Viva Espana

Simanderal
Michael Hughes and Ger White
Wed 1 Aug 2007 19:02
Well we arrived safely in Santander a couple of hours ago.
After a pleasant few days in La Rochelle--a couple of days with a hire car
seeing the countryside and visiting the Bordeaux wine area--St Emilion is
fascinating--we set of yesterday morning-Tuesday--for the 200 mile odd
sail to Spain--Santander first stop.
The Tuesday was a lovely day--lots of sun--perhaps at times not enough
wind, so engine on and off as it changed. The last 50 miles today however
were pretty unpleasant--wind swung round ahead of us--a 200 degree shift
in the space of an hour. Whilst this had been forecast the strength of the
wind had not--25 to 30 knots of it--which very quickly kicked up a big
unpleasant sea. The strong wind continued until well after we had moored
up in the marina in Santander mid afternoon. Ho hum--such are the vagaries
of weather.
We plan to stay here for a couple of days before continuing our cruise
west along the north coast and into Galicia.