Journal Entry Brixham Trawler Provident, 1964

The first transatlantic "Tall Ships Race" (which the US neglected to notice)

~ for Nick A, and Ulla S.

    We came on the Spanish coast at Cabo Villano after a week of thrashing back and forth in the Bay of Biscay without sight of land.

    First, only the dropping breeze and our gear beginning to slat in the beam swell, and then from the murk ahead, a wild-sheered, yellow Spanish trawler swung fragrantly across our bows with happy shouts and, rolling hugely, made her way to the southard, leaving us staring at the calmly blinking eye of a lighthouse, dead ahead: Cabo Villano, off Ria de Camariñas.

    And then the long wallow for Finisterre, heavy sea and light wind, rolling like a tinker's whore (mythical beast, that) under the grim hills of Facho, Pedro Martir, Ortigal.  Off Isla Onza we picked up the Group Flashing 2 of Isla Cies, off Vigo, and Cabo Sillero kept us guessing all the way down the black shore under the squall clouds to La Guardia.