L’Aber Wrach to Camarinas

The last night at L’Aber Wrach was spent on anchor way up the river but, this didn’t stop some chancer from rowing out to us at dusk to demand money. I gave him a strongly worded rebuke, but Chris paid him the 10 euros as he was shaking a lot and looked on the verge of having a heart attack I thought he was just a good actor. Chris went ashore to an avonguard party held by the local vet. I had an early night as next day we left early in fog.
The idea of doing the close in channel through the rocks and Islets was not on as the visibility was down to 200 metres in parts so we went via the outer route to the channel du four then continued on to the Isle de Sein in sun shine. Where we anchored with some caughtion as the charts show a no anchoring zone through the deeper part of the harbour. The island has changed very little in the 5 or 6 years since my last visit, in fact some of the houses that needed painting then still haven’t been decorated. Two pleasant days were spent but the bank only opens one day a week and there was no internet for weather information so we left on the Tuesday for Audierne on the main land of France. We anchored but any saving on the first day was swallowed up by greedy taxi drivers and the horrendous prices in the shops and cafes The 3 km journey cost 8 euros one way and 14 euros return as it was after 6 pm. Next day we travelled the mile up the river in the dingy and stocked up ready to cross the Bay of Biscay.
The weather was favourable for the crossing on Thursday the 18^th of June. So we set off at 10.30 after getting the latest  internet forecast. The first 2 hours were slow due to the shelter afforded by the land. Then the force 3 to 4 forecast from the north west kicked in and we were soon off the continental shelf and into the long Atlantic swells 125 miles were made in the first 24 hours. The wind strengthened and went more northerly and the sea got steadily bigger no cooking could be done and by the end of 48 hours we had 3 reefs in and had covered a further 126 miles and only 71 to go. Then the wind strengthened and fortunately went north easterly which was right behind us. As we came in sight of land we had 4 reefs in and a pocket handkerchief of jib up and wind increased to gale force 8 with spindrift detaching from the tops of the 10 foot breaking waves. The wind was being squeezed on the landward side by Cape Ortaga and from above by a low level inversion. After passing the Cape we had a short respite then the wind was funnelled down a valley just before Cape Prior. We just hung on sometimes with 2 of us on the tiller to keep Cariad in front of the waves which had started to abate the wind dropped as we entered La Coruna harbour and we were very pleased to moor up in the marina right in the centre of the lovely old city.
The prices in this part of Spain are half that in France and about 15% cheaper than at home so we have moved 45 miles down the coast to Camarinas where we will stay for about a month working on the boat and enjoying Galacia and the area around Cape Finisterre. Its like Scotland but with sunshine.
Tony