The Rain in Spain stops at last

Dianne made a phone call to her father in Hambleton (near Blackpool) this morning on the satellite phone and he was saying that the village had suffered some serious floods after days of really heavy rain. It's been pretty similar here (though it's difficult to identify any floods from the boat!); we've had absolutely torrential downpours and, last night a really loud and close thunderstorm.

 

The Spanish for 'thunderstorm' is 'tormenta' and last night's certainly did that in our anchorage. The time between the flash and the bang was very short, and there we were with a tall metal mast..... Thankfully we didn't get struck.

 

We left Baiona yesterday afternoon and motored right to the top of the Ria to a big shallow lagoon called Ensenada de San Simon. This afternoon, at last, the weather began to clear and we had our first glimpse of the sun for several days. To celebrate, Di's making plum crumble as I write; the food is good aboard. Last night's supper was a truly international affair - locally-caught fish (flat fish, no idea what they were called) with Spanish spinach and the last of our home-grown potatoes.

 

Tomorrow will probably our last full day in Spain. We'll head to a marina in Vigo to go to the chandlers for various bits and pieces that we need. The most important is a new VHF aerial for the top of the mast – we've been getting poor reception on our inter-ship radio so Graham climbed the mast for about the 5th time today and brought the fitting to deck level to find a split in the mounting. We don't think that the application of Araldite has sorted it, unfortunately so at the moment continue to use the emergency spare, mounted at the stern.

 

The forecast suggests that the northerly Portuguese Trade Winds will resume their normal service by Friday so we'll hitch a ride on them southwards. We're aiming for Lisbon, about 300 miles away, so will probably break the journey just north of Porto (about 12-14 hours from here). From Lisbon we'll probably make a break for Madeira (about 4 days sailing in good conditions) then head on to the Canaries. The big unknown on this coast is the size of the Atlantic swell, particularly after this unsettled period of weather, so plans may change once we've studied websites in the marina tomorrow. We'll keep you posted!