I got to Gijon ( 43 32.78N 05 40.26W) on Tuesday 4th Sept at approx
08:30
But first the rest of my week in Santander. As far as I was concerned it
was a very good week and I didn't get to see Santander town at all, I think
I'm pleased about that because from the sea it looks like a load of high
rise flats all piled on top of each other, and its quite large as well.
My week.
Tuesday: I made a half hearted attempt to get to the local
shopping center but gave up because I might have had to walk up a hill, so I
came back to the boat and contented myself with fixing the water pump
Wednesday: I decided it was a good day to fix the tiller pilot
mounting, so I ripped it all apart,cleaned it all, then glued,screwed and
fibreglassed it back into place. The rest of the day I dozed in the sun.
Thursday: Briliant I blocked the loo, this has happened
before and cleared itself after a soak so to pass the time a serious attempt
was made to do some shopping. I went up and down various roads until it was
obvious I would have to climb the hill found on Tuesday to get to the
supermarket, so I did. This part of the exercise took about 1/2 hour. Once I
reached the door I had a further 1/2 hour walk to find the supermarket, it
was a complete shopping centre with just about everything you could think.
The supermarket was huge too. After getting some shopping going back to the
bike was quicker because I wasn't so much distracted. I had to come back via
the other side of the airfield whih is a bit uppie-downie, hard work for me
and nearly had some little idiot on rollerblades crash into me. Having put
everthing away I tried the loo again,no joy, have to bit the bullet. Its not
a pretty sight in these things, suffice it to say I did the full service
replacing all the valves and it works a lot better now. There was no rest of
the day on Thursday.
Friday: Nothing to do, no check the tiller-pilots. My
original ST1000 was working O.K. but the new ST2000 was just whirring. Took
it apart and found the drive belt was off, because the pulleys weren't lined
up correctly, I applied a little technical skill and lined them up using the
watchmakers tool, a hammer, re-assembled it and it works fine now. Dozed the
rest of the day away.
Saturday: Lazy day did nowt!
Sunday: Packed everything away ready for Monday. Spoke to
an older couple and dog from Cornwall who are laying their boat up for the
winter in Santander and then going home!
Monday: Went to Gijon. Once again the weather forecast was
good. Had it come about I would have sailed straight past Gijon because a
force 4 wind from the North would have given me about 6kts, it didn't
happen. The wind, nothing, was from ENE at about 1/2kt if that, so I ended
up motoring all the way. The motor performed so well that I ended up nearly
on idle and still doing 3kts, I had to do that else I would have arrived
here about 05:00, any way I got into the harbour area at about 06:00 and
managed to take until 08:30 to get to the marina.
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