Monday morning arrived quickly as we all needed a good nights sleep, and we all had slept like the dead.  The sun was out and Leon had taken back is role of chef, going out to acquire fresh bread and was cooking eggs and bacon for breakfast as we got up - he is a star!! But today Leon was leaving us to return to work :o(  After breakfast it was time to make our good byes and go our separate ways. Leon left for the airport around 11.00. (It was fantastic to have you on board sir and we really hope you will make it back some time before Christmas! Thanks again Chris & Jo x)

Its Emotional Leon has to leave to go to work!!

Tom & Alice in La Coruna

Tom & Alice set sail for Lisbon

We also said farewells to Tom and Alice as they left for Lisbon and we prepared to refuel and leave too. The refuelling done we motored out into a calm sea and sunshine, thinking this was more like it! The view of the coastline of this part of Spain is quite spectacular with high cliffs and jagged rocky shores lashed with big swells, huge waves and lots of spray.

The tranquillity was stopped when the engine clonked, jumped and stopped. This sounded as if we had hit a rock, but as we were 2 miles of shore, unlikely. On inspection of the back of the boat, we could see a huge piece of blue fishing net attached and dragging. Obviously disposed of by some unthinking fishing boat. It had wound its self around the prop and stopped the engine. There was no other solution other than to don the mask and flippers and become the man from Atlantis. The sight upon entering the sea was horrific; the net was totally around the prop and the rudder. I needed to cut it all off and hope the engine would still work! I set about the task with the kitchen scissors.  All went well until I found a 20 mm diam rope in the middle of the net.  This would not be cut by the scissors so I retreated to find a better knife. Nothing would cut this line and I was to re think my plans. We had called Tom and Alice on the radio and they were coming to our rescue. A Norwegian boat was also holding station to ensure we were ok. What I really needed was a huge knife!!! Jo found a plastic handled fishing knife I had on my old boat in Finland. It looked a bit cheap but hey I had nothing else. Amazingly it cut the line and the net like butter and in 10 minutes the line and net was released from the boat. We prepared the engine and it started first time J  The next step was to see if the prop as ok or had it been bent. Thankfully, it all worked fine and we were off again after a tense hour diving. We called the rescue teams off and started back on our journey to Bayona.  (Thanks again Tom and Alice)

The net before and after it was removed from the Prop

The wind picked up and we were making over 9 knots under sail into the evening as we passed Cap Finnister. As the night fell, the wind built and we needed to reef the main. The wind built and reduced all night and it was quite a hard physical sail due to all the sail changes.

The best bit of the trip was the Dolphins at night. They track the boat and the glow of the phosphorescent is amazing, it’s like fireworks under the boat. It’s a sight you would never forget.

We approached Bayona around 08.00 on Tuesday morning as the sun was rising over the hill. The marina guard helped us moor the boat. We both felt tired and retired to bed before booking into the harbour later in the day. The rest of the day was spent drying the boat, still full of water from the storm and by 15.00 all the decks were covered with clothes, bedding & oilskins, but we did finally get dry.

The town was nice with an old fort on the headland. We bought some food from a supermarket and cooked dinner onboard before retiring to bed very early.

The Fort at the entrance of Bayona