Advent Day 16 and we’re going Ferrol

Hello everyone,

Still in the struggle but seeing what we can do to work through it … What’s behind door 16 ?

Picture. We're looking at the advent scene with the collection of models scattered throughout. The addition today is a mostly white spaceship shaped in a diamond shape. There are windows in front, we can't see the engines at the back.

Yep. Still in that state of exhaustion, although I think I did actually get some sleep last night. Soreness is still in there though, looking forwards to the winter break.

Ferrol ? Time for more cruise …

Friday saw us docked up in Al Ferrol, on the Northern coast of Spain. I might have to bang out fairly quickly and do simpler alt-text because my right arm is not particularly happy with me today.

Picture. We're looking out over a port and in the distance, low buildings of a coastal city. More ships are in the background. The sea part of the harbour is to the right of picture. The sky is cloudy.

Very pleasant chill city. One thing I did notice there were the wind turbines … and there was a lot more of that on the way out of the city. It’s missing on the alt text but there are is a big array of very long blades, all stacked up with each other. Beside those, are the box sections of the actual generators and there are what I think are the bits that link the generators to the blades. There were huge stacks of these all around the port, as well as that not so little collection there.

To the port ! I had a little wander but didn’t really know what I was seeing but … I was drawn inevitably to their naval museum.

Picture. We're looking out over a stone paved courtyard with buildings to the left. In the centre of the courtyard to the left is a big ship's propeller. In the distance is the various levels of a ship's mast, covered with protrusions and aerials and antennas, with a big plate of a radar in the middle.

Complete with scalped aircraft carrier. Not something you see every day. If you’re in the area, I’d thoroughly recommend going to see the Naval Museum there. It starts through the Spanish Navy ships in the age of sail, goes through the early 20th century warships and goes right through to a model of their latest destroyer.

Picture. We're looking at a model of a navy ship in a glass display case. The ship is grey, with a black stripe at the waterline and red below. The bow is to the right and going backwards, there is a naval gun, missile silo, then the Bridge with the main sensors and radios mast behind. Aft of that are engine exhausts and a flat flight deck is at the back.

The pennant number in the middle there is F105 and tells us that this is a model of the Spanish Navy ship Cristóbal Colón. More at the wiki. She was commissioned in 2012. Part of me automatically critiques the design of these ships (see various comments ref ship nerd) but it looks like that ship could do a seriously good job as part of a fleet. Good to see these on our side.

Picture. We're looking at a couple of older navy ships in display cases. The one nearest has a black upper hull below cream superstructure. There are 3 funnels, 2 masts and a gun up front in a round white turret.

Oops. Lost a bit there as I was rudely interrupted by needing to log in again. Not sure why Bluehost is doing that every two days at the moment. I should probably log in around lunchtime sometime so the timer is set different.

Anyway ! Two early century navy ships, where the engines were taking up quite a bit of the ship and they were limited to just a small number of not too effective guns.

Picture. We're looking down an alleyway between two sets of two story buildings. Large ship anchors are stood up on each side.

They must have done well though, look at all the trophy anchors in the collection ! This was also the port that serenaded us on the way out with the bagpipe band. That was a lovely way to prepare for the day’s sailaway from a pretty coastal city.

Picture. We're looking out over fairly calm but rippled water towards a hill, where buildings of the city are there on a couple of levels. It looks like the buildings are climbing upwards to the right and then curling round to the left.

Good to see all that greenery in there around the buildings. This sailaway saw me starting to watch on the Promenade deck …

Picture. We're looking out over water that is just being disturbed by the wake of a pilot boat showing us the way to the open sea. The sun is up in the top left and is reflecting off the water. There is a narrow gap between far hills on the left and closer hills to the right.

We were heading off down that channel there. Here’s our pilot boat.

Picture. We're looking out over the water again, towards the gap to the sea over on the left with hills on the right. There is a little boat in the centre, leading the way out to sea for us. Their wake is making waves in the water.

Must have been pushing it a bit with the wake that they’re generating there.

Picture. We're looking back down the channel of sea that we came down. The surface of the water is disturbed by our wake. We can see a narrow break between hills to the left and right. Beyond the break, we can just see the cranes and buildings of the city.

This is where I found myself up on the Foredeck part of the ship (wasn’t open much) and as the ship turned, we had a chance to see back the way we’d come. Good place to be, nice and chill which was what I was needing at that point.

Oh ! This was where I was attempting to get pictures of a cooperative flag as well :-D. This is about as good as it got …

Picture. We're looking out over the back of the ship, with sun loungers arranged on the deck. At the back of the ship, there is a flagpole flying a flag which is 3 quarters red, with a white cross. In the upper left is the blue and yellow emblem of the Fred Olsen line.

That’ll do :-).

Time to hit post though and ration out what remains of my typing time. Have a good evening everyone, see you tomorrow.

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