Wednesday 21^st September,  on route to Camarinas

N 43 07.3  W 009  13.0

Without wishing to sound dramatic, yesterday was an anxious sailing day.   On the previous day we left Marina Real in the early afternoon intending to anchor at Ensenada de Mera again. Before leaving the marina our Swedish Neighbours on the pontoon informed us that the boat of one of his compatriots, and possibly two other boats, who had set off west that morning had been damaged by Orca ‘interactions’.   

With some trepidation we set off west from Mera on Tuesday morning towards Corme, motoring initially and then under cruising shute in light north easterly weather.  Later in the morning we monitored a mayday/distress call from another yacht, ‘Bianca’, that was being disabled (steering lost) by an Orca interaction.  We called the CG who gave us the position of the disabled yacht which put it 90 miles or so to the northeast of us so it seemed the Orca had moved east from where the trouble occurred the previous day and, while always upsetting to hear of another yacht in distress, it seemed we were heading away from the pesky Orcas and felt we could relax for now.

The weather was still light and as we were close to the deserted Islas Sisargas we anchored inside for a lunch stop in turquoise water close to golden sand and with granite outcrops on the hillside.  It seemed remarkably similar to the Isles of Scilly and Phil thought the geology was probably the same. Lunch consisted of taco wraps with felafel and salad inspired by Morag (thank you M) on previous sailing trips.

The wind freshened in the afternoon and we ran down to Corme, gybing on and off shore, and anchored off another golden sand beach. Last year in Corme we had dragged a small anchor for what seemed ages and this time we were not messing around and shackled on the 20 kg Delta which always seems to do the trick.   The late pm sun and golden sand inspired us to swim and we packed swimmies and towels and took the dinghy into the beach but swimming was forgotten during a little stroll through Corme where we found an establishment selling cold Estrella. 

The Orca have rather monopolised my blogging and I forgot to mention that on Monday pm on the way to our anchorage, we also saw a familiar looking junk-rigged yacht at anchor. This turned out to be Pete and Linda who built and sail Kokachin.  We had spent last winter next door to them in Southdown Marina near Millbrook when they were finishing their build.  We anchored beside them and they rowed over to say hello.    Also on Monday, at anchor, Chris had an introduction to Cribbage and proceeded to win the first game.     

All best ,  Tony, Phil and Chris