Monday 18th August 43° 01’.80 N, 009° 22’.58 W. In Finisterre bay.
Note that! We are still, not moving. For the first time since we set off, we have the time to sit at anchor in a pretty bay, with the sun shining on the houses clustered on the hill side. We have eaten breakfast in the cockpit. We are seeking the shelter of the cockpit cover, not from wind or rain or spray, but from the sun. Ok, there are grey clouds over the hills on the other side of the bay, and we were woken in the night by a sudden downpour, but we have the feeling that we are finally getting far enough south to have the weather a little more as we expected it – and as you might have been imagining it.
Finisterre is a little village, which has been slightly presumptuous in its choice of name. It is not in fact the westernmost point of mainland Europe – that is about 15 miles north of here, called Cabo Toriñana. We are anchored just behind the breakwater, with a couple of white beaches behind us, and the point visible ahead. The water is a dark green, but very clear. We can see right down to the rocks on the bed of the bay, over which shoals of silvery fishes are swimming.
We walked out to the lighthouse; a very English walk. In three ways: the gorse, heather and blackberries; the fact we got lost, and the cloud coming down so that we finished the afternoon in a solid drizzle. Very un-English, though in that up in the woods, a hermit had taken over one of the tall concrete electricity sub-stations, and painted a horribly realistic mural of Christ´s suffering on the cross on the outside.
