Thursday 4th September 2008, day 47. 42° 07’.12 N, 008° 50’.45 W. Baiona
We are sitting at anchor in Baiona, waiting, apprehensively, for a gale to come through. The gale warning came out last night, and was confirmed and strengthened this afternoon. The marina staff are out tying up their flags and taking down the banners that welcome visiting yachtsmen, to prevent them being torn down by the upcoming wind. Great dark clouds are massing to the west, above the town. We and a couple of other yachts have moved our position as far as we can towards the shore, to gain as much shelter as possible from the surrounding hills; we have put out extra anchor chain, got the dinghy up on deck and lashed it down, checked there’s nothing that could flog loose – and are about to sit down to medallions of pork in a vermouth and crème fraîche sauce; keeping up our standards, even if the weather can’t keep its side of the bargain.
The last entry came from Combarro. From there, replete with sardines and bougainvillea, we went to Vigo for a couple of days, where, thank heavens, we found engineers who had the ability – and the availability – to give our raw water pump a good looking over, diagnose what had (probably) been the problem, and give us a reasonable degree of comfort that the underlying issue had been solved.
[Technical digression for anybody who’s interested: when the exhaust first stopped putting out water, Anthony did some initial diagnostics, and, having checked that the water wasn’t blocked getting into the boat, and wasn’t going anywhere it shouldn’t after leaving the engine, and wasn’t running out of a crack in the engine block (praise the lord), took the raw water pump off.
We found then that the slot on the back end of the pump drive shaft had had a semi circle gouged out on both faces. And the cam shaft adaptor, which had started life as a ridge approx ¾” long, was now a (beautifully turned!) ¼” circle. This was made of 316 marine grade stainless steel, so there had been some fairly massive forces at work, given that the piece had been replaced during the winter servicing only 200 hours previously.
The engineers in Muros were able to obtain for us a new drive shaft adaptor, and a new shaft in the pump. Anthony put the whole lot back together again, and everything appeared to work well, but our concern was what the underlying problem was, because that amount of damage in so little running time presumably indicated something more fundamental.
The engineers in Vigo disassembled the pump again, and checked bearings, greasing, gaskets and tolerances, and have given us a clean bill of health.]
Anyway, apart from engineers, Vigo provided us with yet another wonderful pasteleria, a splendid fish market, our first opportunity to anchor stern to … and the presence of our friend Richard who had flown out to join us, and all his presents: two sorts of chocolate, spares for the boat, a replacement chart plotter*; all good stuff, but also letters from home, four different newspapers, colour supplements, Time magazine, the Economist, three sailing magazines, three light novels, a book on sea birds and another on identifying cetaceans, and Alan Clarke’s 500 page history of the German campaign in Russia in WWII. We are awash in the magic of little black symbols on white paper, and only our great affection for Richard (and gratitude for the effort in lugging all that stuff) stops us from diving head-first into his bounty for the next twenty four hours.
*[another digression for sailing friends: we’ve had faultless after-sales service from Raymarine and Seamark Nunn: when the chart-plotter started going walkabout in Biscay, they offered immediately to send out a replacement, no questions asked. This has been a great weight off our mind.]
We woke the next morning and found the view had changed: subtly, it was hard to put our finger on it, but surely the buildings hadn’t so completely surrounded the harbour when we came in? Had that block of flats been there? No, the whole clicked into focus, it was a vast cruise ship, which had crept in silently while we slept. That explains the alley of expensive fish restaurants in an otherwise rather tatty dockside area, a few hundred yards from the liners’ quay.
A whiz around the town in the morning victualled the ship for the next couple of days, including more different things to try from the pasteleria and some great red langoustine-type creatures from the fish market. We then went off to the Islas Cies, just in the mouth of Vigo’s ria, where we anchored, and …
… spent the afternoon on a white sandy beach in the sun. Mmmm. The trees leaning gently towards the surf were pines, not palms, but apart from that we could have been on a Pacific atoll.
The first time in two months! Up till now, we’ve sometimes had the beach, and occasionally had the sun, and sometimes had the time – now they’ve all come together. Bliss. We had our first attempt at getting an inflatable dinghy off the shore into oncoming breakers, and got back home a little wetter than we’d left!
The following day we went on to Baiona, which has a pretty old town centre, once again well preserved, but surrounded by modern buildings stretching in every direction. We’ve seen this in almost all the towns from Coruña southwards; the old town is very clearly demarcated, presumably protected by planning rules. I imagine the relative inaccessibility of this area has meant that no one much has wanted to develop it till now, though building is now going on apace, and we have seen several hillsides cleared for enclaves of flats and villas.
Richard proved his sterling worth as a crew member by getting out the Brasso and tackling our brightwork; his standards are rather higher than ours, we are ashamed to say. He also cooked the supper which is going to sustain us through the stormy night ahead.
