Date: Sunday 5 September 2021
Position: 42° 16.727’ N 8° 49.630’ W
Location: Ria Aldan, Spain
Distance Sailed during the week: 65 NM
Distance Sailed total: 1979 NM
Weather: 
, 25°
Most popular on the menu: Barbecue dinner at SY Sundance (we have to buy our own pushpit barbecue soon!) 
Animals spotted: Dolphins
Comment of the week: “How does it taste?!” 
We love Spain, it’s sunny and warm,the water temperature is over 20 degrees now, and we really enjoy the anchor life! The days always start with school after breakfast, lunch and then we have the whole day to enjoy and explore Galicia. Only one thing is annoying, the days and weeks are going by so fast!
The kids swim a lot, and then it’s a luxury to have a shower at the boat! 
But we forgot one small detail, to teach the kids how to disable the stern shower. One morning we woke up with 0% in the fresh water tank and a lot of water from the shower in the bilge. All the rocking from old sea swell had turned on the shower. What to do? Go to a harbour to fill the tank, or? We took the lack of fresh water as a sign that it was time to complete the watermaker installation and start using the watermaker. After some installation work and a lot of tasting, the verdict was “It tastes good!”, we can fill the tank. So now we are self-sufficient with both electricity and drinking water!
One good thing when the kids have school on the boat is that it includes home economics, “hemkunskap” in Swedish, at the boat. Axel’s task for this week was to make breakfast for the whole family, so nice! But since the watertank showed 0% he somehow missed doing the dishes after….
Jonas also discovered that the AIS didn’t work as it should and is affecting the VHF. So in Pedras Negras, he did a 6 km walk to O Grove so we could send it to the manufacturer for service. We will see when we have that back. Really nice to have radar now, always good, but right now a little bit extra. But it will take a while until our position will be updated on MarineTraffice and VesselFinder.
We try to cook and eat as much as we can on the boat, but sometimes it’s nice to enjoy going out and having dinner at a restaurant. Especially when we can find cool local spots, serving local food. In Ria de Aldan we found one of them, and it was a pleasure to eat all the amazing food. And what a location, we sat in the terrass with the kiwi trees as a canopy – so beautiful. And of course, so nice to have the company of the family from Sundance.
Next week a low pressure is occurring, so right now we do not know the plan for next week. We enjoy going upwind but prefer having at least a 45 degree angle of the wind from the direction of where we are going to avoid increasing the sailed distance too much. A 90 nm leg is fairly easy now and doesn’t require any preparation. But if the leg is 150 nm or more we prefer to prepare a little in advance such as preparing one or two meals ahead.
Will we go to Baiona, and get ready to head to Portugal, or will we stay in Galicia, trying to see one of the Natural Parks islands? It all depends on the weather and the wind.
Written by Susanna Edholm, edited by Hanna Ericksson
Liv Sailing 