Luarca

We motored out of Luanco with a tinge of regret as we felt we had needed s few more days to get to know the place. The weather forcast was promising an east wind but was also saying that it would swing westerly within a day or so and stay there until the middle of the next week, it seemed a good idea to try to get closer to the Rias Altas. I did my usual justification and promised that I would stop ' on the way back', I think I meant it too.....

Conditions as we rounded the rocky headland could be described as perfect, perfect for me would have been another couple of wind forces but at least the swell was almost negligible. This fact alone made life 100% more pleasant.

We had full sail up but were motor sailing for the first couple of hours as the wind hovered around the 2-3 mark. Later it filled in as the morning progressed and we were making good progress, as our course brought the wind more astern we rolled away the Genoa and deployed the Gennaker, our cruising chute. We were soon able to turn off the engine and sail quickly making over 5 knots in the light winds.

The wind was a bit fickle and we had to gybe a couple of times to keep the speed up but we soon overhauled two Dutch yachts which had chosen an inshore  passage and as we rounded Cabo Vidio we lost the several other yachts that had been keeping us a distant company. One was fixed on our stern, the weather gauge as the old men in the 'wooden walls' would call it. 

We contacted Peter and Lynda in " Suerte" and they said they could see us to the west and were heading to Cudillero.  Through the binoculars I could just make out the yacht however as they were AIS receive only we couldn't see them on our plotters.

Soon they vanished into the haze, we later had a chat on the VHF and agreed to try and meet up later. Meanwhile Lynne was emailing our other new friends Bob and Maureen from Ireland who had visited the small port we were headed for. Of course we were just trying to pick their brains about the Cops Morts ( dead man ) moorings we expected to find.

Bob and Maureen were at the time about 60 miles ahead of us in the Rias Altas heading for Viviero.

Soon the wind began to act up and for the last hour or so we  resorted to engine again as we approached Luanca.

There is a very distinctive chapel on the headland as you approach the harbour. We were trying to see if there were any masts visible over the harbour wall as we knew from the book of lies that there were only four mooring buoys for visitors.

As we rounded the harbour walls and turned to port, we cast a dubious eye at what the pilot described as the anchorage outside, suffice to say we differed considerably as to its suitability!

There was only one yacht at the moorings, a French Ovni ( an aluminium light displacement boat, very popular with affluent world girders )

After picking up the mooring buoy we then needed to run a long line ashore. At first the wind helped but it soon played games with us and we were helped by the crew of the Ovni to get a line ashore. Never too proud to ask for help, this is a tricky manoeuvre even with lots of hands involving a 35 metre line being taken by dinghy up a 15 metre concrete harbour wall, all the while the wind and tidal surge are playing games with the boat and stretching the distance to just not quite far enough to land the line. luckily and for no explicable reason one of the Ovnis crew was a cockney and we were sorted out very quickly and in English.

It had been a great sail for 36 miles or so and now it was time for tea!

Soon we were joined by other boats and happily bobbed about together in the surge Lynne and I decided after we had eaten to go ashore for a look around. We were glad we did because it seemed we had arrived in the middle of a festival. A music one to be precise.

The really very attractive town seemed at first to be

 concentrated around the inner harbour with narrow streets leading off.

 If you look up from the town you get the distinct impression that you are in the bottom of a hole. The sides of the town are incredibly steep and seem to climb up to a summit rim similar to a volcano

However by this time we were more interested in the music so we spent some time listening to a teenage guitarist in one of the many squares before finding a bar with a band obviously set up opposite.

We drank beer as they played and the waiters kept up a flow of free tapas, locals were eating and this bar seemed to specialise in meat as it possessed a great charcoal meat oven.

Needless to say happy bunnies!

 On the way back to Dark Tarn we bumped into a procession singing hyms and walking to the church on the cliffs up the considerable slope of the street. Lynne was too concerned about the encroaching darkness and slimy ladders to follow.

It was beginning to look like we had found another interesting place to explore.

As I was writing this blog we had a visit from Ursula, a boat we had last seen in Castro Urdiales.

Normally we are not too bothered by approaches by amorous fibreglass boats but for a good 30 mins Ursula and her crew of six fended themselves off from our bows as they messed about setting up shore lines. I didn't feel too bad after that! Lynne and I certainly hadn't come anywhere near as close to contacting another boat. To be fair though it was 3 o'clock in the morning.............