Rose & Brian – 20th August 2009

Spain and Portugal and Sun at last

Hi AllWe have had almost solid sunshine and warm weather since waiting for the mist and rain to clear in Ribadeo. We have hopped along and down the Spanish coast since then and are now in Portugal – where we don’t even know the words for please and thankyou so have to smile and nod a lot!Once we managed to get out of Ribadeo, we went to Viveiro. Fantastic sailing with the wind blowing side on to the boat which is the best and most comfortable position. We went quite fast – I had to put my hand over the speed indicator to stop Brian worrying! Viveiro marina is down a river estuary and a small canal, and we managed to find our way in and find a place to tie up as no-one was around. When we found the harbour master he didn’t seem sure if we could stay in the berth we had picked, but a cheery smile seemed to win him over. He has a reputation for being a bit odd. The town was again full of fascinating old buildings but much bigger than Ribadeo and flat so no steep hill to climb.

Old street in Viveiro

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We stayed there a couple of nights, as the rain caught up with us, but we managed to find an exact replica replacement Casio watch for Brian – his old one had broken its strap bar. Due to our poor Spanish, the girl in the shop wrapped it up very prettily in gift paper and ribbon!

Typical glassed in balconies

Our provisioning tends to cater for two to three days worth of lunches and dinners which we cook on the boat. Lunch is generally cheese and some kind of ham or salami, along with salad and fruit. We try to vary it a bit, but it does seem to be getting a bit boring. For dinner sometimes we buy from local fish and meat markets, sometimes just from the supermarket. Chicken, turkey, steak, and all kinds of fish (squid, dorade, tuna, sardines, gilthead etc). It is more exciting if we don’t know what they are.

We moved on to Cedeira which is when the sun started to shine almost constantly until now! This was to be our first anchorage, as we had plenty of provisions. We decided that if it looked interesting we could stay a couple of days, but if not we would move on. After a good day’s sail, past one or two industrial complexes in the middle of nowhere, a few anchored ore carriers and a tug, we found ourselves at the entrance to the ria.

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Factory producing red powder and waiting ore carrierThe wind had been slowly increasing, which we had not really noticed, and all of a sudden we were tearing down the estuary at a great rate of knots with the wind behind us and nowhere really to turn round and stop! After a moment’s discussion (Brian saying “how do we stop?”) we dropped the main sail while it was still full of wind. That slowed us down enough to be able to swing around and drop the sail with a bit more control! All good experience!

We found a place to anchor with other yachts and I went to let the anchor down – and of course it didn’t move although we had tested it in Holyhead. In the end Brian came up to the front and let it out by hand as it is quite heavy with me making sure we didn’t bump into the other boats.

The bay was really pretty, surrounded by a mixture of pine and decidous forests, with a few houses scattered around. The main town didn’t look that interesting, so we decided to carry on the following day.

The next morning we found that although the windlass to pull the anchor up worked fine, the chain kept jumping off the pulley and running out again. Poor B had to go and pull the whole thing in by hand – he was worn out at the end! We motored out of the bay gently while he recovered, and set sail for La Coruna. Lovely hot sunshine (shorts and vest weather) but a cool NE breeze that kept us bowling along very nicely, admiring the mountain scenery as we sailed along the coast and round the top NW corner of Spain. We saw a few shearwaters of different kinds - Manx, which are

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the commonest, but also Sooty and Great ones which are transient in the North Atlantic as they are mainly South Atlantic birds. We also saw a strange large fin sticking out of the water, and over the next few days kept seeing the same sort of thing. Eventually one came close and it looked like a very strange fish – very fat and short with this great rounded fin sticking up that flapped from one side to the other. We keep looking for books on different kinds of fish, not least because Brian has rigged up his fishing rod on the back of the boat and we want to know what we might catch! No luck on the fish book hunt yet (at least not in a language we might understand).

La Coruna entrance

The nice breezes seem to have a habit of slowly building up, and again as we rounded into the bay for La Coruna we were going a bit fast – and then a big tanker appeared from the west and we had to take avoiding action again! This time we did manage to stop in a slightly more controlled manner, bringing the boat round into the wind to drop the sails – lessons had been learned!

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La Coruna is the major city in Galacia and again has an old and picturesque centre of town as well as skyscrapers and motorways. We stayed there 3 days. The marina is huge and very modern – we got the bikes out just to get to the marina offices and showers and back! We met up with Linda and Alistair from Shetland on Islay Mist again by accident. They had sailed all the way from Douarnenez Bay in Brittany straight to La Coruna, with three teenagers on board as well and their two children – it was a tight squeeze for them and not a very happy experience apparently. So we rescued them for a meal out and exchanged experiences of the Biscay crossing. Linda and I had a kind of mixed pork and sausage stew – including pigs ears! The latter were rather salty but the stew came with spinach and potatoes which couteracted the salt and it was very nice. Brian and Alistair had steak which was very tender and tasty.

Brian dismantled and greased the anchor windlass so it now lets the anchor chain down without a problem and worked out why it slips when pulling it back up – we haven’t quite fixed that yet but hope it is better than it was. The chain doesn’t quite pull in at 90° to the windlass so we are working on a solution…..we needed an M12 bolt (nothing of that size in Brian’s copious supplies). We found a Ferretaria (ironmongers – we have to go in to each one we pass as Brian seems to have a strange attraction to them) where a young lad spoke good English and directed us to the bolt and screw supplier on the other side of town. We eventually found it – they only do bolts and screws and seems to be the only supplier in the whole town! We acquired 6 bolts of varying lengths for the grand price of €1.50. Hopefully this will keep the chain guide in place although in practise runs it isn’t quite perfect.

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Tower of Hercules (2nd century – but presumably updated!)

We decided to leave on Friday 14th August, and were all prepared for an early start. However the wonderful new systems with proximity cards to open the gates in the marina had broken down – all the gates from the pontoons to the offices were locked so you couldn’t get in or out! After some time the day shift arrived and at least let us out so we settled up and left as soon as we could, ahead of a posse of about 8-9 other yachts. We were heading as far south as we could and made good time although there was very little wind, so were motoring with a bit of help from the sails, sunbathing in the warmth! We ended up in Camarinas, a small port which was very pleasant. The town wasn’t much to speak of, but we were made very welcome with an invitation to a free sardine barbeque – but this was at 10.30pm so we declined graciously.

Mist in Camarinas

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After an extra day at Camarinas due to thick mist which rolled in just as we were going to set off and didn’t clear until early afternoon, we left to round Cape Finisterre – our furthest west destination. Spain is on Central European Standard time which is an hour earlier than the UK – even though we were further west! This meant that dawn is quite late – around 7am but the evenings are very long. The shops all open around 8.30 am until 12.30pm, then close for a long siesta until 4.30 and stay open until at least 8 or 9 in the evening.

While in Camarinas we met up with Jan, a Belgian man single handed sailing in a smallish yacht along the Spanish coast like us who we had bumped into a few times. He set off from Ostend with 6 months leave. Like several blokes we have met, he left his wife at home (earning the money for him to live on!) as she doesn’t sail. Brian sounds wistfully envious at times – but then he wouldn’t have anyone to do all the talking to harbour masters and shopkeepers would he?

Not Finisterre, but a bit similar! Wind generation is big in Spain

We managed to sail 60 miles that day again in a light breeze from the NE. Mostly we managed to sail without the engine, with the help of our boathook which we jammed between the front bench and the jib to keep it out in the wind! This was a technique suggested by an English couple who have built their own boat over the past 10 years, decided that they had to get away and are still finishing it as they go! We landed at Porto Pedras Negras on the south side of the Ria Arosa – a very large ria which is apparently a popular Spanish cruising area. We squeezed in to a berth and just spent one night there – it wasn’t particularly interesting (mainly a tourist resort) and was expensive for not very much in the way of facilities.

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Me looking daft in bunches! But they keep hair out of eyes…

The next day again dawned hot and sunny again and we cruised slowly down to Bayona. Again a bigger town with fascinating old centre –but curiously bland and modern on the seafront. There is a big walled fort on the hill which juts out into the bay with Moorish pointed crenellations – the first sign of this kind of architectur. Bayona is famous as the first landing place of Columbus on his way back from the first discovery of America. There is a replica of his boat (only about twice as long as ours!). There was also a lovely British wooden clipper tied up on the other side of the harbour with huge masts and sails – but I missed getting a picture of it.

Russian “military issue” speed boat in Bayona – impounded for smuggling?

The following day we set off again after a bit of a delay getting more diesel – we had to use our cans and refill them as the fuelling pontoon water was too shallow at that

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time of the morning. The delay allowed mist to gather again but this time, as the entrance and bay were quite open and easy to negotiate we decided to head into the fog! Both of us were standing on the seats peering out to make sure we didn’t hit anything! After a while you start imagining things anyway. We passed one yacht coming the other way, and as we cleared the headland the sun came out and it was another clear and fairly windless day until the classic afternoon high wind set in. We were heading into Viana do Castelo where tens of windsurfers and parasurfers buzzed around us in the strong wind – waving and whooping with glee! We had to keep a good lookout to make sure they hadn’t fallen over in front of us.

Viana do Castelo was lovely – again an old town centre hidden behind a bland modern frontage.

Typical street in Viana do Castelo

This was our first stop in Portugal – where they keep British Summer Time so we gained an hour. As we came up the river towards the marina we saw that a new footbridge has been installed over the marina entrance – this is not in the almanac! How were we to get in? Then the bridge slowly swung out and we headed in quickly before they changed their minds. Really helpful marina staff explained that they had been watching us all the way up the river! Weird.

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Swing Bridge over marina – opening outwards

Alixora in Viana do Castelo

It was time for our weekly treat of eating out and we found a great family run restaurant where Brian had octopus again and I had a really tasty goat casserole. Portugal seems a lot cheaper than France or Spain – we ate really well with salads and a bottle of wine for less than €30. The marina fees were relatively low too.

It is fiesta time in Viana, but after spending two nights there we had to leave on the day that all the parades were to happen – it is already 20th August and we need to get to Gibraltar! However we did manage a long wander through the town where the streets are decorated with lights and bunting and along the front which was lined with little stalls selling all kinds of ethnic clothes, artwork and food – some Portuguese,

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some African. Music blared from every lamppost, and a ukelele band played in the park! We also have to find out a bit about Portuguese history to understand all the monuments to heroic deeds.

Decorated street with funfair

Today we are moving on to Leixos – just down the river from Porto which we plan to visit for a few days. I am writing this as we motor (again) in a virtually windless but rather misty and cloudy morning – hopefully there will be internet available in Leixos and I can send this out.

Keep the home news coming! Someone was talking about the recession the other day and I had to remind myself…..Cheers

Rosemary & Brian

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