dinsdag 4 oktober 2011

ola, ola A Coruna

Yesterday we arrived in A Coruna. The last 24 hours we did not have any wind at all, so we motored the last part. The weather is wonderful however, warm and sunny.
We changed the watch system. Instead the 4 hour system we are on a 3 hour system with Rutger doing his own watch by himself :-)
Our route is about 40nm east of the 'shiping lane' from the TSS by Finisterre to the TSS at Brest.
That doesn't mean no ship's crossing us and there are a lot of fishing vessels as we came closer to Spain, so you still have to keep a good lookout.
The nights are getting less and less colder. The last night I didn't even had to put on my sailing jacket!
In the evening you here the dolphins close by the boat, but when you take out the torch to spot them, they stay out of the light as if they're playing hide and seek :-)

And then, suddenly in the morning mist, the coast of Spain doomed up :-) That's a great experience after 5 days and 5 nights at sea :-) before that we could see the lighthouses of course but still...



Mine was the last watch in the dark, form 04:00 till 07:00 hr. There was this very annoying purse seine fisher, with that yellow flashing light. At first it looked like a north cardinal since it didn't seem to move anywhere, but the map didn't show any N cardinal. So it had to be a purse seine fishing boat. You know that from the book but they don't use that kind of gear in Holland.
They annoying thing is though that the flashing light is so bright, you can't see any nav lights. So you have no idea where he's going. Also the light was so bright that I could see it from 5 nm, but in the dark, distances are hard to estimate..

Anyway, getting into a marina was nice too.. We got the laundry done, clean out the boat a have a nice long shower :-) After 5 days at sea, everything gets a bit damp …:-o

Today Monique got on board and we'll go a mile or so further where, according to the almanac, there's a nice anchorage close to the beach. We'll try the barbeque to make dinner tonight:-)