Finisterre
Vega
Hugh and Annie
Mon 3 Aug 2015 19:09
| During our stay in Camarinas we had enjoyed a brief respite from Galician bagpipes but on Saturday morning they were back in earnest with an old boy on the mound above the marina blowing and squeezing his heart out. I’d had another good engineering experience so not even this wailing was going to subdue my spirits. In the four years we have been using our ‘fridge it has never seemed quite cool enough and you couldn’t turn the thermostat knob down into the blue (cold) numbers. In A Coruna I had an engineer on call to look at it. However, by email Dan Hills at Malo Yachts suggested that pulling the thermostat knob out a bit would then enable the cooler settings to be engaged. Eureka! and by the time we had reached Muxia it had been running consistently cooler. Yet another example of how it might be a good idea to read the manual. Leaving Muxia was a disaster and over confidence took its toll. With Annie at the helm and mumbling something about “this not being a good idea” I had completely underestimated the strength and effect of the wind. Modern relatively lightweight yachts with little way on them (speed for the uninitiated) offer little sideways resistance at the bow and get blown stern into the wind very readily. In fact you have to anticipate this and go backwards if conditions dictate when motoring slowly, as in a marina. The wind was right on the nose as we reversed out of the berth with a view to turning sideways and motoring forwards out of the marina. However, the wind had other ideas and in the space of two short cries of terror from the helm the wind had turned the boat around through 180 degrees and we reversed into the adjoining berth. Mr confident then took over and made the second major error of forgetting how the hydrovane rudder on the back of the boat acts like a stabiliser when locked in position and prevents the boat from turning as sharply as it would otherwise. A combination of this and the wind ensured that we drifted sideways across the marina before wiping out two fenders on the end of finger pontoons opposite. We fessed up over the radio but it put a damper on the whole experience and we have vowed never to leave a berth without getting out the whiteboard and working out an agreed strategy. The 20 knot breeze blew us on another genoa run down to Finisterre in glorious sunshine. By the time we reached the Cape itself the wind was falling and we felt a bit wimpish as smaller boats with spinnakers began to overtake us. I am sure that in a mid winter gale the Cape and this stretch of coast (endearingly called the Costa del Morte) are really fearsome but we waved to the day trippers as we glided past and then motored up the other side, past Finisterre town and to a delightful anchorage just off a lovely white sandy beach at Playa Esordi near Sardineiro. Where the bagpipe band was in full swing at a beachside venue with a large crowd cheering every number.     |