Santander and the Guggenheim

19 June 2024 – Santander, Spain

Candás was a great place to visit - colourful houses, green hills, beautiful path along the cliffs, and a delicious ice cream store - except for the very shallow patches of the harbour. The entrance was a bit sketchy as well, as it requires a ninety degree turn between a beach and shoals to make it inside the breakwall, and the entrance had silted up a bit so we ran aground a few times. Luckily it was just sand and we didn’t hit it very hard. Jonas went ahead in the dinghy to sound for depth then found a path to lead us through the small harbour to a mooring. It would have been nice to stay there another day but we were trying to get to a more secure harbour before a gale arrived in a few days.

Candás, Spain

Though it was only thirty-five nautical miles from Candás to Ribadesella, it took us all day to get there. We had to go quite slow in order to arrive around eight in the evening, within two hours of high tide, otherwise we would have run aground in the river. There wasn’t much wind so we put up the spinnaker and went three knots, and at one point we had all the sails up and were making zero. The timing worked out, though; after hanging around in the entrance for a bit, our sailor friends on a catamaran went inside and reported back that the water was deep enough for us to follow. 

We then sailed to the city of Santander, where we stayed for a few days during the storm and waited for a good weather window to sail to France. Jonas and my dad fixed Jonas’s fishing reel and did some boat work like cleaning the waterline.

Fixing the fishing reel – Santander, Spain

On Monday, we rented a car and drove an hour to Bilbao to visit the Guggenheim art museum. The building was beautiful. I really enjoyed The Matter of Time an exhibit by Richard Serra, featuring giant metal sheets twisted into ellipses and spirals that visitors could walk through. My favourite part had to be Puppy by Jeff Koons, the giant statue of a West Highland terrier made of flowers, and I also liked the spider statue Maman by Louise Bourgeois.

Guggenheim Bilbao Museum, Bilbao, Spain

A Matter of Time by Richard Serra – Guggenheim Bilbao Museum, Bilbao, Spain

Puppy by Jeff Koons – Guggenheim Bilbao Museum, Bilbao, Spain

Maman by Louise Bourgeois – Guggenheim Bilbao Museum, Bilbao, Spain

We are currently at sea heading to France. The weather is great; we are sailing downwind at eight knots with the spinnaker up and hope to arrive sometime tomorrow afternoon.