiotics.
We left Gijon at dusk, bound for Ria de Ribadeo. It was a nice passage with light winds from the west, but we had to tack a long way offshore. This added about 25 miles to the journey. We ended up motoring for 11 hours of the 17 hour journey. The entrance into the river is pretty tight and exciting because the route passes close to and parallel to some cliffs.
We tied up on the town quay next to “Bonnie Day”. There was quite a steep rusty ladder up to the top of the quay, which gave us a few anxious moments with Craig.
18 September 1992 Ria de Ribadeo
We had a day recovering from the overnighter and went into town to a very touristy restaurant where we had the worst bottle of wine that I have ever tasted. (Don’t trust Neville & Margaret’s recommendations.)
19 September 1992 Ria de Ribadeo
We took the dinghy across to Castropol and chilled out in a small bar overlooking the estuary. We had calamari and vino tinto for lunch – brilliant. Brett drove the dinghy across for us.
20 September 1992 Ria de Ribadeo to Ria de Barquero
We left Ribadeo Quay at about half past eight in the morning, motored under the bridge and out to sea. We had a really nice 6-7 knot reach for three hours, Los Farallones Islands/rocks are rugged and the Ria de Barquero is lovely. We anchored off the Punta del Castro which is an idyllic cove with white sand. We had a late lunch at about four o’clock and went to play on the empty beach. I put out two anchors even though it was fairly calm.
21 September 1992 Ria de Barquero
We had an unsettled night. The wind went from NE10 to SW25 gusting 30 knots, turning our nice anchorage into a lee shore. The two anchors that I had put out held fine. The barometer had fallen 8mb overnight. We decided to go over to the other side of the bay off Punta Castro Vilela.
The wind was coming down from the hills, giving us gusts from all directions, so I put down two anchors and dived to check that they were in OK. We nervously went to bed with light winds and rain – will we ever get used to anchoring?
22 September 1992 Ria de Barquero to Ria de Cedeira
We had a major struggle getting the anchors up. We had swung around during the night, twisted the two anchor cables around each other and swept up at least three lobster pots. I had to snorkel down in 12 metres of pretty cold water to free two of them. We pulled up the second anchor and had to untangle the main chain from it. We then pulled up the main anchor which had another lobster pot attached. It took half an hour to sort it all out and I was exhausted.
I’ve decided that I should learn to scuba dive and buy a set of scuba gear in case this sort of thing happens in deeper water.
We left Ria de Barquero at ten o’clock into a 4 metre swell and 20-25 knot winds but the passage was OK. The coast line around here is very rugged. We tied up next to a French and Swiss boat who were tied up to a big dredger. Both boats had children on board which are the first families that we have met.
The only way to get ashore is to get onto the dredger and then jump a one metre gap which Glenys finds a bit daunting.
23 September 1992 Ria de Cedeira
We did some fishing and caught four mullet. In the afternoon, we went into town, had a big lunch and went to the beach. I had a jumper on and was still cold – the boys were running around naked. Cediera is a lovely place.
24 September 1992 Ria de Cedeira to La Coruna
We left Cedeira at half past nine and had a really nice sail. The wind was against us again – will we ever sail downwind?
We have a few degrees list to port which I’ve not managed to sort out, even though I’ve moved gear around in various lockers. We really noticed a difference between port and starboard tack when hard on the wind – we have to reduce our sail area when on starboard tack, which makes life a bit more difficult than necessary.
We picked up a mooring at four o’clock at La Coruna. There are two yacht clubs side by side which was a little confusing when we went to check in.
25 September 1992 La Coruna
We went to the fuel dock to fill up. It was a bit of a shuffle having to move along in a queue. We ended up moving 3 times before being able to fill up. The Swiss boat “Josua” that we met in Cediera was there (Danny, Erica, Bengy and Milano). We went back out to the mooring and then went into town to look around and do a bit of shopping. It rained a lot today. We’ve spent a week without a marina berth and it hasn’t bothered us much. We shower after a passage when the water is hot and the water lasts at least a week with as much as we want to use.
26 September 1992 La Coruna
It’s absolutely howling and there are heavy rain showers.
We visited the Torre de Hercules which is an ancient Roman lighthouse on a peninsula about 2.5 kilometres from the centre of La Coruna. The name Coruna is derived from the ancient word “columna”, meaning column. The lighthouse is 55 metres tall and is almost 1900 years old, it’s the oldest Roman lighthouse still used as a lighthouse.
The boys liked the myth that Hercules slew the giant tyrant Geryon after three days and three nights of continuous battle. Hercules then buried the head of Geryon with his weapons and ordered that a city be built on the site. To commemorate this legend, the coat-of-arms of Coruna contains the lighthouse on top of a skull and crossbones, representing the buried head of Hercules’ slain enemy.
27 September 1992 La Coruna
The weather was even worse today. We went to the Science Museum to find that it was closed, so we went to the windswept beach, had a meal and visited Josua.
28 September 1992 La Coruna to Lage
We set out from La Coruna at eight o’clock in the morning bound for Bayona. We had a pleasant wind to start with and had a nice sail until we rounded Islas Sisagas when the wind increased to 25 knots and the seas got rougher. Just off Lage, we decided to carry on because we have to meet Ceris at Bayona in three days time. Glenys was starting to feel seasick, Brett threw up and Craig and I were weary of the constant slamming of the hull against the seas.
By three o’clock, the wind was gusting up to 35 knots so we decided to head back to Lage. I’m glad that we did because we were getting 45 knot gusts as we headed in.
While we were bashing back upwind, Craig and Brett were playing in the back cabin. Suddenly Craig started to call up for Glenys, sounding pretty upset, so I rushed down, thinking that he’d hurt himself, only to find out that he was just frustrated because he couldn’t fit a hat onto a Lego man!
We didn’t anchor at Lage but went to a small cove (Pt Cabello Bay) with 4 other yachts – one of whom was Josua. I anchored at about five o’clock in 12m of water with 60m of chain out. The anchorage was good being sheltered from the SSW wind, but half way through the night the wind dropped and the swell rolled in and rolled in and rolled in. I got up at four o’clock and put up the mizzen which calmed the rolling a bit. We had a very rough night.
29 September 1992 Lage to Bayona (Day 1)
We upped anchor at eight o’clock in the morning. The windlass is driving me crazy – I’ve not managed to get hold of a replacement chain stripper, so the chain constantly jams every 3 metres.
We decided to motor to Bayona because the wind was directly against us. The swell was about 5 metres high but very smooth, so we made very good progress and expected to arrive in Bayona before midnight, which would give us a day to get ready for Ceris’ arrival.
Then at about 3 o’clock in the afternoon, just off Cabo Finisterre, there was a terrific amount of vibration from the engine. By the time I’d taken the engine out of gear, the prop shaft coupling had sheared its bolts. Although the winds were very light and against us, we decided to continue to Bayona under sail. In the next 5 hours, we only made 5 miles towards our destination!
As night fell a dense fog descended, but at least the wind picked up. It is very strange in the fog – no horizon and very dark.
30 September 1992 Lage to Bayona (Day 2)
We had fair winds until one o’clock in the morning – over the five hour period we made 17 miles which was better than the previous 5 hours. At one o’clock, the wind headed us by 20 degrees but we foolishly stayed on the same tack, causing us to sail out to sea for 8 miles and lost us about 5 hours - another lesson learned.
The wind gradually dropped so by 5 o’clock in the morning, we had only made another six miles. Between six and eight o’clock we averaged 1.5 knots. Being becalmed is character building.
At eight o’clock, the wind picked up to a SE 10 knots and we headed in towards land. By midday, we were becalmed again. We continued to drift towards the shore and after lunch we picked up a sea breeze, which allowed us to head directly towards Bayona. Our spirits rose – we would be there before midnight!
By three o’clock in the afternoon, we hit fog again and by five o’clock we were becalmed again - drifting along just off Isla Ons. I was more than a little worried about the sharp, pointed rocks near to the island only about a mile away.
At midnight, we had only moved 4 miles and we were still in thick fog. It was very eerie and worrying to hear the loud blasts of fog horns from big ships going in and out of Vigo. I gave a few blasts on our “fog horn” which is a small gas canister similar to those that you hear at football matches - pathetic. You can feel the deep bellow of a ship’s fog horn in your chest...