Gijon to Coruna - Tuesday 9th June 2009

Well you can forget all that "the rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain" nonsense. It falls mainly on the boat, or at the very least, on the marina!

We ended up being stuck in Gijon for five nights, and overall, it wasn't a bad place to be stuck. We hired a car on Saturday and went out into the mountains, and then late in the evening, Tim and Annabelle arrived, after a mammoth drive through France and Northern Spain. Sunday was a recovery day for them, although we did manage a fairly long walk along the promenade which ended with lunch (and rain) at a seaside bar. Yesterday we went to Ovieda, a pretty in places town about half an hour's drive from Gijon, where the local custom is to pour a glass of very rough cider from a great height and partially miss the glass so half of it lands on the floor. Not sure of the significance of that one, but we think it was probably that the cider was so bad that you wouldn't want to drink a full glass of it!

Having been stuck in port for a few days, we decided to take a chance on the weather this morning - the forecasts we checked all contradicted one another, but the general concensus was that it may be a bit unpleasant, but shouldn't be too bad. Out of Gijon things seemed pretty good, for the first 15 mins or so! Then it got decidedly iffy (that's a well known boating term, by the way) as we neared the Cabo de Penas. After that, it was a mish mash of a sea for most of the way with the wind seemingly changing direction all the time. We debated whether to stop off at Vivero, which would have cut the journey down by a few hours, but we would have been obliged to moor off the marina which we didn't particularly fancy with a swell running. So...we pressed on. And on. And on. The journey from Vivero to Coruna went very slowly, especially as the blue sky which had been ahead of us changed to grey as we approached and the sun disappeared completely.

By the time we could see our destination, the swell had risen as had the wind and the rain started coming down. We were more than a little relieved to get into port, tie up and get the kettle on. And guess what? The forecast is not looking great, so we'll probably be stuck here tomorrow.

Oh well, there's always shopping!