A CORUNA: AWAITING SEB
Aquila
Alan and Sarah Bennett
Wed 13 Jul 2016 14:33
Monday: Sarah, Pippa, Tom and Hester departed from A Coruna – eventually. Their aircraft was some 2hrs late in taking off, so by the time Sarah got home (via follow-on bus, train and taxi) it was 2300. Back on board, the skipper had lunch, inspected the deck head and did some Biscay planning before a pizza supper.
Wednesday: for the past two days the skipper has been getting to grips with: some time consuming and requires-taking-the-boat-to-pieces maintenance tasks; shopping for the return trip; sight-seeing (Sir John Moore’s tomb (phots), and the nearby military museum(phots) – lots of stuff, but all in Spanish, so my associated education was somewhat limited); and finding a memorial to HMS SERPENT (which I’d never heard of) (phot) – we had a couple of weeks ago sailed round said rock that did for her (maybe someone wasn’t keeping an eye on the GPS….)). And of course the main square (phot), with the statue of Maria Pita (phot)(who it says saw off Drake's 'invasion fleet'. Always interesting to see how the other side's history is recorded).
Neighbouring boats in the marina come and go – Aquila feels quite the old hand here. An ‘interesting’ ensign has just arrived (phot) – encapsulates why the skipper voted the way he did!
Just heard that Seb’s flight is delayed, but hopefully he will arrive sometime this evening. The skipper will be very sad to say good-bye to Galicia; the Spanish people have universally been so very welcoming, and this coast has given us terrific scenery and weather. And all prices very reasonable indeed. In all, the best sailing playground I've ever been to. Plan is to sail after breakfast tomorrow – think we’ll have ENE 5-6 first of all (rhumb line to Ushant is 025), veering and fading as we close on the centre of the 1029 High (forecast to be in the centre of Biscay). Depending on where it then moves, think we’ll probably have light headwinds for the last 24 hrs approaching Ushant, so a bit of a struggle to reach L’Aber’wrach, if that’s where we make landfall. As ever, we will see…..
