La Coruna is somewhat different to most of the other places I have
stopped at in that it is obviously a waypoint for anyone moving between
North Europe and almost anywhere else. While I was there for my two weeks I
saw boats from Canada, Brazil and the Cook Islands as well as the normal
French, British and local boats. Quite a few of the long distance boats were
crewed by delivery crews taking them to whereever. The Cook Islands boat was
on its way back home after being at Southampton, The Brazil boat was a new
boat being delivered to Brazil and the Canadian boats were just cruisers
wandering the world. The town of La Coruna has about 300,000 inhabitants
and, I am reliably informed about 300 bars. This fact came from an Irishman
who seems to spend his evenings trying to rid La Coruna of alcohol, but of
course, is failing. Dave, the Irishman, proved to be very helpful and put my
mind at ease on a few points. He has spent the summer moving down the French
coast, and now has berthed his boat in La Coruna while he goes home to earn
money to do the same next year. While I was in La Coruna, a red yacht
arrived which was crewed by 5 more Irish people, 4 were leaving at La Coruna
and the other 2 were off cruising for a couple of years. They had 5 crew
just to cross the bay to La Coruna, which they did in 3 days. Another boat
which arrived was Swedish or Norwegian single handed which had just crossed
from Falmouth in 72 hours, thats 540 miles. The Irish mob all new the same
areas in Ireland so they were quite at home. It appears that a number of
people park their boats here, go home for christmas, then pick up again in
April.
The town has lots of pretty places to photograph including the only
Roman lighthouse which is still being used. It has been updated slightly but
there is some of the original still there. There is also a feature on some
of the buildings which they claim as unique, balconies with windows over
them, I thought you called that an extension? I did the rounds and took
phots of all te tourist office said I should and it took me nearly two days,
not because of distance, but because there are so many. They have TRAMS
there, not modern ones but the real old fashioned ones. The marina is not
finished yet and will be very nice when it is, and, once again the almanac
told me porlies about the facilites. Food shopping is a real doddle, ther
are two supermercados within a mile of the marina. The atmosphere in the
marina is different, you look around and people are moving boat to boat and
chattering, I think because the majority of boats were British. While I was
there I counted at least 10 British boats, not including the Irish and
Canadians. Te marina only takes 40 visitors.
I decided to leave La Coruna on the 4th and head towards Bayonne some
112 miles away. High hopes as usual but the weather forecast said NE 3/4
rising 4/5 winds, so if I pick up something like that it'll be 6/7 kts speed
for me. I had a divert marked in Portosin which was about halfway and seemed
to have all I could desire.
I motored out of La Coruna, dodging around the ships and fishing boats,
La Couruna is quite a busy harbour, until I was clear of the main route
in/out and prepared to sail? Once again I hadn't topped up the tank because
of the favourable weather forecast, so I was starting a little tight on
fuel, this made me motor more conservatively to ensure safe arrival. I
motored for ever. At about 2200 mist appeared and quickly became quite
thick, I call it mist because if I looked straight up I could see the stars
but nothing was visible in front or behind, I hoped my steaming light was
sticking out the top and visible to other people, especially the big people.
The AIS was telling if there were any ships over 300 tons out there and I
put on the radar to check for smaller boats. The radar gave me some comfort
in that it showed the shore line some 2 miles away and not a sign of
anything else. This went on for about 2.5 hrs, by which time I was in the
Finisterre Inshore Traffic Zone so there was less chance of meeting a large
ship. At about 0100 the mist cleared and in the distance I could see a mass
of brilliant lights , in an empty sea area I made an assumption that these
were ships queueing to enter the Finisterre Traffic Separation Scheme and
were about 10 miles off and that I was due to turn to port way before I
reached them. Within a short while it became obvious they were a lot closer
than I thought and it soon became evident that they were fishing boats, I
started to pick my way through them, but before I got very far a smaller
boat turned towards me and turned on its flashing amber light, I took this
to mean "Don't come through here", I rapidly about turned and headed off to
go around the group. As I went around the small boat kept pace with me
through the group until I was safely on the otherside and obviously going
away. A couple of miles further on I met another fishing boat on its way to
join the group I assume, and then I saw some very funny lights, as I got
closer it turned out to be a yacht motoring, so it had the same
configuration of lights as I did, I didn't realise they looked so weird.
Things quietened down now and since there was still no wind and the sea was
almost flat I volunteered to divert to Portosin. The dolphins came and had a
look at me and showed off as usual. I'm amazed they don't hit the boat,
because I could see them going underneath me from one side to the other, and
this is at night with not too much visibility, but they know what they are
doing.
That was the limit to my excitement all I did from ther was motor on
until I finally reached Portosin and tied up and booked in by 1515.
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