La Coruna

21.5. La Coruna. After lunch and a lazy afternoon yesterday at Camarinas we took a shower. I looked again at the weather charts and the strong winds seemed to concentrate on the very precise area where we were. It didn’t take long to make the decision to leave so we left Camarinas before nightfall and motored to La Coruna overnight. It was a routine leg already with one of us sleeping and the other one keeping watch. We arrived at 0530 and took the first berth at the Marina Real and went to sleep. The approach to La Coruna at night is always a pain because the fishing boats can do just about anything. Like last night there was a boat that zigzagged wildly with a radio blasting
and almost managed to crash with us twice. We had done 243 miles in the previous 48 hours and managed to catch up with our schedule. We woke up at 1000 and moved the boat to a better location. In the afternoon Nina explored the town and I went shopping some items with the guys from Tigs. The day was sunny but again the wind was quite cold. The boat is covered with salt, Nina cleaned some of it off and tomorrow we have to wash the deck properly.

20.5. Camarinas. We had to motor the whole way from Fig da Foz to Camarinas. There was no decent sailing wind. The wind was either nonexistent or from the north. The dolphins visited us for a few times. The sky was beautiful after the moon went below the horizon. 30 hours at sea and now we are back in Spain. We were actually following our friends on Tigs who left from Porto for Vigo but changed plans during the trip and did all the way to Coruna. The weather is sunny but the northerly wind is chilly. The wind seems to be northerly the next few days so we’ll have to see what to do next.

18.5. The weather pattern was the same. We left our spot on the pontoon and went to the fuel pontoon to fill the tanks. We didn’t get them toppled up because they only accepted cash which we didn’t have enough. Well, we have now enough. You had to watch the skies before you went out because the showers came and went very often. We went to the market with our friends from our big sister Tristan and following their advice bought a fish for dinner. We cooked it slowly in a frying pan with green and red peppers and lemon. It was really good with some leftover buttered mashed potatoes from the fridge. We were invited to Tristan for drinks and had some very nice time with them, such a lovely people. It’s too bad that we have run out of little gifts to take with us when we visit other boats. This is one important thing to remember in the future. As we have learned from the Estonians you can never pay a visit without a little gift (lille). It doesn’t have to be anything spectacular or expensive but it would be nice to be something original. Well, anyways, we plan to leave early tomorrow morning for Camarinas which is about 200 miles to the north. It seems that we have a 36 hour weather window to get there before the wind turns to north again and starts gaining strength as well. The Ugrib shows a strong wind from NNE-NE for three days starting Monday evening.

14.5. We did small stuff on the boat and took it easy. The wind is still strong and from the north so we bought train tickets to Lisboa for the next day and booked a hotel room for one night.

15.5. Morning train to Lisboa. The city is nice with a lot of narrow streets that go up and down in the old part of the town. we walked around for hours and took a ride on a tiny tram that goes around the old city. The hotel was old but for 53 € it was a bargain. In the evening we again noticed that the world is small. Nina bumped into one of our old friends from Tigs. He had left the boat the day before to spend a few days in Lisboa before going back home to Finland. By a remarkable coincidence he was staying at the same hotel with us.

16.5. We and our friend from Tigs took the sightseeing bus around the town for a few hours and spent the rest of the day sightseeing before taking the train back to Fig da Foz. We were greeted by heavy rain and had to take a taxi to the marina which was a kilometer away. The taxi took 3,25€.

17.5. The weather is very unstable. Strong gusts with heavy showers. We paid the marina bill and tomorrow we will top the fuel and water tanks to get us ready to leave on Sunday. The weather prognosis shows some rain for the next week but the wind is going to ease on Saturday for the next six days

It seems that the strong northerly wind is going to last for a few days and we can't sail before Sunday morning. So, we take a train to Lisboa tomorrow for a one night trip. I booked a nice looking hotel room in the middle of the city for 53€. The guy at the ticket counter here at Fig da Foz didn't speak a word of English so even I had printed the suitable trains from the net it wasn't an easy task to get the tickets. Finally we did get the right ones but only one way for 19,65 € apiece. The next person we met was a young man at the grocery shop who spoke very good English. Maybe the the railroad company is owned by the state and the recruitment isn't based on the abilities but other more important things like prominent relatives or such.

11.5. Sunny and windy at Fig da Foz. We kept on cleaning the boat and in the evening we invited ourselves to Larinka which is a British made boat under Greek flag. The boat is a 46 foot trimaran with a wing sail. The wing sail consists of a main sail and a smaller rudder. They both are rigid and the mast has no supports. It turns around a massive bearing like an excavator. There was just one guy sailing the ship to the Med, he was a hired hand and had just finished changing in a new engine. The boat was very high tech though it wasn’t new.

12.5. Another sunny but windy day at Fig da Foz.

13.5. Still at Fig da Foz. The weather is sunny but the wind is from the north and doesn’t seem to change. Tigs took the weather window yesterday evening for Porto to get some parts for the boat and they sent us a text message today that they had arrived. We keep doing maintenance work on the boat to fill the days but it would be nice to go out to sea again. This delay is going to put some pressure on our time table if we want to get back home in 9 weeks. As it seems now we’re not going to be able to leave for several days if we don’t want to push against a strong wind and current. As we heard from Tigs today the swell was quite big with some crossing waves as well through the night. Nina has been cleaning the upper deck and the windows. We took off the front deck Dorado ventilation valves and after sanding painted them with spray paint. Now they look like new again. The day was the warmest so far here, even with the strong afternoon breeze the temperature was close to 30

Figueira da Foz

9.5. After a long and peaceful night we woke up to a very dim weather. It was raining slightly but the wind wasn’t strong here in the harbor which is about a mile from the sea up the river. The weather turned out to be nice during the day and we finally had a very good place by the main pontoon to clean the hull and fix the damage on the gelcoat at the bow. After six hours of work the port side was shining after a wash and polish. The marina service building is only three months old and they had very good washing machines, big Miele professional ones with only 5 € for a wash and tumble dryer. We went out to a nearby tapasbar for dinner, the food was excellent and it would have been enough for four. After dinner we were invited to the other Nauticat for drinks. The boat is owned by a very nice  Scottish-Belgian-French couple. The boat is about the same age as ours but the French sun and the salty waters have taken their toll on the teak deck. First they had problems with their injector pump but it turned out that one or two of the valve springs were also broken. We were joined in by a British couple from the next boat who were also northbound. They planned on leaving the next morning to Aveiro which is just 30 miles north from here. I thought that maybe we do the same. In the evening when Nina went to the showers she met our old Finnish friends from Tigs who had just arrived at the marina and were at the waiting pontoon. We told them to just get a place here in the marina and they moored right next to us.

10.5. The morning was nice and sunny. On my way to the showers I met the lady from last night and she told me that they were actually leaving for Aveiro. I had a look at the weather charts and after that we decided that going out wasn’t a good idea. We turned the boat so we could start working on the starboard side. The day was sunny and warm but the wind was chilly. It was a good day to clean and polish the hull and Nina was working on the railings and the upper deck. We still have a lot of work to do but the boat looks very nice already. Our friends on the other Nauticat had a bad day. It seems that the engine has some major problems and they are even considering changing the engine altogether. There were two other boats with engine problems. A greek trimaran had a new engine installed yesterday and another catamaran with the other engine busted. In the afternoon a Swedish boat arrived. He came to us and we gave him the other one of our keys to the gates. He actually came from Aveiro and said that during his 30 years of sailing this was the worst he has ever encountered, high seas with cross waves and too little wind to cease the rolling. He stayed at the tapasbar the whole afternoon and got drunk. I can’t really blame him, though. Three Russians on their way down took out in the afternoon for Cadiz which is to the south. Not clever but if they have s strong wind they can control the boat with sails to prevent rolling. It only seemed that the wind was right from behind so they have a very uncomfortable journey ahead, at least to Peniche. The strong northerly winds seem to last long so we are stuck here for a quite long time, at least for four more days.