Espana 16

 

The swell rolls in, tall and strong, to San Sebastian's famous bay. Cloud streaming, like the smoke of a volcanic eruption, from its mountain peaks.

The choice of forecasts, on offer this morning, was twelve knots of fair wind today (with rain) or next to no wind over the weekend (with sunshine).

Stargazer opts for the former. It is something of a novelty to be sailing with waterproofs close to hand, as the showers pass through. 

We entertain ourselves by catching and passing a forty five foot ketch, off San Sebastian. 

Stargazer is bound for a cleft in the cliffs, better protected than San Sebastian's open roadstead.

Pasaia, in the Basque language . Pasai Donibane, in the Spanish . This port was recommended to me, in reverential tones, by the skipper of a gaff rigged langoustier met on the Gironde (by way of returning a favour). He called it Pasajes.

Steve Pickard, author of The South Biscay Pilot, rates it as having "the most impressive of any entrance to a harbour on the coast ." 

It is truly magnificent. Even on a grey day. With swell surfing and slewing Stargazer, as I search for the marks, which will lead us in.

The gloom helps, by rendering the leading lights, up on the cliffside, clearly visible. Which would not be the case in bright sunlight.

 I bring the three into line. The bottom (a sector light) is showing red. Stargazer is too far to port. We ease over to starboard, very close, it seems to me, to the starboard buoy. Stargazer sails safely in, beneath a column of three white lights.

 Within the encircling crab's-claw of cliffs the water, at a stroke, turns glassy calm. The crash and bang of the boom ; The slatting, as the genoa fills and empties with each roll ; replaced by silence, save for the gentle lap of Stargazer’s wake.

To either hand multi-hued cliffs, clad in verdant green, rise sheer. Two hamlets cling to their sides. One on either shore. A silver ribbon of sea threads its way, through the centre, of this deep shadowed ravine. At its end the orange glint, of terracotta roof tops, can be seen.