So firstly, if anyone even gives a rats ass or reads this thing you may have been noticed there has been a substantial break since my last post. The computer went tits up, and the IT dept. (AKA Lee) attempted to fix it but with 5 screws and a random plastic bit left over after his attempt there wasn’t much hope for the computer and a new one was ordered. This is what I am now using, and which Russ and Lisa brought out, hence the delay. Anyway. Enough of that and back to where we left off.

So after arriving in A Coruña we celebrated with drinking a bottle of champagne very kindly supplied by Russ and Lisa. Drinking alcohol at 0900 hrs is normally something reserved for Christmas, the airport lounge at the start of your holiday or hardened alcoholics but as we fell into none of these categories it felt a little wrong. A short while later it started to feel very nice so we drank another bottle we had stashed away and then fell into a tired and drunken stupor for a few hours before waking up to go and explore

A Coruña is a pretty place for a short while. It has a lovely, central historic area surrounded by a rather ugly, busy city which is fairly standard I suppose. The historic area is small and very photogenic, a bit like Kylie Minogue, and then it sprawls quickly out on the south side into large, 1960’s blocks of flats and on the north side into more beautiful buildings with a unique Galician twist to them; they are all covered in what looks like knock off 1980’s double glazing. Some salesman somewhere made an absolute killing covering buildings with this all over NW Spain and is now probably long retired and richer than Croesus.

• 

• 

It was only meant to be a 2 day stopover here, but bad weather came in and we ended up staying for 8 days. Cap’n Ron and Co arrived just before the bad weather did, and anchored out in the bay with regular visits ashore for food and beer. Their anchor held them nicely in the 35 knots of wind we were experiencing but I am waaaaay too old for that crap so was happy to be snugly in a marina with no roll and easy access to the pontoons and Franco walking.

We took the time to explore the area, and cycled up to the Tower or Hercules and roamed around the non touristy bits of town. We ate tapas, saw awesome Spanish parking and found a place where you could buy a litre of white wine for 50 cents, which was conveniently situated next to a centre for liver dialysis.

Eventually the storm passed and by late Friday it had cleared. Saturday half the marina left and the other half left Sunday. We had been chatting to a couple of hugely experienced sailors who had done numerus solo circumnavigations and both had said to leave Monday, so we left Monday. Oh how glad we were we had listened to them as even 2 days after the high winds had passed through it was still a lumpy old passage for about 8 hours before it eventually calmed down a little bit. Cap’n Ron and Co had left the Saturday and had told us their entire 2 day trip had been horrendous.

So with A Coruña now behind us we carried on down South, and with it something new to worry about…Cape Finisterre.