Trip Update - 8th September 2008 Pta Aguiera, Spain
Nutmeg of Shoreham
Ollie Holden
Thu 25 Sep 2008 22:16
Pta Aguiera, Spain
As we motored the few miles from Muros across the ria and into the bay we noticed a couple of other yachts already at anchor, and discovered to our surprise and excitement that every yacht had young children aboard! There were 4 Dutch boats, including our friends on “Tyche” plus an English yacht. One of the Dutch yachts hailed to us that they had heard about us from “Tyche” and we should join everyone on the beach for a barbeque at 1830. What a surprise – we thought we would have the anchorage to ourselves as it isn’t really mentioned in any of the pilot books.
So, we spent a very enjoyable evening meeting new and older friends with a shared barbeque. Each boat has an interesting story, most are doing the same thing as we are, all the kids ran around together on the beach and the adults all chatted non-stop about routes, seasickness, ports, wireless connectivity, equipment, jobs, etc etc. Ours are the youngest children, although not by much – the average age seems to be around 5 or 6.
Jemima, in her normal beach attire, helping Mummy
Barbeque pot luck – a great advert for Cobb barbequeues
Boat kids on the beach
Marshmallows on the fire
Peaceful anchorage, Pta Aguiera. This is what it is all about!
The following day was spent with all boats doing school in the morning, then beach in the afternoon. As most of the kids are older, they are mainly doing a fairly rigorous schooling process. It appears many boats have opted for a “packaged” home-schooling setup, which costs around €5000 for a years schooling. It appears to be quite comprehensive – all materials, books, resources etc and step-by-step teaching notes. Sarah is following the National Curriculum and both our girls are progressing well. It is great to watch them visibly improving day by day.
Pta Aguiera
School was disrupted by the local seaplane doing its exercises just in the bay, scooping up water and dropping it out in the ria. It is hard to concentrate when you have this outside your window!
Seaplane with “Tyche” in foreground