In La Coruna at last...and on the move again
Wild Carol does Australia
John and Fiona Fraser
Thu 23 Jun 2011 07:34
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43:22.02N 8:23.18W
Thursday morning
Well, we finally arrived in La Coruna yesterday
morning at 10.30. We were all glad to see it I can tell you! After
we posted the last entry the wind strengthened again from the west and we were
back to plugging away with our poor little engine again, banging through the
waves. The log impeller disintegrated (as we discovered on pulling it out
in port) with the banging and progress was terribly slow. Wild Carol's
engine is just not big enough for on-the nose wave bashing. She's designed
to sail not motor but no sailing boat can sail straight into the wind so we have
to put up with it. The right answer of course is to have infinite time so
you just wait for the conditions to be right before leaving which is what they
did in the days of sail before engines were invented. But...we're on a
timetable...3 days to La Coruna when it should have taken 2 and a bit
in good conditions.
Alex has departed back to London so we are down to
four. We've filled up with diesel again and we're just getting ready to head
out. 50 miles to the west then we turn south and follow the Spanish then
Portuguese coasts. Our next destination is either Lagos or Portimao
in the Algarve with a possible stop in Lisbon if we have to let Graham
off. We should have northerly winds most of the way (good!) but there is a
developing threat with strong easterly winds forecast coming out from
Gibraltar. We have a 25 mile leg east to do after we pass Cape St Vincent
at the SW end of Portugal so that will
be another slog I'm sure.
We've now decided to leave the boat in Portugal as
we've had too many delays and have run out of time. We'll come back later
in the year to complete the trip to Alicante.
After all the on-board food we decided to eat out
last night. Graham and Max had been shopping earlier and Graham struck up
a rapport with a local taxi driver. He was duly summoned back to "take us
to some tapas bars" in Graham's best Spanish. We then embarked on a high
speed tour through La Coruna, wending our way through streets and up hills
eventually arriving in a fairly non-descript kind of area where he pulled up
beside a tapas bar - what seemed to be the only eating place nearby. There
then ensued a dialogue with Graham insisting that "La vista no esta bien..." -
the driver finally twigged and took us to the beach where we found a decent old
bar that served up some decent beer and some decent tapas. We headed
out and decided to flag down a taxi to take us back to the boat...who
should be the first car to pass? Yes, it was our new friend. And
that's the extent of our sight seeing here.....
Here's a few photos from the last couple of days
(more dolphins I'm afraid...)
  First sight of La Coruna - The
Tower of Hercules
 Land - Hooray!
 La Coruna's impressive Harbour
Control Tower
  Castelo de San Anton
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