Position:  43:22.06N 08:23.75W

A Coruna, Spain

Another day, another 60-mile sail – this one round two nasty capes, and finally heading SW to the big port of La Coruna.  The capes, Cabo Bares and Cabo Ortegal, have a fearsome reputation (don’t they all round here) but we were lucky as the wind was light and the swell manageable.  We saw some dolphins on the way into Coruna but no more whales.  Around 1800 seems to be the best time for wildlife-spotting and there has been quite a bit to see – lots of birds, with a whole flock diving and circling round a patch of water presumably with a lot of fish present.

Friendly-looking rocks off Cabo Ortegal

La Coruna has been a goal for us – partly because Coruna marks “getting to NW Spain” by the end of August, which was our objective – partly because this was where I have strong memories of arriving back in ’94 when I crossed Biscay and I wanted to see the place again – and partly because my Mum and stepfather Alan were scheduled to fly out to meet us on 31^st August.

The place has changed a lot, most notably by the presence of two large marinas.  We chose to go into the old fishing dock marina – Darsena de Marina, because it looks like it is in the centre of town.  Coruna is one of those meeting places for cruising boats coming from all different locations, all heading South (or North) – all nationalities, and we spotted French, English, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian and Portuguese ensigns flying.

By chance, we ended up berthing opposite “Tyche”, who had arrived a day before us having sailed here directly from Gijon.  Before we had even put the sailcovers on, Robin and Zita came over for a great evening of drinking and a marvelous curry, cooked by Sarah.  We all awoke feeling quite hungover.

“Tyche” were keen to push on as they are trying to catch up with some other Dutch families who are cruising down the coast and seem to be a little bit ahead of us, so they set off that morning and left us to do our chores.  This involved a very boring day of school, laundry etc – good hangover stuff – before Mum & Al joined us for three days.

We were hit by a massive thunderstorm that night, with one strike so close overhead that it made Sarah and I jump straight out of bed!  I disconnected the electronics and brought the radar & chartplotter inside – probably a futile gesture if 40 million volts was going to choose our boat as its path to ground but it made me feel like I was doing something useful.

Tablecloth cloud over Cabo Ortegal