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Santa Eugenia de Ribeira, Spain Sept. 5, 2005 Hi Folks, We are across the northern part of Spain and past Cape Finisterre, finally heading south. Guess which way the winds have been for the past few days? The predominant winds for this area are NW, but we have been having South and SW. Today we were able to sail and use our main and genoa for the first time since arriving in Spain at Santander. The weather has been rainy, cool, and foggy. We have had more fog in the past week than we have had in the past six years! We have been using our C-map, the computer program which shows charts of the world, including detailed charts of this area, and when connected up to our GPS shows our position and track on the charts as we progress through the water. It is as good as radar (which we don’t have) except it does not show other ships. For those of you who indicated you could receive pictures, I have attached a picture of the C-map with the red line showing our planned track and the black dotted line our actual track and the target circles our position at 1000 local time, as we came around a shoal infested cape of northern Spain. Otherwise both we and Veleda are fine. All the best, Aubrey ****************************************************************************** Log #36a Across the Biscay to Spain August 12, 2005 at 1036 we finally left France from Port Medoc at the mouth of the Gironde Estuary, and by 1107 we were abeam of Pointe de Grave and headed diagonally across the Bay of Biscay, under full main and genoa, engine off, with a brisk NW force 4 to 5 (15 to 20 knots) wind moving Veleda along at 6.5 knots on the 175 mile passage to Santander in Spain. We were experiencing the long Atlantic swells for the first time after five years, since leaving the Scillies and the Channel Islands for the Seine River in 2000. It was great to be under full sail again, even though the waves were rough as we wallowed through beam seas. This good wind held up for 12 hours before dropping to force 2, so we motor sailed the last half of the trip. The next morning we saw a couple of pods of dolphins, and two blue whales blowing on the surface. The new propeller worked well, and the new Raymarine steering system was quite accurate. We arrived in Santander (43˚ 27.81’N, 003˚ 46.70’W) at 1711 that afternoon, albeit at a rolly anchorage near the entrance with considerable wash from passing vessels. Next morning we shifted into the yacht club, very convenient mooring, right downtown, and with good security, but the slip was only available for one night. We caught a bus over to Bilbao, as I wanted to visit the Guggenheim Museum there. It was most worthwhile! The dramatic flaring architecture of the museum alone was worth the trip. There was an excellent exhibition on the Aztec Empire which we enjoyed, as well as the modern art (post 1945) which left us unable to appreciate it. (I am trying to be tactful as we have seen more attractive canvases on the drop sheets of house painters.) For me the most interesting of the permanent displays was Richard Serra’s The Matter of Time, fantastic gigantic standing rolled steel convolutions through which we walked. Inside the sinusoidal Torqued Ellipses and other vertical undulating passages, I experienced a mild disorienting vertigo with the walls curving in and out as I passed through these several lengthy geometric architectural works. These sculptures were indeed experiential, as there was a world of difference looking at the table models, and actually walking through these “Alice in Wonderland” sculptured contours with 25 foot high weathered steel walls closing in and opening out in curving maze-like passages. Incidentally, Bilbao is in Basque Country, one of the administrative districts (similar to a state or province) of Northern Spain adjacent to France. It is a beautiful progressive city and we saw no signs of ETA or the Basque independence movements. Santander, where we left Veleda is in Cantabria, west of Basque Country. Further west along the north coast of Spain is Asturia, and then Galicia on the northwest corner, areas we will visit with Veleda. Next day we tried to get our Vodaphone Connect card renewed for Spain, so we could send E-mail from the boat as we did in Italy. Not possible! We would have to have a Spanish contract to enable it. We thought when we purchased it in Italy that we could simply renew the chip in the Vodaphone card for countries that had Vodaphone service. No such luck! Oh well, nothing is ever simple and we will just have to continue using Hotmail at internet cafes. Maybe when we are back in the Caribbean we will find another system that will work in that part of the world. Rather than stay at the yacht club mooring, I had the idealistic desire to go up the estuary and anchor in a secluded sheltered cove. The winds were light and the day clear, a good opportunity to be at anchor. We left about 1130 and headed out into the main harbour. We had to dodge several boats under sail, and the wind was increasing as we headed down the estuary, staying inside the buoys as we did not have detailed charts of the area. As we motored down we noticed several other sailboats coming our direction. The wind increased even more, up to force 5 and 6 (18 to 25 knots) blowing straight down the estuary. Several of the sailboats were overtaking us. Oh, a good photo op to get them under sail, especially those flying spinnakers. Flying spinnakers?! … We were in the middle of a regatta with twenty boats of all classes bearing down on us! The winds were now blowing force 7 at 30 knots. Boats were overtaking us. We had to get out of their way, but we didn’t want to risk going out of the channel, as we did not know the depths! Where was the race going? The same way we were, down the channel! At a couple of wide bends, we went out of the channel hoping for sufficient depth outside to drop the anchor. Each time we went out, the depths shallowed rapidly, and we were exposed to the full blast of the gale force winds. Of course the winds followed the channel around the few wide bends. We were dodging the boats as they raced by us. I then thought that there was a bridge a mile or so down that sailboats could not get under. OK, maybe the race was to go down to that bridge, then tack back up the channel, making our task of avoiding them that much more difficult! We didn’t want to go down that far and risk their return, tacking into the wind up the buoyed channel. We turned around and motored into the wind, back up the estuary. There were a couple of large-ship docks, which we might have anchored off, but we would have been in full exposure to the gale force winds. Finally I said, “Forget it”, and we motored into the marina half way up the estuary rather than try to find an anchorage under those conditions. It was a tension filled three or four hours, leaving us in a good marina, but several miles from downtown at the far end of the airstrip of the local airport. We should have stayed in the nice centrally located yacht club! Next day we wanted to go to Altamira Caves in Santillana del Mar, with their prehistoric animal paintings, and had to catch a bus from Santander. However we had to walk 20 minutes around the end of the airfield to catch the 0930 bus. After waiting ten minutes we double checked our schedule to realize we were looking at the bus from Santander rather than the bus to Santander. That bus did not come by until 1000. Oh well, another half hour wait. Santillana del Mar is a tourist town. The caves are outside, but accessible by a tourist train every half hour. OK, another wait, rather than walk the three kilometres out of town. At the caves, there was a long line up, but after 20 minutes we got to the ticket wicket -- to find out all the tickets for that day and next day were already sold. We waited again and caught the next tourist train back to town. The next bus back to Santander was at 1330, and it was now only 1230. OK, let’s wander through town and get a bite to eat before catching the bus. The restaurants did not serve food until 1300! We wound up buying slices of cold meat and a bottle of water for lunch. The bus was late, and we were anxious about whether we were at the right location to catch it, as we had been told of four different locations by various people. Great, all we would have to do is miss it and the next was not for a few more hours. However we made it. The high light of the day was the Marine Museum we visited that afternoon in Santander. Excellent! It started with an extremely good aquarium, the best we have seen since the Atlantis Aquarium in Nassau, Bahamas. The other displays showed the development of the fishing industry and shipbuilding in Santander. Santander is a bulk cargo port for grain, sand, gravel, coal, and oil, and has no container ship capacity. This museum made up for the frustrations of the morning. We liked Santander, but were ready to leave next day. Of course the east wind that blew at gale force down the estuary had become a west wind, and we were going west. We were not to unfurl our mainsail for the next two weeks! More about the Spanish rias, and the complications in anchoring in shallow tidal river mouths, in my next log. |
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