Fri 24 May, Viveiro N Galicia to Thur 06 June, Gijon Asturias
Spellbinder
Sat 15 Jun 2013 17:26
Since the last visit to Viveiro in 2007 a smart new office block has been built with toilets inside, but it wasn't until the day before the ladies arrived that two new shower and toilet blocks opened, with two showers and toilets in each, one for men the other for ladies - just in time! Over the six days before Fiona and Hugh, Grace and Catherine joined at 2300 on 31 May the weather had been dire in Viveiro. The sun was not seen, the wind blew, the rain poured down and the thermometer recorded 7⁰C early one morning. So, in a window before strong easterly winds blew in and only 11 hours after the new crew stepped onboard the night before, Spellbinder slipped from Viveiro on the 1 June in a drizzle of rain but visibility improving
from a couple of miles. The destination was Ribadeo 30nm to the east around Cabo Moras. It was a motorsail out of the Ria Viveiro into a light northeast wind but as the cape was reached the wind backed into the north and strengthened to give a pleasant broad reach into Ribadeo where the rain came down again but we received a friendly welcome at the Club Nautico marina. In the face of strong easterly winds and a large swell from a storm out in the Atlantic it was decided to go up country and take two days off walking in the Cantabrian mountains so a car was hired and off we went. We found a sort of Shangri-la at Pola de Somiedo in the Somiedo Natural Park Biosphere Reserve. The sun came out for two days, it was warm and we joined the locals in celebrating the first taste of spring. On the afternoon of 5 June Spellbinder spent time off Ribadeo in a gentle northeast wind doing some sail training for the new crew. We tacked, gybed, reefed, set the
preventer, used the lifejackets and safety lines and rigged the man overboard recovery equipment. It was fun and revealed that some clips and shackles required a little light oiling.
We finally broke free from Ribadeo at 0800 on Thursday 6 June. The wind was west northwesterly F3, the swell was down but the sky was grey and overcast. The wind was rather too light for going east so we motorsailed for five hours but then for a magical two hours the wind increased to F4 and we were sailing again! The original destination had been Aviles which apart from Cudillero was the next harbour we felt comfortable to enter in the prevailing unsettled weather conditions. In the event we made good time and went on to Gijon the other side of Cabo de Penas and secured to the reception pontoon at 1915. Flights had been booked early Sunday morning from Santander still some 90 miles east so a hire car was
organised to take us all to the airport early Sunday morning. The original plan was to leave Spellbinder at Santander but we had too little time to do it comfortably so the boat was snugged down in Gijon to await the next crew on 8 July. Gijon was explored and enjoyed although the habit of the Asturians aerating their cider by pouring it from above head height into a glass, often missing, was not really understood but perhaps it did make the cider somewhat smoother?!