Flew downwind for the first time, got the Whoomper out and headed down the Spanish coast to Ria de Camarinas in the beautiful sunshine.

Cruising Shute “Whoomper”

Tied up in the marina for a 2nights, 3 days and had 33 degrees in the cockpit… bliss

Then it all changed, David said that we needed to go into a marina and he was right, we had F6 & 7 pinning us onto the pontoon with gust of F8, it wreaked some of our fender jackets luckily the boats ok.  It was hard to walk straight on the boat.

Anyway we made the best of it, we got the bikes out and went exploring, it’s a large Ria with lovely anchorages and lovely sunny beaches which were very pleasant if you got out of the wind.  Any way the sun shone throughout and it was still hot so we found a sheltered place on the beach and tucked behind the rocks for a bit of R & R .

The town was small but had all you needed, the market was in the square Saturday morning so I stocked up on locally grown salad and tried to buy meat at the local butchers with no English spoken was quite hard work and a lot of pointing to bits of meat.  The town has its own fleet of fishing boats which brought a fresh catch every day.

The sea is so clear, and we found a buried ship

We ended up with 3 nights and left on Sunday still in a blow but decided we had enough of a battering against the pontoons and we wanted out.  If you visit here you definitely need to know more than a smidgen of Spanish.

I was nervous, so watched the Shute all the way, but all went well so my fears have subsided a bit.

The salty dog looks the part

I think the wind farms give it away that it’s normally windy here, F8 in the marina was no fun.

Love to you all Suzanne & David xxx