The seas flattened out around the NW point of Spain, and hopefully we are rid of the steep lumpy seas of Biscay and into kinder, more regular waves from the Atlantic. We tightened the rig up a few notches – quite normal to have to do this after 1000 miles of having a new rig – and the boat is so much better behaved as a result, coping with head winds and waves much better than before.
We were rewarded by being joined by about 50 dolphins all around the boat, some deciding to ride the bow wave of the yacht, and happily chirping away at us in dolphinese while we held on tightly at the bow to watch them.
La Coruna offers lots of entertainment for a few days, to replace our batteries (literally), and mend a few bits of boat. The marina is lovely, and in a great position, but the showers are truly appalling, so it has become a motivating factor to sort out our on-board showering facilities. Stuart has set to with the epoxy to sort the woodwork, and Steph has varnished/oiled the wooden shower trays, so it will all be ready to go for when we have left La Coruna. No doubt the next shower facilities will be gleaming marble and gold plated taps!
On our day off, we visited Santiago de Compostela, about 45 minutes away by train.
It was fantastic to see the city that I’d read about and to see the Parador. It’s a great city to wander around the old streets, and to take in the history of the popular pilgrimage that finishes here with a reward of only spending half your time in purgatory. If you complete the pilgrimage in a holy year, 2004, 2010 then you get let off of purgatory entirely.
For more background to this pilgrimage read Spanish Steps by Tim Moore, a very entertaining read about his travels with a donkey, including lots of really bad donkey jokes.
I think we need a bit more practice with panoramic shots:
It is a real challenge everyday to try and communicate to get what you want, and to find parts or equipment when there is a language barrier – for many of the locals, Spanish is their second language after Gallego, and possibly French, so it no wonder that they may not speak English. They are just as likely to receive customers from Scandinavia, Netherlands, France, Italy. Even the Spanish dictionary is not much help, as the words often do not remotely resemble the Gallego equivalent.
So far we have sampled lots of yummy cuisine – amongst our favorites are chipirones (baby squid in it’s ink) and Pimientos de Padron (tiny green peppers fried in salt and olive oil, mostly benign but with the occasional hot one to surprise you). Luckily we were warned about the ‘percebes’ – or goose barnacles. They are a local specialty collected from the waters edge at great risk from big waves and are accordingly very expensive. Just because they are a speciality does not mean that we are going to try them though, maybe you can see from the picture why we’ve not bothered to try them.
We discovered more local customs, including a bar serving only sweet red wine ( a bit like sherry) in small pouring bottles served with peanuts fresh in their shells. The shells are rapidly disposed of, creating an entire layer of peanut shells on the floor of the bar. The guy we are sharing a drink with is Bert, a grandfather from Netherlands, who is single handed in a 40 footer. He has crossed the Atlantic alone, more times than we’ve crossed the channel – a real inspiration, and a beautiful boat.
After the tourist bars close, we discovered that the locals head up to the old town for more drinking at the weekend – but seldom in bars. They take a picnic and their supply of alcohol and sit around in groups in a park just beneath a row of attractive looking bars that are almost empty.
During our walk we discovered why there are so many wrecks marked on the chart as we viewed the lower 30 feet of the lighthouse.
Moving Weather, our weather forecasting program that we subscribe to, predicts that the low cloud will clear on Wednesday, so hopefully if our new starting batteries are installed, we will be off shortly after that to explore the Rias Bajas for a couple of weeks.
We were rewarded by being joined by about 50 dolphins all around the boat, some deciding to ride the bow wave of the yacht, and happily chirping away at us in dolphinese while we held on tightly at the bow to watch them.
On our day off, we visited Santiago de Compostela, about 45 minutes away by train.
It was fantastic to see the city that I’d read about and to see the Parador. It’s a great city to wander around the old streets, and to take in the history of the popular pilgrimage that finishes here with a reward of only spending half your time in purgatory. If you complete the pilgrimage in a holy year, 2004, 2010 then you get let off of purgatory entirely.
For more background to this pilgrimage read Spanish Steps by Tim Moore, a very entertaining read about his travels with a donkey, including lots of really bad donkey jokes.
I think we need a bit more practice with panoramic shots:
So far we have sampled lots of yummy cuisine – amongst our favorites are chipirones (baby squid in it’s ink) and Pimientos de Padron (tiny green peppers fried in salt and olive oil, mostly benign but with the occasional hot one to surprise you). Luckily we were warned about the ‘percebes’ – or goose barnacles. They are a local specialty collected from the waters edge at great risk from big waves and are accordingly very expensive. Just because they are a speciality does not mean that we are going to try them though, maybe you can see from the picture why we’ve not bothered to try them.
During our walk we discovered why there are so many wrecks marked on the chart as we viewed the lower 30 feet of the lighthouse.
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