A Museum of Anchors

Dire dangers await visitors to the sheltered harbour of little Candás, near Gijón. You might be attacked by waves during rough weather. You might fall in because all is not flat. Your car might fall into the water. You might slip. Heavy things might fall on you from the sky. You might be electrocuted. And just in case you still feel safe, there’s a risk which is as yet undecided, boing!

Okay, a fishing village has its share of tragedies at sea. My grandmother’s Scottish fishing town, Eyemouth, lost 129 men on one black day in 1906, causing her to move to Tyneside to gut herrings, leading indirectly to me being born. So in the centre of Candás a weeping woman prays for her man’s return.

But how much simpler is the instruction at the open-air Museum of Anchors not far away in Salinas:

DON’T DO IT!
(Surely this isn’t simply noroeste, north-west…)

Great anchors of all sorts, many with personal names, are displayed artistically along a peninsula, promontory, or headland, whichever you prefer.

Here’s how to throw an anchor into the sea:

Now I know where the Asturian morcilla blood sausages…

come from:

One of the anchors is from a bulk-carrier which hit rocks off Gijón, Asturias, in 1986 while bringing 100,000 tonnes of coal loaded in Virginia, USA, to that historic center of coal mining, Asturias—eh?  When the tide goes out from San Lorenzo Beach, Gijón—where the Vikings first came ashore in Spain to loot and pillage—it often leaves a few black lines on the golden sands, but don’t worry, the coal dust has been thoroughly washed by now and shouldn’t give your bikini a line.

The presiding sea-god, for whom the museum is named, is Philippe Cousteau, famous son of the famous Jacques Cousteau.

Two cameras were present, with slightly different concepts of size, and two photographic aces, one of whom wishes to dissociate herself in the strongest possible terms compatible with a love life from the wonky horizon which the other photographer likes.

Meanwhile, back in Candás, people were exposing themselves on a pier, oblivious to the Quatermass experiments happening on the horizon overlooking Gijón beyond: