Highlights – the overview
We depart from Ribadesella in the morning at half tide. At low tide, there would not be enough depth in the harbor for us to leave. There’s no wind forecasted, so it will be a motorboat ride to Gijón… 30 sea miles, and about 6 hours.
We arrive at Yates Marina in Gijón in the early afternoon. There is another marina here, right in the city center, but we chose Yates on the west side of the harbor because of the stellar reviews for their service and staff. Also, the city marina is more open to swell, so wouldn’t be as comfortable, though it would have been more convenient. Since we will be leaving the boat here for two weeks while we travel to the USA, we want to make sure that our girl is well looked after. We also need to have some sail repairs and stainless steel work done, and being able to find the right resources is important. While we wait for work to be done and our upcoming departure date, we start in on a project ourselves… finishing and painting the pilot house.
Sher starts with taping the window frames to project them from being damaged when we’re sanding and filling the seams of the cuts around the windows.
Then, after Wim sands the entire ceiling, Sher tapes the edges again.
The weather is still beautiful and we take the scooters (after we finish working) to see a bit of the town…
On a square, there’s an impressive Christmas star. An aluminum frame covered with glittering stars and a million lights. Really beautiful. But we’re glad that we don’t have Christmas weather yet! It’s 25 degrees today!
We enjoy a lovely Pastel de Nata on a terrace! Not like Castro’s, but pretty good!
And then, back to work: sanding, filling, priming, sanding, filling, painting….
When all the paintwork in the deck salon is finished it looks gorgeous. It was a lot of work and sometimes a pain in the a**, but we’re very happy with the results.
Yes, happy!
We have moved Dione IV a bit further inside the marina, where there is less swell (if any). We secured her with many lines and switched on the cameras in the masts, because she’ll be on her own for 2 weeks! We will travel to the USA to visit Sher’s mom and Sher has to do some things in San Francisco. She’ll say, “bye bye” to the little storage space there… Dione IV is now home, sweet home/boat, with all Sher’s stuff soon to be on board (hopefully, we won’t need a bigger boat). We are confident that the harbormaster (Jesús) and his team will take very good care of our girl while we’re away. And we can remotely keep an eye on her via the 2 cameras in the masts.
The Captain’s Log (T+134,135,…149) – the complete story
November 3 – Ribadesella to Gijón
At 0815h we depart from Ribadesella. It is half tide. At low tide, there will not be enough depth for us.
At the exit of the river, there’s hardly any swell and it’s a flat sea. There’s no wind forecasted so it will be a motorboat ride to Gijón. It’s about 30 sea miles so that should take about 6 hours.
Once we are at open sea, the sun rises behind us.
The air is pretty hazy so that blocks the views on the beautiful coast a bit.
At 2 o’clock we arrive at Yates Marina. Here, we are going to stay for about a month. Our plans are:
- Carry out some repairs:
- Have a sailmaker carry out 2 small repairs on our mizzen sail and a small repair on the yankee sail.
- Have a stainless steel guy our bend solar panel frame straitened.
- Have a sailmaker modify our cockpit sun shade sail.
- Do a big paint job in the deck salon and the aft cabin. When we replaced 4 windows in Harlingen last spring, we had to cut a lot of timber and we glued everything back back we didn’t do the finishing yet.
- Travel to the US for about 2 weeks
Our neighbor, George, is an Englishman with a Victoire 1270, a Dutch built boat designed by Dick Koopmans Sr.
So, sisters!
The marina manager, Jesús, is a very active guy. His English is good so that makes communication easy and he knows where to get everything and for reasonable prices. That is one of the main reasons we are here: we read about him and his staff on Navily (app for sailors).
November 4 – 15 – the projects get underway!
Sher starts with taping the window frames to project them from being damaged when we’re sanding.
Sanding and filling the seams of the cuts around the windows:
After sanding the entire ceiling, Sher tapes the edges again.
We still have beautiful summer weather all the time. That’s important because we can have the doors and hatches open for a fresh breeze blowing the smell from the paint away.
Mostly, we paint in the morning and after lunch we get on our scooters into Gijón to escape from the paint smell. To do shopping in the Carrefour hypermarket, to buy materials like filler, but also to look around the city.
On a square, there’s an impressive Christmas star. An aluminum frame covered with glittering stars and a million lights. Really beautiful. But we’re glad that we don’t have Christmas weather yet! 25 degrees today!
We enjoy a lovely Pastel de Nata on a terrace! Not like Castro’s, but pretty good!
And in the meantime: sanding, filling, priming, sanding, filling, painting….
We paint the ceiling in the new satin epoxy paint. It looks a whole lot better than the glossy paint that was there before!
Everything else is painted with the high gloss epoxy.
We have delicious and cozy evenings with lovely meals by candle light 🙂
The sailmaker brings the modified sun shade, we install it and now it fits perfectly! Great job!
November 14. Lunch in the sun on the cockpit table!
Yes, happy!
November 15 – deck salon is finished!
All paintwork in the deck salon is finished and it looks gorgeous. It was a lot of work and sometimes a pain in the a**, but we’re very happy with the result. All damaged parts around the replaced windows have been neatly repaired and all old paint (cheap turpentine-based stuff) has been repainted with high-quality, high-gloss, 2-component epoxy in bright white. The ceiling in satin (half glossy), which is a softer view.
We have moved Dione IV a bit further inside the marina, where there is less swell (if any). We secured her with many lines and switched on the cameras in the masts, because she’ll be on her own for 2 weeks! We will travel to the USA to visit Sher’s mom and Sher has to do some things in San Francisco. Bye bye to the little storage space… Dione IV is home, sweet boat. We are confident that the harbormaster (Jesús) and his team will take very good care of her while we’re away. And we can remotely keep an eye on her via the 2 cameras in the masts.
This morning we shut down everything that is not needed during our absence and we get into the rental car.
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