Santander

Thursday 10th / Friday 11th July

The north coast of Spain is very green so why when I wake up and find it’s tipping down am I surprised I don’t know; I lie there warm and dry and ask myself “shall I spend another day here?” its so hard to motivate yourself sometimes, you get used to a place you get lazy and you know its easier to stay than to face the unknown again and again. Anyway up I got primarily because I had been mercilessly attacked by mosquitoes in the night and looked like the elephant man who’d just done 10 rounds with Mike Tyson so I decided that anywhere was better than here so off I went.
I got to use my whisker pole, what a worthwhile investment that has been Debbie!, for a couple of hours then the wind died so on with my “trusty” engine and thud thud thud all day. The monotony was broken by two events; firstly I had a visit from about 10 dolphins; these were about 8’ long and much bigger that the ones I’d seen before and secondly and a lot more worryingly I heard a very loud CLUNK….Oh NO…… off with the throttle then look over the side to see what I had hit….nothing appeared…..this meant only one thing…….what ever it was was still attached…… bugger…..well on with the Jacques Cousteau outfit and over the side. I removed what looked like half a lobster pot from the rudder / prop and took a photo whilst I was down there! Thankfully no damage had been done but the sea was littered with debris including whole partly submerged trees which if I had hit would have been disastrous’ anyway I arrived in Santander about 7ish just in time to dodge the ferry that was clearly waiting for me around the headland! I picked up a visitors buoy off the yacht club right in the centre and open a well earned beer. There is a photo of the yacht club with the moorings in the background.
I want to like Santander but I don’t really. The old centre was destroyed in 1941 by fire and the replacement which must have been built just after the Civil war is just not quite right….everything is just a little below what you would expect, including a Cathedral devoid of anything of note, so I am not sad to move on tomorrow to LLanes then Gijon.