Onwards from Gijon

We left Gijon on on Wednesday 21st June heading for La Coruna. The sea was flat and there was not a breath of wind. Ideally we would have liked some wind to sail with but the forecast for the next few days was equally windless and we were anxious to get moving.

We set off in glorious weather and liberal amounts of sun cream were applied.We passed some pole and line tuna boats.

We spotted dolphins a short way off but otherwise the trip was uneventful until the last half hour of my 9pm to midnight watch when I had to call on Scruffbag for assistance as there were several ships and fishing vessels that needed monitoring. I stayed on deck for more than an hour of his watch too, with one of us on AIS and one visually monitoring from deck. We had to postpone our course change in order to avoid turning in front of ships and wait until they had passed us.

All then went smoothly still under engine, although we sailed for an hour or so in the early hours. Then, at around 8am. Scruffbag called me up as a fog thicker than a UKIP councillor had descended. The fog horn was blown by each of us every 30 seconds and the AIS and visual monitoring was constant as all the local fishing boats ran down our side to La Coruna to also escape the fog. By the time we arrived at 10am the fog had all but lifted and we were pleased to see our friends Walter and Monica , who we had met in Cherbourg, as they waited on the pontoon to take our lines.Walter took 8 years building this steel boat and had been monitoring our journey on AIS.