Position 41:57.943N 008:55.963W

Saturday October 18^th

12h09

Wind N Force 3

Sea State Calm

Visibility Good

Heading 177 T°

Under:Main and poled out Genoa

Speed 3.1 Kts

We’re off at last. Leaving Bayona after refueling at 09h47. 90L brings us from ½ tank to full. Blue Tarn has left 2 hours ahead. Unlikely that we will catch them at this stage.

Really enjoyed Bayona. The Yacht Club is definitely a superior marina to the town one and far cheaper too. Cerys was charged 17 Eur per night and the facilities were excellent. The only thing that should be improved is the WI FI. Signal is great but the connection coming in is far too slow to use. We gave up in the end. The staff was very friendly and accepted our post for us. One package that was only requested from Cork at 17h00 on a Friday was impatiently waiting for us at 10h00 on Monday.

Our rigger Louis of Wind Services (his own newly formed company) was prompt, professional and at 20 Eur per hour, 40% cheaper than Ireland. We designed and made our lee cloths here also. Great excuse to go to the ferreteria for 5XAluminium hinged draft excluders, 8m of 4mm nylon strimmer cord, 25 grommets from Wallace the shoemaker and 12 m of canvas.

We needed a shoemaker to put the grommets in and found one in a back street. I was very impressed with his shop which had a large Singer foot paddle sewing machine on display in the centre of the floor. His workshop, I assumed, was in the room behind. On our third visit I realised (how do you stop spell check changing ‘s’ to ‘z’) that, (its OK I got it) this was his one and only machine.

Pics: Refuelling on dept. Bayona; the Pinta

Ruaidhri Prendergast