With Christmas behind and the New Year looming around the corner Leonie and I are sitting in a bar in the Spanish town of Cariño reflecting on our adventures of the past six months … and also dreaming of the adventures to come. Also around the corner (in a geographic sense) is the infamous Cabo Finisterre which is standing between us and the tropical seas beckoning us in the low latitudes. Finisterre has already sent us back with our tails between our legs after one attempt … contrary winds and big swell left us battered and bruised and back where we started when we made the attempt a couple of days ago … it also posed the perfect opportunity for the second, and also this time successful, escape attempt of our inflatable rubber tender “Brad”.
Those of you following from the start might recall that Brad made his first attempt for freedom while we were towing him around a headland in the south coast of Norway. On this attempt the bright red boat ended up bobbing free in three meter waves after the tow rope snapped – but after an epic battle with a boat hook we managed to shackle our wayward boar again (though in the process we got the snapped rope wrapped around the propeller and were forced to limp back into harbour.
Alas sometimes lessons learned are lost … again we were towing Brad around a headland in the north of Spain when raising winds and waves served to shear the shackles that tied the rascal. This time however he made his dash while our backs were turned. Given the strong Southerly winds that have been plaguing us of late we figure Brad is well on his way back to Iceland by now (Margrét and Guðni, watch out!). If anyone sees a bright red boat bobbing around the Atlantic please give it a kick from me!
Despite this seeming calamity, the laid back atmosphere of the Galician coast of Spain seems to forbid us from being too distressed. There is always “mañana” to worry about such things and for now there are clean beaches, palm trees and a dazzling array of cafes offering wine to sooth the nerves and “menu del dia’s” to turn the walk home into a waddle. There are certainly worse places to spend Christmas and the friendly locals have given us a warm welcome (along with some odd looks at the crazy tourists wandering on their beach in shorts and thongs while they huddle in their winter jackets!).