August 2009

St Waast to Cherbourg to St. Peter Port mostly in wet weather and fog but then on to Sark

Flat calm, mist and, what Mike describes as " heavy drizzle"! - Known to the rest of us as… rain! 

Unfortunately, the alternator packed up on the way to Sark but, hey presto, we have a spare. It came with the boat -wonder why??

Climbed the hill to Sark town after Mike fitted the new alternator.  Fab!

  Our first dolphin sighting this season.  Loads of them, chasing fish, and then a tall ship.

Up the river to the pretty town of Tregier.

From Tregier to Trebeurden, L'Aberwrach and then to Brest as our alternator has packed up again so Kate goes in search of electrician. The French for alternator is l’alternateur!

I had a long conversation with several very perplexed engineers about matters electrical. Now, please bear in mind, that I cant have a conversation in English about electricity for more than 30 seconds – as in, “Can you wire this plug for me?” and “where does elec come from?” (from the socket, obviously!)

However, we eventually left Brittany reeling under the cost of said new alternator and, although the cause of its failure has not been understood, apparently there is an English bloke in Almeria (just into the Med past Gib) who will definitely be able to sort it out!

So, in pursuit of sunnier weather (and the bloke in Almeria!), we decided to miss out the West coast of France and cross the Bay of Biscay. Under normal circumstances that would have been a 60 hour lovely sail……..

Of course, at this point the wind deserted us and we motored most of the way! Half way across, we caught a huge piece of fishnet in our prop but, luckily, having a couple of hours daylight left to the day and James Bond aka mike on board, all was fixed in about an hour with a bread knife and a lot of resurfacing for breaths!

Somewhere along the way, Mike caught his first “serious” fish (we don’t count the mackerel in 2006!).

 Guess what's for dinner?!

When we finally get to land, of course, the washing machines are broken and the launderettes are miles away and the first one was closed by the time we found it!  Eventually, it was sorted by getting the launderette ladies friend to translate for the owner from French to Spanish!

From La Corunna to Corme, a pretty little undiscovered town, and from there to Camarinas. Mike says “aim for somewhere between that white boat (which one?!) and the blue one”, as we neared the “blue” one it seemed very familiar – like looking in the mirror – after circling it and verifying it was another Bowman 42 (as ours is), realised the owners weren’t aboard but left our gates open and the boarding ladder down just in case they came back. Bear in mind, this is a huge coincidence as there are only 9 Bowman 42s in the world and the last one isn’t yet in the water.

Just finished a Pimms and barracuda Tom Yum under way when Catherine and Paul Davies, Kahia's owners arrived! Ooops……..

Forgot to mention the BARRACUDA!

(Culinary tip! Cookbook suggests best-cooked “Thai style”, so, “Barracuda Tom Yum” now submitted to the RT recipe book! Not sure it will ever be repeated, and I’m sorry, girls, but that recipe will never be passed on! Doesn’t matter how much you beg!)

I digress!  ….. little while later and after sharing a couple of bottles of wine, Catherine and Paul are added to our list of nice people you meet whilst cruising and, after coffee at “their place” the next morning and more note-comparing, we look forward to following their adventures and maybe meet up again (In the Carib maybe next time, Catherine!?) Fast becoming “Bowman Bores!”

Kahia and Right Turn at anchor in Camarinas

Camarinas to Finisterre and Portosin, not a lot of wind but plenty of rain!

From Portosin we bussed in to Santiago de Compostela. Liked it a lot.

Did you know there are 101 ways to cook pumpkin!  We know, because we’ve been living off one for about a month!

From Portosin to Isla Ons to Viana where it blew "old boots" as we came into the river mouth with loads of para surfers and windsurfers trying to get themselves killed!  Our third and last lure got eaten today and we can't find a fishing shop so that's the only reason we haven't caught any fish!  Lovely white port aperos and a walk over the swing bridge to check into Portugal .... they didn't seem too bothered!  Another lovely town we liked a lot.

And then, finally, to Cascais- on the coast near Lisbon

Having motored for most of the day a wind comes in as we round a headland just as dinner is served.  It blew the salad off the plate!  There's going to be a massive firework display at 11.00pm apparently - fogio artificio!  But, of course, we both fell asleep before then and missed the whole thing!