Strangers in the night exchanging glances wondering what the chance is theyed be dancing through the night

Zepher
Chris & Lyn Darch
Fri 31 Aug 2007 19:34
42:07.23N
08:50.62W
 
25th to the 31st August 2007
 
Noah's Progress : "Strangers in the night exchanging glances wondering what the chance is they'd be dancing through the night "
 
A very pleasant time was had at anchor in the Ria De Moors , there was a constant reminder of my lost phone , my ring tone being a cockerel ,we had a look on the boat the first time we heard it on the shore 200 yards away during siesta time a rather large Rode Island Red would cock a f***ing doodle doo, the Spaniards must have loved him , the owner must have been a Brit. and sad sense of humour and taught the little lad no to crow at dawn but just when they all got there heads down for there afternoon kip, he defiantly wasn't owned by a Spaniard as they would have rung his neck .
 We did a bit of touristing enjoying our sardine , steamed mussels and langosteen at lunch time washed down with local hooch , had another toilet affair no pickles this time but pump valve reversed a morning with the brown stuff again it just wont leave me alone and I'm quite brown too now I hope its the sun .
 A group of Pilot whales visited the Ria everybody was out in there boats looking at them, they were probably in for a free feed on the mussel farms , this area is a large growing area of farmed mussels on a huge scale much bigger than we have seen in France , huge timber rafts about there size of a tennis court the a large number of chains hanging from them with mussels growing from them , when matured they are hoisted up    and put through a cone type stripper that pulls them off the chain , the boats come back like coal barges there are so many of them harvested , these are bigger than the French ones half way between a New Zealand Green and a native one they taste great too .
Anyway for the last few days it has blown 30 knots from the North East we have been tucked into the hill side ( look at location map ) under the lee of the hill all 400m high of it and very nice it was too , the wind swung towards a more easterly heading swinging around the corner of the headland , a number of yachts came in that evening all a Finish , Belgian , Irish , French and a Brit. , Royal Sussex Yacht Club with defaced Engsin pulled proudly in view , now I expect the French to go right up the front of you drop a whole load of chain and bugger off ashore but not the Royal Sussex ! anyway it blew all night long , Lyn thinks I'm an anorak as I plot my positions on graph paper when I anchor seeing how far the chain lets me swing and move in and out with the gusts , its a good ref. when you get up in the middle of the night to check both your movements .. this night we didn't as we were well dug in from the last blow , I had cleaned Zephyrs bum two days before and checked my Anchor , I couldn't find it it was buried so deep in the mud, just the chain about 4m short of the anchor stock in 9m of water with 45m out GOOD NIGHT SLEEP material I thought .. we were off to Bayonne the next day and as per the forecast it blew again NE , I got up at six , went on deck for a stretch with my cup of tea looked across and saw the Royal Sussex swinging alongside me , we were both veering in the gusts , he must have dragged 60m , shouted down to lyn , started the engine and prepared to avoid him swinging around steel verses wood , we would loose , revving the engine must have woke them as on deck appeared two elderly gents in there M & S y fronts closely followed by a woman of large proportions with a large DD and large sensible nickers , Lyn waved and said good morning they didn't reply as they had there hands full, it was just like one of those seaside picture postcards , of course I shall be writing to the Royal Sussex to enquire why they don't issue members with embroidered  M & S underwear too  they would have matched there flag ...  we then set sail for Bayonne which is our current location as of this evening ...
 
Happy Noah's