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Quirine -



The Baiona Marina was very agreeable. The club building of the marina is spectacularly situated  blending in with the background of an old paraderos. The clubhouse building with its Galicia is an area with its own peculiar characteristics, its own language, its own culture. No flamengo dances nor bullfights in Galicia, but e.g. bagpipes as a results of close ties with the keltic peoples. Amazing. The inland climate of Galicia resembles that of Holland and England much more so than that of the rest of  continental Spain. Galica has more common roots with Portugal than with Spain and as a result of a wedding gift one prince got to govern  Galicia and the other Portugal. 
After waking up on Friday, more than half the fleet alreay arrived and still more to come. We decided to take a stroll to around town and ended up under a parasol ordering calamaris. Pleasantly suprised by the prizes the local restaurants charged for their menus. 
Saturday, the World Cruising Association organised the tour to Santiago de Compestalla, so the Quirine crew joined. At Santiago de Compostella many pilgrims visit the cathedral to receive the blessings of St. James, a disciple of Christ, who is believed to be buried there. 
Unfortunately the weather was rainy and foggy. 
We all really enjoyed the prize giving ceremony and the dinner that was organised by WCC. Meeting crews of other boats on the Rally was agreeable, while we shared our table with the crew of "Charlotte". Quirine was second in class A across the Bay of Biscay and was first to c
Sunday was the day we changed crews. Coen Claassens hired a car on Porto airport and drove to Bayone marina. Than the time had come to say goodbye to a fabulous crew who sailed Quirine from Plymouth to Bayona. It was a great and memorable experience that we shared.
 

10 June 2013. The WCC had organized this unique tour to visit a bunch of mills out in the mountains near the Portugese border. We enjoyed an extremely scenic walk through these historic mills in the peaceful hills south of Bayona, where the mills were powered by water streams especially drawn away from the main water drainage to power the mills back about 100 years ago. The walking tour was followed by a delicious and capacious Galician lunch, so many courses, we weren't sure how to get out of our slightly dodgy chairs afterwards.Then on to the Terras Gauda vineyard for some fun and crashes in the bottling plant, we felt completely corked and labelled.

11 june 2013. Tuesday. This was the start of our sailing tour along the Spanish and Portugese coast. The wind was blowing 4Bft SW, not exactly the kind of wind we had bargained for. After having left the starting line, the wind started to blow more and more. At first I thought that it was a result of the cliffs that we need to round before getting onto the ocean, but once we had rounded the cliffs it stayed 6 to 7Bft out of S, while we need to go S. Using the lesson learned from Jan as to reefing while maintaining speed we reefed both the main and the genoa. Quirine stabilized and the automatic pilot happily took us way out west. The stay of the stay sail was still in place so that tacking was rather cumbersome reason for us to keep going SW into the wind. We tacked after 40Nm, perhaps a bit too far out. After calculating the ETA at going course and speed we realized that in order to avoid a "DNF" (=did not finish) we wouldn't quite make it just sailing so in the end we needed the engine albeit incurring the motoring penalty. The prize giving was postponed until Wednesday at the Yacht Club.

12 june 2013. After a lazy start we skipped the tour of the local Vinho Verde Region. We made some small repairs and went into town to get a small bite to eat. Povoa de Varzim turned out to be a lovely little town. At night WCC had organized a prize giving dinner at the Yacht Club of Povoha. 


13 june 2013. We left Povoa de Varzim at 8:30AM in the morning to go the start line of leg 3. Somehow the sail didn't go up and Coen made an heroic and successful attempt to refit a slug slide where the sail meets the mast. After that we were ready to proceed to starting line, barely on time so we left right away. We had a fantastic sailing morning, while the distance was only about 15Nm. PeterJan was on the phone informing us that we were 4th overall coming into Porto. At around 18:00 WCC had organized tuk-tuk's to take us all to Graham's port storage and distribution facility where we were treated to a tour of the wine cellars of Graham's and a taste of their terrific ports. Amazing to learn that the port industry was actually developed by Scottish families. The prize giving diner was held at Graham's restaurant and it turned out that Quirine was awarded with the first price in Class A. Both Coen and me went up front to receive our price. We were tired and Coen need to get up early to catch his flight to Eindhoven.



14 june 2013. :415AM Coen left Quirine and had ordered a taxi for the airport. The captain went to sleep for another hour, woke up and decided to start cleaning the bathrooms and make the boat ready for the arrival of her's truly. The tour of WCC left at 9:00AM sharp to Porto again on the tuk-tuk. We visited beautiful churches and the former stock exchange of Porto as well as the central stain with its beautiful tiles, just 20.000! The guide showed me how to take the metro to the airport were I awaited Marjet's arrival. [Details to be inquired at the captain's cabin :) ]. We had a good lunch in the city of Porto after which we walked down to the banks of the river Douro. The atmosphere was quite spectacular. We walked over the bridge and decided to take a taxi to the marina. Once there th taxi driver must have pressed his 'foreigner's button' because the price was not exactly cheap. We enjoyed a small bite in the form of a topaz salad on board.

15 june 2013. Today is the first sailing trip with Marjet on board. We left Porto with practically no wind whatsoever. The starting line was on the river right at the green entrance light of the marina streching across the river Douro. In order to avoid a crowded leaving of the river towards the ocean with a river mouth full of amateur fisherman to boot, this skipper decided to incur the motoring penalty right away and to make sure to be first on the ocean in order to henceforth hoist the genaker so that we could stay ahead of the crowd. This strategy went awry since the genaker did not want to leave it's sock and was stuck halfway the mast so that after a few more attempts we had to take it back down again and proceed using the genua. Obviuosly we were passed by a number of boats during our faint attempts. Nevertheless we had a superb day of sailing, it was truly fantastic; it was exactly how we had ordered it! After arrival in Figuera da Foz we were treated on a sardines diner. Especially for Marjet the cook luckily had veal.


16 june 2013. This was the first full day in the harbor of Figuera da Foz and WCC had organized a tour to the city of Coimbria just a little under 50KM from here. Coimbria hosts the oldest university in Portugal even though the university it had moved a few times from Lisbon to Coimbria. The university is situated on top of the highest hill of Coimbria and the older building were once part of the royal palaces of the former kingdom of Portugal. The old library war truly impressive and by itself were the visit. After an agreeable lunch we went back to "Fig.Foz" by train instead of by coach. Prizegiving has become an social event that should not be missed whereas Quirine had left the prices to others this time. We were invited for dinner at Abraxas, a Fiirst 40.5 of skipper Gary and his lovely wife Karin. Abraxas final destination is St.Lucia across the Atlantic. 


!7 june 2013. We had planned to take the genaker out of it's sock and lay it out on deck to find out why it is so difficult to get it hoisted. It is probably twisted somewhere. However we cannot use any wind while unsocking it. You guessed it right we had 12 knots of winds on deck et the harbour. So I have put the genaker back under Sophie her bed where it normally resides. Today we went out to visit a reception by the Major of Figuera da Foz at the town hall. We decided to pay our respect to our host for these few days. From there we went on to his official residence which was a huge manor house that had been bought by the city in 1999. The atmosphere was one of days gone by and very pleasant. We were offered a glass of port whilst enjoying the manor and its garden. Lunch was used by just Marjet and me at a small restaurant a few blocks down the road. The supermercado was closed until 14:30 and we walked towards the sandy beach, which must have measured over 500m from the ocean front. Using coffee and a small desert we proceeded to the tourist information office to prepare for Tuesday's probable day off, in anticipation of the departure delay by one day as a result of an approaching cyclone. Both Lisbon and Porto are attracttive cities nearby. After visiting the supermercardo we went back to the Quirine where it was obvious the a small depression was on its way bringingg more wind and rain. We invited the crew of Leviathian over for a drink.



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