Aviles to Cudillero

The next morning Mike’s bike was still there, but so were the police! They had taken exception to Mike having parked his bike chained to the railings along the waterfront. After a short and friendly discussion, Mike moved the bike back across the road and we settled down to a breakfast of scrambled eggs. Mike and Julie had to be at Santander for the ferry so they left us after breakfast and we set off for Cudillero, the failed destination from the previous day. The wind was initially calm but increased rapidly to 25 kts, but with less swell than before so the entry to Cudillero proved relatively easy. That was when the fun started. We were expecting mooring buoys, as that was what the pilot book described, but not the bewildering forest of coloured globes that we encountered. It appeared (later) that they were laid in two lines buoying mooring ropes that were attached to the harbour bed, but to us it was just total confusion. To crown it all, the 25kt wind was blowing across this line of buoys, making it almost impossible to stop the boat and hold her steady so that Bert and Jac could hook us on. After a couple of attempts, and at the expense of the “Jolly Hooker” that broke at the first use, we managed to get the bow line on and picked up the stern line with a boat hook, as we drifted backwards and forwards. Having settled in, we were then able to watch other boats arriving and experiencing similar problems. It must be one of those perverse quirks of human nature as we all, from time to time, struggle with mooring a boat, but it is great fun to watch other people in similar difficulties, just as long as they don’t hit you in the process! At Santander we had managed to rig a system to hoist the inflated tender onto the gantry at the stern of the boat and we spent the afternoon refining the system while, in my case, consuming far too much beer! We then took the tender around the harbour before taking it over to look around the town. Cudillero turned out to be a very pretty fishing village with a narrow street running up the hill from the town. There were lots of eating houses and we found one in a back street that did great tapas and after a good meal we took the tender back to the boat for a good night’s sleep.