Of squid and DVDs
A year afloat: to the Caribbean and back
Sam and Alex Fortescue
Sun 3 Oct 2010 15:30
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43:43.00N
007:36.00W
At some point furing the night, the wind got up to
at least 35 knots. We're tied up stern to the gale in a marina at Viveiro still.
But the pontoon was jumping about in the night, squealing and groaning as we
lashed about. When we woke up this morning, the wind had been replaced by rain,
but we gather that more is on it's way tonight. We are hoping to be able to head
to La Coruna either tomorrow or Wednesday. It all depends on whether the swell
falls with the wind.
In the meantime, we've been doing some serious
lounging about. We've got through 20 episodes of Prison Break in three days.
It's nonsense of the highest order, but great fun.
Viveiro itself is pretty small. It's got a nice old
town, a couple of beaches and a reasonable number of cafes and restos. We took
the narrow gauge railway to see Ortiguera - the next estuary along, where we had
planned to spend a couple of nights. We also got taken on a sightseeing tour by
the marina operator yesterday, who quite unexpectedly drove us to the top of a
nearby peak with a stunning view down on Viveiro.
We've also had the time to hunt about for nice
local food and stumbled upon a couple of gems. In the market in the Plaza Mayor,
there's a chap selling local dried ham for less than €10 a kilo. But we've also
found a store which is like a grown up's sweetie shop. It sells only frozen
seafood, in great mounds that you can help yourself to with a little plastic
scoop - calamar in one, chopped octopus tentacles in another, mussels and clams,
tuna and hake slices and even giant frozen squid.
We had our first house party on Summer Song,
involving our very nice Danish neighbours and a pair of French chaps who arrived
on Friday morning after six days in the Bay of Biscay. They had left
Port-de-la-Foret in Brittany aiming for Spain's west coast, round Finisterre - a
passage of 350 miles. Two gales and 800 miles later, they limped into viveiro,
having been pushed back off Finisterre by giant waves and howling winds. They're
both heading to the Caribbean to take up lives of rum punch, sunshine and
laziness.
I had to dive in the pouring rain today to inspect
the propellor. We found the source of the vibration from the engine was a loose
anode - a chunk of zinc that is attacked by the seawater instead of anything
else made of metal below the waterline. This is great news, and means that we'll
be more confident about puttering round to La Coruna when conditions
allow.
Our second albacore
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