TripSailor.com® Sailing Blogs

After loads of goodbyes and all sorts of much appreciated help from some very good friends, the long-awaited slip from F32, Gosport Marina, on 14th June, took us to Newtown Creek, IOW, where we spent a few days with Dave’s sister Lisa and bumped into some ‘ardway ‘ooligans (Hi Beanie and Jim…)

We had a longer than expected stay in Weymouth with electronics problems and basically the guys that had installed the kit were pretty disinterested; however,  we found our saviour in the form of local Sparky Paul, who was prepared to go more than the extra mile, literally, to help us.    In the meantime, along with a few drunken reunions with Hugo, we met some really great people – Myra from Solihull who was on holiday and had just been out sea angling, and Nick and Carolyn who were “locals”, but Irish and Scottish respectively.  One afternoon, walking down the main street, we came across two elderly ladies, Peg and Ethel, desperately trying to find their coach before it departed without them. After a lot of running around by Dave and Fi trying to give them words of comfort like “we could always take you nightclubbing if you miss it” Dave managed to get them safely aboard and amidst lots of giggling by them and their fellow passengers, we waved them off and promptly went to the pub to reward ourselves for a job well done.

At last we finally managed to set sail from England and headed for l’Aber Wrac’h, northern France, where we had a few days R&R and an unexpected and pleasurable reunion with Marc who sold us our boat several years ago.  We crossed the Biscay with loads of dolphins, some pilot whales and a real mixture of weather (me no like big water, no like windy, no like dark….) but our hope of heading round Finistere in one hit was not to be with the wind strong on the nose so we made for Gijon, a Spanish harbour we knew from a previous trip.

A good few weeks were spent on the north coast of Spain, heading into the mountains to spend time with Paul, Fi’s brother, and then travelling slowly down the coast as and when the wind allowed and overnighting in some really beautiful places such as Ria de Cedeira and Camerinas, where I am sitting at the moment writing this log entry.  Unfortunately we woke this morning to rain and bad visibility, with the wind from the SW 4-5.  We spoke to Rob who we first met in Ribadeo and again in La Coruna who had also received a fairly negative weather forecast and so decided it was not the best day for rounding Finistere; therefore, we’ve decided to do the only sensible thing – nothing! – and have a rest day, socialising with a few others that are headed the same way.