I am fairly certain that today was a perfect day. We sailed off the anchor in Camariñas and onto a new anchor in Enseñada del Sardiñiero without ever using the engine. That alone is a good sign.
It was a lovely sail. The majority of the day was down wind
and we were able to go wing and wing and cruise along at about 8 knots. Wing
and wing is when the main sail is on one side of the boat and the jib is on the
other side. For some reason, my father loved to sail in this way so I spent
many hours thinking about him and his influence on me and my current path in
life.
We also had a huge pod of porpoises visit for a while. About
fifteen of them surfed our bow wake for nearly ten minutes. All of us have
noted that we just never get tired of seeing porpoises and dolphins. Whenever
one is spotted, we all jump up and watch and if the conditions allow for it, as
they did today, the boys clip into the jack lines so they can ride on the foredeck
and watch them at the bow. Or they just poke their heads up through one of the forward hatches.
Later in the day, we rounded Cape Finisterre. There can be
some tricky weather here but we had a perfect day for it. Rounding the cape is
an important marker for us. Finisterre, end of land, is the western-most point
of Spain. There is a significant lighthouse on the point and it is also part of
the pilgrimage that 150,000 people make to Santiago de Compostela each year.
Though we could not see this from Sila, the pilgrims often burn their dirty
socks on the rocks below the lighthouse at Finisterre.
After rounding the cape, we headed up into the bay. As much
as I enjoy sailing wing and wing on calm seas, I also enjoy beating to
windward. So the end of the day included working our way into the bay with wind
blowing about 20 knots- an exhilarating end to the day of sailing.
In case that wasn't enough, we crossed two other significant
milestones today. First, Porter spent a huge portion of the day down below
reading. This is monumental as he usually has to be on deck to avoid getting
seasick. Second, I baked a delicious batch of chocolate chip cookies. The three
boys all love the cookies that I have baked in Leadville for years but I had never
been able to get them right on our old boat. The combination of the finicky
oven and sea level and they just never came out right. Today- they were
delicious!
Finally, our anchorage is perfect. We are well protected
from the wind which is expected to pick up in the next day or two and we are
close to a beautiful sandy beach that I expect will entertain the boys for
hours.
-Molly
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