I really liked Camarinas - really just a small nice yacht club, with a good bar and restarant. The town is friendly, this trip was coloured by the festival that they ran the entire time we were there. Who knew they could keep the fairground music going until 5 in the morning? Still with earplugs it was ok. Should maybe have anchored in the harbour. or within the bay but it was handier being on a pontoon.
We wait a few days for a favourable forecast to round Cape Finisterre "The end of the earth". Pilot books warn that the wind goes up a force near strong headlands and Cape Finisterre easily qualifies for this, Mind you, as usual, you prepare for the worst and hope for the best and our"rounding" of the cape occurs with winds of less than 5 knots <sigh> motor on again. It has been a funny season for weather, Our Swedish friends in the Mediterranean (Jens and Petra) are now using the name motorterranean and suffering a heat wave.
These are big buildings, this is a big headland!
See the tiny people. There is a large trailer/car park to the left full of RVs and Caravans, Some people will go to the ends of the earth to enjoy a good holiday.
We skip the first Ria and enter the next one - the Ria de Arousa, this has good memories for us as we spent three weeks based here scuba diving when we were 22. That wasn't yesterday... We take the dreaded channel de Norde to get into the Ria - a good shortcut, you head straight at that rock and miss it by hanging a a sharp left... 50 yards off to avoid a rock. I had been this way with Clifford a few years ago. It is actually simpler than it seems as all the scary rocks are visible apart from one. I spit on it as we pass it.
And so into the ria (valley inlet). This has the scenery of Donegal except the houses have roofs the same colour and tend to be grouped into communities. In Donegal you have beautiful scenery blighted by a scattered explosion of garish coloured boxes scattered over the landscape with abandonment. Here the effect is quite pleasant...
I am amazed by the high populations in all of North Spain and NorthWest Spain (and later West Portugal) but the planning has been done quite tastefully
You can take that as damning the Donegal planners with faint praise.
Safe in the marina, there are three marinas in the Ria but I go to Villagaricia de Arousa as it is the closest to the train station - 15 minutes walk. There are trains that go to Santiago de La Compostela in 20 miuntes. Good airport. Eileen can fly home direct to Alicante. She departs on the Thursday morning and I am left singlehanded for the next few weeks. It has been great having her on board. Good crew. Also she has good eating habits and I must attempt to continue to eat healthily. Vary my lunches from bread/ham/cheese/mayo and include green things. She taught us to fry pimentos in olive oil and serve with a lot of scattered salt, also to liquidise tomatoes (we have a lovely clockwork/string operated liquidiser) and serve on stale baguette - fried briefly in olive oil... lovely! We will also remember her pina coladas - a really good way to use up rum. A pity I don't drink alone apart from one beer a night sometimes... later on I modify that to include a Port nightcap, but I am getting ahead of myself.
These paving stones are totally flat - can you imagine attempting to walk over these when drunk?
I stay sober and spend the next couple of days working on the boat - new recording hummingbird echo sounder gets fitted together with waterproof 12 volt sockets and a double USB socket in the cockpit. Future crew will be able to sit in the cockpit and spend hours facebooking (Doros). Also I need a socket to plug in a spotlight for safety.
The heat is getting to me and I continue to drink my 2 litres of water, I get a phone call from Jens and he suggests adding a bit of salt and sugar to the water to improve its efficacy - if you don't do this you have lots of input, but also lots of output - I pee all the time...
I try to get an hours walk each day - one day I cycle 5 miles up the coast to inspect a "newer" marina - at Villaneuvo. This is a nice marina but it also does not have fuel.
There is a third marina on the Isle de Arousa but its fuel dock is busy with a very large fishing boat offloading fish by crane, I don't bother waiting.
Rowing boats are on the up, also note the pretty wee village, the sand, the mussel rafts
Beaches everywhere, and mussel rafts everywhere - I think this ria has the highest concentration of rafts in Europe if not the world.
I would not like to be a fisherman on this on a stormy night. It is also driving around in circles and hard to avoid!
I believe the Queen's University Sub Aqua club (8 of us anyway) camped near that beach, there were no houses then.
A big feature of this part of the coast are the islands that "guard" some of the rias. Unfortunately you need a permit to anchor at them. Two permits actually. The first takes three days, Had my friend Pearse come out I would have applied, but he is delayed. I go quite close to the first island (illa de Ons) and take some photos.
I sail by with the main and mizzen out - broad reach/run cannot support the genny and I am too laxy to pole it out.
The wind continues to rise as the afternoon progresses (typical weather here) and I have a force 5-6 to contend with. The yacht above is doing 10 knots, I restrain myself from putting up my own spinnaker (which is massive) and let him past...
After this one passes I manage to reef the main once, speed drops from 7 to 6.5 and then rises to 7 again as the wind increases again, I reef again, I manage this without having to round up into the wind which pleases me greatly - first reef looked good, second reef looked a bit like a whore's knickers but it does slow the boat down and makes it more manageable
Unfortunately I don't manage a sail past of the next set of islands (Islas de Cies). I turn left into the Ria de Vigo. Simon and Paula in Sylvana are in Baiona and suggest coming over to anchor there - whilst it is sheltered behind a breakwater the mainland is a lee shore - I decide to go to Cangas - a small town on the north side of the Ria opposite the city of Vigo. This is sheltered from the North but a dragging anchor will only drag into the deeper water of the ria, A prescient decision as Simon ends up having to rescue a boat dragging towards the beach the next day.
I have problems of my own as I attempt anchoring singlehanded - first time I have done this and in fact I don't have a lot of anchoring experience at all. It is windy of course. I am poor at judging where to drop but motor about testing the depths and then decide to drop near a Danish boat called "Fair". I can't be in two places at once so I run up and down the sidedeck alternating between the bow and the cockpit. I get the anchor down and try and reverse the boat to (a) dig the anchor in and (b) move the chain to the south a bit as I have misjudged the lay. The friction lock of the new windlass comes off but I don't worry too much about that as it is dropping more chain out on the seabed -a good thing as I like to put lots of chain out. It is coming out too fast so I run forward to lock it. Too late the bitter end comes out (the rope tail at the end of the anchor - tied to the boat) and disaster - it snaps. 60 metre of chain now lies on the seabed. Yuck.
I rig the second anchor and Nicolaj and Christina come over and help me lay the second anchor which eventually digs in - once we add a 10 metre length of chain to the 180 feet of warp. I also slide a chum weight down the warp once we know the anchor has caught - to be sure to be sure. Beer all round, Phew.
Next day I dive to retrieve the anchor - I had assumed it would be obvious where it lay because it was near "Fair" and just off to the side but I miss it on the first dive. On the second dive I ask Nicolaj and Christine to mark the limits of where they thought the anchor could possibly be - they were watching from their boat and more aware of where their boat had been pointing the day before. Their estimates prove to be accurate and I find the anchor quickly on the second dive.
Lesson learnt, as soon as you lose something overboard, photograph the shore from several angles to give you some transits. Second lesson, have a stronger bitter end. Third lesson, anchor slowly.
I stay in Cangas 4 days as anchoring is free! gives me time to test the recently serviced outboard - which works well!
Cangas is a working town, pleasant enough - wee streets, mixtures of nice old buildings and new.
The french have their "boules" (Petanque) here I spot some spaniards throwing rocks at the gadget above - the two pairs of targets spin around when hit and you get points I guess, and what do points get you? prizes...
The harbour of Cangas has one of these at its mouth - I saw one of these in Norway too. (both better than the little mermaid) There is Shadowmere in the background.
A final look at the Islas de Cies as I motor to Baiona to get fuel before continuing South
Baiona is a pretty wee place - I like the fort on the hill
There are two marinas and anchoring space. Consulting "Captain's Mate" the members only App from the cruising association reveals that the marina on the right has stern buoys and pontoons and is dear or very dear. Makes the anchorage attractive, if you get in early you can get a very sheltered spot. The fuel pontoon is an easy approach, well fendered and offers port or starboard too berthing - great for singlehanded mooring! Simon had texted me details so I knew this in advance, thanks Simon!
I leave Baiona with a full tank of fuel, plus 2x20L jerry cans.
Into Varzim, the journey South was unremarkable - 5 knots of wind, weird patchy swirling mist/fog. but only to the landward side of me - I kept a couple of mile out and was clear. Marina entrance hard to see until very close and I am helped in by marina staff - I had radioed ahead on channel 9 at what I thought was 9pm - Spanish time! - I also went to the marina office the next morning - 9am Spanish time before I twig I am back on British Summer Time, Bless the Portuguese.
Next morning Pea soup, I resolve to stay here a few days - cheap marina (23 Euro) and free use of washing machines and tumble driers. Good news is I can visit Oporto by metro (6 Euro return)
