Vasco da Gama
Ian Strathcarron
Fri 27 Jun 2008 17:39
La Coruna is a big city, sprawling round the sides of a wide bay, but yachtsmen are lucky because the Marina is in the heart of the old town.  On the way in we passed a Roman lighthouse and an 18th Century fort.  The harbour is lined with striking modernist buildings from the early 20th Century, but behind them the old town straddles up the hill with winding cobbled streets, many charming squares and some beautiful churches.  The water is so clean you could eat the mussels that cling in large colonies to the harbour walls.  The town restaurants all serve octopus cooked in a zillion different ways.
 
Our next door neighbour was a chatty Australian in a big boat who had sailed single handed from Buenos Aires.  It had taken six weeks.  In the Marina there were many German and Scandinavian boats.  Some of them had dogs and plants in pots on board and looked like they hadn't left the harbour for months, if not years.
 
We would like to have stayed longer but we are on passage so we left at 5.30 this morning.  We have had a beautiful sail today.  Plenty of wind behind us, sun and clear sky and the unspoiled coastline of Galicia to admire.  It is mountainous and rugged, with every now and then what looks like a church perched on the top of a cliff, but Tim says they are lighthouses which were once manned by monks.  At Cape Finisterre the lighthouse has a monastery attached.  I am doing the 9 - 12 shift tonight so should get a great sunset.