Birds of passage

We have been confined to Cangas for a number of reasons, Lynnes foot injury and an ongoing struggle to get our dinghy which we had bought in France repaired, this has entailed a  long email exchange only feasible due to Lynnes injury.....this may or may not be resolved before we need to head off again.

It does seem minor when you see the photos but in actual fact its fairly major. We can no longer row the dinghy. The Dark Tarn philosophy of redundant systems has been compromised. If the outboard fails we cant row.
Due to our enforced stay we have become great friends with a number of visiting yachties. Some we have not seen over winter however their boats have been close neighbours. These characters below are John and his mate from Merry Mood, fixing a genoa foil....before heading back to the U.K. across Biscay.

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We also got to know amongst others,  a couple from Scallywag, a Legend 36, Trevor and Pauline.

Trevor is talking to Lynne here, and this is Scallywag leaving.

We also had a lovely evening with a couple who were fellow OCC members Bruce and Pam who sail a Rival 36

This sad looking yacht has been moored opposite us and was recently moved, it had apparently arrived in Cangas Four years ago and within a couple of days its crew had abandoned it, the consensus of opinion is it was stolen. however occupying a 12 metre berth is costing the club a small fortune ( the consequences of crime ) so it was moved against the wall in an 8 metre berth, I helped to move it, soon the Irish Yachts and motor boats from Bouzas and Vigo were happily banging into the newly vacant berth and hopefully putting some money into the marina coffers. Another derelict was moved even further away the day after once Pepe was on the case.

 I was initially sceptical of this as I could clearly see the bottom at low water and this particular yacht (re-possessed by a finance firm ) clearly drew 2 metres at least, however Pepe was proved right.

Every so often in life one can acquire what can only be described as an enigma gram (thanks to Spike Milligan for the term ), here is one Lynne and I found in our change........... I must admit to wholly agreeing with the sentiment.

We chose to visit Moana on the bus on the one day that the buses were on strike, so it goes. The day after all was well and for not a lot of euros we chose to explore our neighbouring town. My family are very keen motorcyclists, the TT on the Isle of Man is a must every summer, I was interested to discover this statue in Moana, celebrating a local racer, Dani Rivas Fernandez who was killed along with another rider at the racetrack at Laguna Seca. For the life of me I couldn't figure out how this was made . Lynne reckoned they had just sprayed a real bike in molten metal. The detail is quite incredible.

Of vcourse midsummer day was approaching and in Spain the celebrations are known as the night of San Xoan or more colloquially "Magic night", Bonfires, drinking, sardines, and staying up all night seemed to be the order of events

We wandered around town and along the sea front to our favourite cafe bar which has tables on a platform built out over the sea, as the tide was in and a bit of a swell was running, the waves occasionally splashed up between the boards, a small price to pay for such a fabulous location!

After a coffee and a walk back into town to purchase some guitar plectrums we caught the bus back to Cangas.

Just in time to see the local youths out in C1 sprint boats

It constantly amazes me as a level4 sea-kayak coach to see these essentially still water craft on the sea. I hold my hat up to you, deep respect.

Beyond the West Horizon

A film I had first shown Lynne in Newry, safely rafted against the quay as the winter gales blew was this.
It was filmed and edited by Eric and Susan Hiscock. I believe that the voiceover was done in one take, this is suggested at several points as odd things occur! however rather than let the more sophisticated BBC sound engineers loose on his footage Eric did the whole thing in one, recording as he watched the film. The BBC had supplied Eric with a camera and thousands of feet of 16mm film.
It is of its age, which is round about where I was born. Unless you have walked at least some way in his shoes it is difficult to criticize Eric for his slightly patronising, possibly racially intolerant and insular views. He is, as becomes apparent, a superb seaman and navigator. Especially important for its age this is an outstanding voyage in a very small boat. For comparison Dark Tarn is only 5 feet or so longer. We do however benefit from an amazing array of communication and navigational electronics that Eric and Susan would have considered witchcraft. They didn't even have an anchor windlass!
So here it is crossing oceans in the late 50s ............fabulous, this world has gone. Wanderer III continues her voyages under new owners and Eric's books have a privileged place aboard Dark Tarn. They are still the bible. Deep respect........

Torchlight in the old town

The procession was due to begin at 10.30pm, We made our way to the church to find several hundred people waiting for the procession to begin.

As the statue of our lady of Fatima was processed down the knave and left the church we were stranded inside as a small service was performed in the church plaza outside. A couple of dozen of us were effectively trapped within the glorious church for 20 minutes or so before the procession proceeded into the narrow streets of the old town.

As a confirmed atheist I am always strangely moved by these outward observances of faith, in fact I would challenge anyone not to be moved by the experience. To be slowly carried along by a mass of humanity, quietly singing their devotions and as if by some invisible signal raising their candles in unison is a profound and rather beautiful feeling.

I dived down one of the many side streets (getting good at navigating these now ) to try and get ahead of the procession, after a small sermon at the small square near the town hall the procession turned around to head back along the main street, led by the standard bearers and the priest who was chanting almost continuously, the crowd following responded at appropriate times.

I recognised the Ave Maria but I must admit to being lost much of the time , I had no idea that the virgin Mary had so many names! The massed voices in the warm dark night did sound wonderful however.

Having spent a long time in Cangas it really should not surprise me that occasions like this are a real community celebration. This seemed to be an occasion for some very devout people to come together and celebrate. The cafe bars along the main street ensured that there was a clear path for the celebrants, there was no fuss and in that typical Spanish way it all seemed to just happen naturally.

As we passed the market hall I found Lynne again and she was obviously suffering a little from her strained foot, however she said the slow progress was not a bother!

As the procession continued up into the old town towards the ancient cross, we decided to head back to Dark Tarn to catch up with the elections as it was already past midnight and there seemed to be at least another hour or two to go. Tuesday was a celebration of St Anthony and I needed to compile a list of lost items I needed help finding before then!
I shot some video which I will upload and link to here later......
took a while but here it is.

Visit of our lady of Fatima

Lynnes sprained foot gave us a rethink and we decided to take it easy in Cangas for another month.
It would give us valuable maintenance time and also let Lynne recover completely before we continued our voyage. The Algarve was by this time looking less attractive anyway and Lynne was not too upset with an extended stay in Cangas!

We have both fallen in love with this pleasant little town, the Pidgeon above kept us company at Bambuenos cafe on our way back from the beach. when we got back to the marina a couple of lovely traditional boats were entering the fishing harbour.

It is constantly interesting to see how local craft reflect local conditions in their design.

the three vessels were obviously taking people for a sail in the bay.

Thursday dawned and we were up early not because it was polling day in the U.K. as we had voted several days earlier by post. It was because posters around town had been advertising the arrival of the Virgin of Fatima. There is a statue which tours and is known as the International Pilgrim of Fatima. We did not think this statue was that one having the distinct impression that it was the Original Peregrina statue from the shrine of Fatima or the Chapel of the Apparitions.

The statue was due to arrive at 11 oclock and slightly late we managed to catch up just as it entered the church. It was much smaller than we were expecting but was obviously very highly revered.

It was accompanied by some traditional gallician pipers and a surprising number of people followed it into church.

we joined the queue and took up position at the rear of the church as a brief service of welcome was performed.

The original statue seems to have a presence out of proportion to its small size. later we returned to the church, which was open all day for people to visit to find a small group of people praying.

The Statue was set to one side of the alter and was lit so as to stand out from the massive gilded altarpiece and surrounding decoration.

Again I was struck by the small size of the statue.
Cangas church of course has its own Lady of Fatima, she is hiding in a corner and is actually a bigger and I think better statue. As usual the whole church is full of fresh cut flowers.

Later there was to be a torchlight procession with the statue through the old town, we decided to make an effort to see it.