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Ca Canny - ARC Portugal Ca Canny - days 6-9



After a quick decision yesterday morning we pressed on out of Camarinas and arrived in Bayona at about 2am local time this morning. So what’s been happening over the last few days?
 
Last Thursday was a day of down-time and relaxing before meeting up with the other crews in the bar of Club Nautico. High winds and rain dictated little progress over the next few days and the daily rota was to have breakfast potter about and then head to the bar and bemoan the lack of decent sailing conditions. Up until yesterday morning (Sunday 8th) the wind was constantly over 30 knots, day and night. On Friday we concluded that it might be worth trying to organise a trip to Santiago de Compostella. Discovering that the barman (and President of the marina/yacht club and probably the whole town) spoke German, Torsten (from Infinity) was despatched to rustle up some form of transport as 8 of decided to go on a day trip on the Saturday. Bright and breezy at 10 am we all assembled outside the marina club house to discover that a 40 seater coach had turned up to ferry us all. At that moment 3 French sailors decided to randomly join us on the coach which made it feel at least a quarter full.
 
We had a great day in Santiago walking the streets and witnessing the “smells and bells” of mass in the Cathedral. Its a very quaint city with lots of bars, cafes and restaurants that seemed to be predominantly empty – and streets full of walkers doing the Way of St James pilgrim trail. Your correspondent also found a rather comfortable place to relax just outside an official building (photo to follow), Trevor had a quick tickle from a plastic lady(!) and the nearby beach was also wonderful (see photo!)
 
Fortunately the weather in Santiago was better than in Camarinas where, by all accounts, there was torrential rain all day – and we were welcomed back with an absolute downpour (see photo). All the crews are getting slightly suspicious of the travel brochure for the ARC Portugal seeming to show constant sunshine....we’ve yet to see that! The day was rounded off with Geoff heading underwater (thanks for Torstens floating compressor) to remove the final pieces of junk still attached to our prop.
 
Sunday dawned and with the prospect of a visit from WCC official, Andrew, the weather brightened and we woke to the sound (or lack thereof) of no wind. Andrew confirmed our worst fears in that he suggested we’d been making all the bad weather up and we really should be in Bayona by now. Chastened by his castigation and, to be fair and more truthful, a view of the GRIB files the skippers were unanimous in their decision for us to move on and try and get to Bayona bearing in mind that there were plenty of places to drop into if things got tough.
 
John and Trevor could hardly contain themselves and were out of the starting blocks in Seclusion before the rest of us had even though about putting on our foulies. Infinity, Ca Canny and Zoonie travelled in convoy motoring South into strong headwinds. Zoonie had a slight (!) hiccup in the form of an engine malfunction (blocked fuel lines) but were seen to execute the text book  response to that (sails up and head out to sea) before some in-flight maintenance spurred the engine into life again. Whilst dry, the winds were strong and just before Finisterre we only had enough time to exclaim “wow, look at that” when a very quickly formed tornado was upon us. Stuart bravely clung to the helm as Ca Canny listed violently to port and starboard. We’d love to have been able to report that there were several fishing trawlers circling above us in the tornado it was so large and powerful and we were so brave in surviving it but in reality our fenders got blown into a tangle at the stern. A quick radio message to Infinity enabled them to avoid the oncoming twister, which soon turned into a full blown water spout.
 
Just as we were rounding Cape Finisterre, Bob and Barbara (Zoonie) decided quite sensibly to pull into Portosin due to their concerns about the engine and Infinity and Ca Canny continued southward. (Photo off Finisterre)I can only guess that Torsten and Hille (Infinity) were fed up with motoring as they soon raised the sails and started to tack into the wind. Our skipper decided he’d prefer to just get there and so we kept the engine running all the way into Bayona where we were warmly welcomed by Joel into our berth 2am this morning after coming through some squalls worthy of a bit part in the film “A Perfect Storm” which only seemed to hit when Ian and I were on watch. A day of cleaning, drying and re-provisioning has ensued (Ian and Stuart have spent a suspiciously long time going to the shop and I suspect there is a bar involved....whilst I sit here and write this blog).
 
Tomorrow looks like another quiet day – I need to find a pair of trousers as we have a formal welcome reception tomorrow evening and my shorts don’t come up to the dress standard required (apparently), and then we head off again on Wednesday.
 
More later.......


Relaxing_in_Santiago
Little_known_beach_in_Santiago
Trevor_gets_a_tickle
Bad_weather_what_bad_weather
Rounding_Finisterre

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