Biscay Challenge

Dateline: Hondarribia, Wednesday, June 22, 22.00

RATS!!! Why is it when you come away and need to rely on it, your goddam computer goes on the blink! Having written my blog yesterday I found that although I could receive e-mails, I could not send them.

Mercifully, I have an IT guru here in the person of Dave and although he spent the best part of an hour yesterday trying to fix it, even he was defeated. So it really was a case of my blog being all dressed up, but with nowhere to go.

So exasperating! I had to rewrite the whole thing again on Dave’s machine. I comfort myself that this must have happened even to the likes of John Simpson.

If anyone thought that I was gloating a little yesterday when I described the idyllic scene from our apartment window – and I probably was – I got my comeuppance today. For as I looked out of the bedroom window the Bidasoa River was no longer blue and I could not see any boats bobbing about, let alone France!

It was all shrouded in what Alexis Green would probably call a ‘soft rain’, but the Basques call ‘shirimiri’ which is a much more romantic name. But it is still mild, just over 20 degrees C I would guess, and is trying to cheer up. However, the lovely receptionist girl is accusing us of bringing English weather with us, but frankly this is shirtsleeve weather compared to what we left behind. I have told her that the Basque Country needs the rain even more than the Brits, so we’re really doing her a favour!

Unfortunately, this morning Dave seems to have picked up some kind of urinary bug and the dear lady who owns this hotel arranged for us to go to the local Health Clinic and set it all up. Luckily we were able to see the one doctor who spoke reasonable English and she was great, eventually prescribing Dave with some antibiotics. He was surrounded by a bevy of women taking his temperature and blood pressure, which understandably soared, but afterwards he professed himself feeling better already! Let us hope that continues.

He was certainly well enough to walk with me some 20 minutes back from the Clinic and have another go at my errant laptop, which he miraculously managed to fix, so hopefully I am back in communication with the wider world. It seems that I had been able to update the Biscay Bites, Facebook and even Twitter, but god knows how. Is anyone following me on Twitter @BiscayChallenge? I am told that I now have 16 followers and although I have no idea who they are, I feel terribly flattered. I realise that I have a long way to go to catch Stephen Fry or Lady GaGa; but although I admire them enormously, for totally different reasons, do I really want to?

But, back to reality and the little matter of our yacht race. As we avidly watch Andy and Matthieu’s rapid progress across the Golfe de Gascogne the hot topic of discussion is when he will arrive here. We hope that it may be around midday tomorrow, so we can get some good pics of them both as they dock, but lighter airs closer to us might slow him at the eleventh hour.

Whenever they get in, you can be sure that one of us at least will be there to congratulate them with a couple of beers. They will have earned them.

You will have seen from our various sound bites that we have contacted Wild Oyster today and they are taking a little respite at Loctudy, which according to Dave is a picturesque little Breton fishing village specialising in langoustine. Trust Bryan and Ed to pick a winner! Let us hope that they want to continue after a good night’s rest, but I hope to record an interview with one of them later this evening to get a firsthand account of their experiences. Again, if technology works, we would hope to get this up on the website within 24 hours.

We have just paid our first visit to the marina and caught up with Oriol, the Director there. What a lovely guy! I was pleased to present him with a race shirt and cap, proudly bearing the Basque colours and I was even more pleased that he needed only a large and not an extra large size shirt! Oriol is a Race Officer and for the biennial Bilbao to Bordeaux race, which some may remember started two years ago when we wanted to go to Bilbao. Oriel told me that the race starts tomorrow and has 60 boats, with 40 on the waiting list and suddenly I feel sick!

Oriel tries to cheer me up by saying that the boats only go for the wine, but when that doesn’t work he takes Dave and I for a beer at the Yacht Club, where we meet the even more lovely Marcela, the secretary there. Of course we have not met for two years and in the meantime she has had a son, but we greet each other like bosom pals, which we are. She is kind enough to say that I look so much better since the last time I was here, which I hope is true, because I was at a pretty low ebb then.

We gave her some race shirts and caps in return for all the efforts she has put in on our behalf and she gave us the key to their Club, so that we can gain access 24 hours a day, whenever boats come in. What’s more, we can help ourselves to the showers and beers, for which we write out an honesty tab.

Seems a pretty good deal to me! I find myself using the adjective ‘lovely’ a lot, but I cannot think of a more appropriate word. These people are genuinely lovely: always friendly and willing to help. It seems hardly possible that two years have gone by since I was here last: it is like yesterday.

This evening we met up with Oriol and his friend Ignatius, or known for ever as Sito. I did not know that Loyola, which is where the Jesuit founder Ignatius came from is a small village about 20 miles south of San Sebastian, but then we learn something every day. What a guy Sito is! He is a past Commodore of Hondaribbia Yacht Club and we have the same sense of humour. Having lived in England for 10 months many years ago, he speaks pretty good English – and certainly far better than our Spanish. I liked him a lot.

He and Oriol took Dave and I on the Spanish equivalent of a pub crawl and along the way we have sorted our restaurant and menu for our final dinner on Friday. We have met the patron and inspected the kitchen and already I am looking forward to it. We may be small in numbers, but it is going to be something special. I cannot remember having bought a drink and I have now returned to my computer feeling, well shall we say – jolly?

Roger