8-12 August
We have stopped in Corunna to be joined by Angela, Frances, Olivia, Laura and Fin to celebrate Frances’ birthday which coincides with the total eclipse of the sun on August 12.
It has been a fantastic few days! We have eaten a lot of seafood and wonderful tortillas (Spanish omelettes), drank loads of canias (beer) & vino blanca and I think I need to do a bit of drying out now!
We booked Noa hotel over near Santa Cruz castle (well ahead of the curve on eclipse night prices!) and it turned out to be the perfect location.
It is in a very pretty bay with its very own castle on an island. We face west and can look across the bay to Là Coruña – we could probably see La Bamba if we had a good telescope!
On Monday we visited the old town and enjoyed the beautiful 12th century church, Ingrexa de St Iago.
And we went out to the promontory to see the amazing Tower of Hercules, the only Roman lighthouse still in use.
It had an 18th century makeover by Charles III when they added an upward extension and impressively carved a spiral relief on the huge stones to echo the ramp that the Romans used to access the top of the tower.
We didn’t go in but instead enjoyed the sunset. We think it will be very busy here on the 12th.
There’s a big compass mosaic by the tower depicting all the Celtic nations – Wales, Ireland, Scotland, Isle of Man, Cornwall, Brittany, and Galicia. Corunna is proud of its Celtic heritage, apparently the Brigantes and Artabrians used to live here.
On Tuesday everyone enjoyed a mini cruise on La Bamba.
We were expecting to drift around the bay but instead we had a healthy breeze of up to 17 knots.
The sailors showed off their abilities and it was very noticeable that Frances and Olivia had gained both skill and confidence on their recent Competent Crew course.
After roaring along just outside the bay, we anchored to enjoy Prosecco and jumping off the boom! (David’s anchor roller worked perfectly!)
We even saw dolphins on the way back. (And no orcas!)
The harbour is full of enormous cruise ships who have come to see the eclipse. David and I are finding land very soporific – I think it’s because we don’t have to do anything or plan anything!
On Frances’ birthday we relaxed at the hotel with mounting excitement.
There was a huge feeling of anticipation in the bay!
The hotel laid on eclipse glasses even though I had brought some, and we enjoyed their eclipse event with local food buffet and viewing from the roof.
We had more cloud than usual but we had plenty of blue sky to see the moon eating away at the sun. It’s amazing how little sun we need to light up the earth.
Having witnessed the 1999 near solar eclipse (with a children’s birthday party!) totality was very different to a nearly eclipse. At totality it went properly dark like night – we could see the lights of Corunna across the bay.
Everyone was amazed and cheers went up when the clouds shifted so that we could see the corona around the moon.
It is an awesome phenomenon – you can fully understand the portents of doom that humans used to explain this celestial drama before we understood what’s going on.
It is wonderful that we, as humans, can predict precisely when these events occur and enjoy them en masse. It both underlines how small we are in the universe but also how fantastic it is that we are both conscious and intelligent enough to understand it all.
The moon and the sun did not disappoint!
We have had a wonderful time with our younger family and friends, we will miss them and thank them so much for coming to celebrate with us – it’s not the easiest place to get to and from.
Now we head back to La Bamba for Part 2 of our sail down to the Canaries and are looking forward to welcome Penny as new crew on Thursday to take us round the corner of Spain and onto Portugal!
This is probably the best picture ever – especially as I couldn’t see what I was taking!:
