43 22.03 N 008 23.07 W
Alongside A Coruna marina
Wind: Northwest, fresh
Weather: Overcast, mild
The wind didn't hold, late in the afternoon we were once again left flopping
around in large swells with little to no wind, but we were only 10 miles
from port, it seemed pretty silly to drift around when so close so I
resorted to the engine with a view to motoring to an anchorage for the night
then in the morning proceed alongside to clear customs. All well, the engine
behaved itself and at 8.30 p.m. we rounded the harbour breakwater, there was
another boat at anchor behind the breakwater which was reassuring as
harbours which allow anchoring are becoming rare, especially here in Europe
where there are so many people and so many boats. My cruising guide told me
that we should be able to anchor in 10 meters of water so allowing for a bit
of tide that should be about 12 meters, a bit deeper than I would ordinarily
like but manageable. I motored up to the anchorage area and my depth sounder
was showing over 18 meters. That's strange I thought and motored around a
bit more to see if there was a shallow patch in the vicinity. It momentarily
dipped to 16.5 meters but that was it. I was loathe to anchor in this depth
of water, mainly because that meant an awful lot of chain to have to bring
in in the morning, a 50 pound anchor on the end of 18 meters of chain is a
lot of weight to recover with a manual anchor winch. I drifted around in
circles for a while pondering options. I could go strait alongside the
marina but that would be quite a few Euros for just a few hours on a marina.
I could try and find somewhere else to anchor, but where and that was going
to be a lot of messing about as well, I thought, "Ah bugger it, we will just
anchor and get a bit of extra exercise in the morning." Decision made a
short while later we were swinging to 40 meters of chain when an inflatable
dinghy from the marina ties up alongside and advises me that it is no longer
legal to anchor where we were. Oh curses, I thought or words to that effect,
it seemed I had little choice, so I got my work out almost straight away and
once aweigh proceeded alongside the marina - 29 Euros the poorer, After
visiting the marina office this morning I worked out what had happened, this
whole complex is a new marina, the old one is hidden from view wrapped up in
its arms so to speak. I saw a before and after photo, what a shame I
thought, another nice little anchorage gone, more harbour space reclaimed
and turned into dirt, and a big expensive marina in its place. The world
sure is getting to be a small place with all us homo-sapiens crawling over,
in and under every nook and cranny of it. Oh well, I'm one of the crawlers
so guess I should try and be tolerant of my fellow crawlers, we all have an
equal right to be here I guess, but sure would be nice if somehow we don't
have to lose every scrap of free land and water along the way.
Today I cleared customs (I think), cleaned boat and pulled all the chain out
of the cable locker. Clearing in was done very simply through the marina
office, apparently despite all the warnings I have read once again Bob Cat
presented no problems. Sylph has been through quite a bit of rough weather
over the past few months and has shipped quite a bit of water into the bilge
though the cable locker, so I wanted to clean out the cable locker to
inspect it and make sure there is no serious corrosion I needed to be aware
of. It is one of those rare occasions when I was very pleasantly surprised.
It took a little bit of work but when I pulled all the chain out and removed
the liner I had installed about 18 months ago I found underneath the steel
to be dry, clean and in good shape. Hooray, I thought, maybe I am making
some progress with the maintenance after all, very encouraging to keep
plugging away at it. Maybe one day I will actually be able to sit back and
say to myself, "Not much to be done today, maybe I'll go sight seeing," and
not feel guilty about it.
I am trying to get some laundry done but that is another story which I won't
bore you with.
All is well.
Bob Cat:
It seems the skipper has gotten into one of his moods where he feels it is
necessary to dismantle our abode around my very ears. As long as I am left
undisturbed and there is a clear path between my sleeping position and the
food bowl (not that there is anything in it to get very excited about), then
I am content. One thing I'll say though it seems the V-Berth is a lot
cleaner now, much more habitable. I think I'll just see how comfortable it
feels. Disculpa .. Zzzzzzz.
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