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We'll be home in October, for a couple of weeks, Catherine will be back late September, me early October.
10th August 08
Arrived Baiona, (or Bayona, depending on which map you read), today. We have been here in the Ria de Vigo since yesterday. This is the last, or southernmost of the Spanish Rias, and most likely our last stop before Portugal.
We anchored last night off the beach in Cangas, but the forecast is not good, so we decided to get into a marina. No room at the inn in the marina at Cangas, so we came over here. At €33 a night it is a fair bit more expensive than what we have been getting used to since leaving Algorta, (usually about €20), but anchoring is free. We will stay here until Tuesday & have another look at the forecast. It looks like it doesn't improve until Friday, so we might anchor out from Tuesday, depending on how sheltered the bay is.
Baiona has it's claim to fame as the first port of call of Columbus after returning from the new world, and they have a full size replica of the Pinta here, Catherine says that was the smallest of the three ships he had, and boy it's small. Not a lot bigger than Aragorn, made of wood, shaped more like a concrete block than a boat, and when you think that the guys who went in her had no weather forecasts, no GPS, VHF, AIS, Radar, or any of the other toys and electronic whizzkiddery that we have, they had some bottle.
So what have we been at. We left Gijon Sat 26th July, with our engine fixed and our budget bruised, and motored Sixty miles to Ribadeo. Sixty miles is a long leg for us, but we'd been a week in Gijon, and we wanted to make up some time. We entered the small Ria into Ribadeo under its massive bridge, gave the marina a miss and anchored just beyond it in shallow water. En route the loudhailer had fallen off, so I had to go up the mast to fix it once we had the anchor down. I'm not finding going up the mast such a terrifying ordeal any more.
Anchoring is much easier than going into a marina, you just drop the anchor, make sure it's dug in, and relax. Leaving is even easier, you just haul in your anchor & go. Entering and leaving a marina is a much more strenuous and stressful affair, you have to put out your fenders and set up your ropes to tie on. Since you usually don't know which side of the boat will be at the pontoon you have to do both sides of the boat, so your work is doubled. Then there's squeezing the boat in between all the other boats, without bumping them, and then of course you are living in very close quarters with your neighbours. Getting out you have to do it all in reverse. Still, for all of that, marinas have their benefits. Aragorn's shower is a bit cramped, usually the marina has something better, there's the convenience of being able to step off your boat and walk to the shops/cafes/whatever, there's shorepower to charge the batteries, fresh water to top up the tanks.
However, I digress. Sunday morning we left Ribadeo and pressed on to Cariña, again a long hop of about 45 miles. Like Ribadeo, this was another beautiful harbour and anchorage that we had to pass on the opportunity to go ashore, it was late, we needed to eat, rest, and get going early again Monday. With luck we would make the 60 miles to La Coruña, and be back on our schedule.
There was a bit of wind as we put up the sail on the morning of Monday 28th July, it was blowing about twenty knots (force 5) in the anchorage. After a brief discussion about whether this was just the effect of the wind being funnelled by the mountains, we decided we had yet to experience a harbour that was windier than the open sea, and we put two reefs in the main. We weren't wrong, coming up towards the headland we had to round the wind got up, 25 knots – force 6, and not long after we passed the headland it got up to 28 knots, a force 7, almost a full gale. We were glad of our reefs!
Worse, the wind was blowing from the Southwest, the very direction we wanted to go. La Coruña was clearly a non runner at this point, however we were now half way to Cedeira, an anchorage on the way, and we'd heard good things about it. So we pointed Aragorn into the wind at Cedeira and pounded through the waves and weather under engine.
Once into the protection of the bay at Cedeira, the wind virtually disappeared. As we anchored we received an enthusiastic greeting from an English boat beside us. We'd caught up on Paul and Lorraine in Moon Monkey, an English boat heading in our direction, who'd left us in Gijon a week before.
We closed the day's log reading 8,952 miles. It had been 7,950 when we left Dun Laoghaire on the 1st June, we had travelled over 1,000 miles. Another milestone, although I later realised that the log was under-reading since La Rochelle.
The shorter journey meant we were in port early, and for the first time since leaving Gijon on Saturday morning we went ashore. We had a beer in a local bar with free Wi-Fi, to check our email.
We got up late on Tuesday morning, conscious that we now only had a thirty mile trip to La Coruña. Moon Monkey had already left when we peeped out into the cockpit. It was a fine day with only a light wind from the Southwest, but we were able to sail. However as Southwest was the direction we wanted to go, and as Aragorn is not at her best tacking into the wind, we eventually had to turn on the engine to make progress. We had spent so long trying to sail that we were quite late arriving in La Coruña, and Paul and Lorraine were beginning to worry when we finally showed up.
We spent four nights in the marina in La Coruña, partially because the weather wasn't favourable and the next part of our journey was along one of the worlds most dangerous coasts. However we had always planned a few days in this great city. One of the days we spotted an Irish flag on another boat, Khamsin-B I think she was called, it turned out to be the East Coast Garda sailing club's boat. We had a few beers with the crew.
We left La Coruña on Saturday, and headed for Camariñas, last stop before Finisterre. This coast is called locally “El Costa Muerta” - “The coast of death”, we would be travelling it for the next two legs of our journey. This is the Northwest corner of Europe, the meeting point of the Bay of Biscay and the Atlantic Ocean, two super-powers of the worlds waters. It was a grey morning, but the forecast was for light winds. We motored the entire fifty miles in manageable swell without incident.
Sunday the third of August we covered another forty miles, around Cape Finisterre, one of the world's most notorious headlands. Again the weather was kind to us. We motored all the way to Finesterre. Along the way we could hear the radio chat of some of the boats about an hour ahead of us, they were sailing past Finisterre. This was a surprise, we had hardly a breath of wind. But sure enough, as we reached this famous headland, as if someone had turned on a switch, the wind got up and we were sailing.
We turned in to Ria Muros, the first of the Ria Baixas, and anchored off the beach in Esteiro. We only spent one night in this Ria, mainly because we had a detailed chart of the next one, Ria de Arousa, which is also the biggest. Here we anchored off the beach in Ribeira on Monday. Then Tuesday the 5th, we went into the marina for diesel. I noticed something funny about the diesel pump, and when we checked, my tank had gained about thirty litres, but the pump was showing seventy. An argument and standoff ensued. I couldn't follow the Spanish being spoken on a succession of telephone calls, but I was informed the police were being called. Eventually the situation was resolved with a one litre plastic bottle registering less than half full after receiving a litre from the pump.
By the time all that was sorted, the afternoon wind had gotten up, and I bounced Aragorn of the end of a pontoon trying to get out of the tight fuel berth. A lot of stress and effort for the sake of thirty litres of diesel.
All in we spent three nights anchored off Ribeira, then on Thursday we went further up the Ria, and stopped for a night in the marina at Rianxo. There I was able to bring my laptop into the bar and access the internet. I had to buy a beer though, but at one euro a pint I wasn't complaining. Friday we had lunch in a restaurant before leaving Rianxo, then we sailed down to Ila de Arousa and anchored between the rocks and the fishing boats. We had been told that there was a mussel festival there, but it turned out that it started Saturday.
And then, Saturday morning we got here to Ria de Vigo ....
Which brings us back to doh!
