Tapas, Rioja, sleep,.....oh, and a little bit of sailing (6th September)

Since our last update we have rounded Cape Finisterre, finally started heading South, visited two more Rias and eaten a lot of Tapas!

We left Camarinas on 30th August through a huge group of Dolphins out in the Ria, just off the marina, much bigger ones than we saw crossing Biscay and plainer, without the white patches down the sides (we think the Biscay ones were either Common or Striped Dolphins according to Tom's book) Wasn't long before we had the main out with preventer on and the genoa poled out, 180 degrees on the compass and Andy very happy! (South, south, to warmer places, as you can see from the photo we were ticking along at 6.8 knots -right hand gauge- not bad) Cape Finisterre was rugged and rocky and frankly a bit of a disappointment on the beautiful, calm, sunny day we went round!

Towards the end of the trip we ended up motoring so we stopped at the first available place in the Ria de Muros, anchored off a beach in the Ensenada de San Francisco all by ourselves. Lucy swam the first lap round Nimrod at anchor (very chilly)- I had far more sense - Went ashore for beers, shopping and nice chat with little boys eating ice-cream sat on the dinghy who I really do think knew more English than we do Spanish (although our vocabulary grows daily!) The next day was blistering hot and Lucy swam 10 laps round Nimrod and the dinghy - must be a good 30m a lap, what a workout- I swam 1, too bloody cold -! It was also the most amazing view in every direction to wake up to, and its different nearly every day! Later in the afternoon the wind got unpredictable and seemed to be trying to blow us onto the beach so we elected not to spend another night in our beautiful spot but motored round the headland and anchored just off the harbour at Muros. We were first boat there and had the pick of the anchorage but it was fairly near high tide and we drowned Bob, our anchor trip line buoy, and pretty soon the wind had swung 180 degrees so we were lying backwards on our anchor.....so we picked it up and did it again (with Bob on a longer rope).  We were soon joined by a French boat and a Dutch boat, who also had several goes before finally settling on a spot for the night. After a pizza ashore we sat in the cockpit drinking Rioja and listening to music on the iPod which transmitted to the boats radio on Radio Twos FM frequency very clearly indeed!

The next day we couldn't even see across the Ria it was so misty so we explored Muros more thoroughly, ate Tapas (without Rioja this time!) and sat in our cockpit watching all the activities....a motor cruiser stopped for a short while, a proper cruise ship came and anchored in the bay and launched a fleet of ribs, the Swedes who were in Camarinas arrived, some more Dutch we had seen in Camarinas followed by the young Norwegians (who are also going to the Caribbean) and then the strange red French boat with a green mast. And of course there is always at least one Spanish chap in a tiny row boat fishing, they do it for hours without ever seeming to catch anything so Andy thinks they are just pretending to fish to get away from their wives.

Next day less murky but little wind so we motored across to the marina at Portosin for a proper shower! We executed our first stern to mooring with pick up line manoeuvre but the pick up line was broken so we ended up on a pontoon next to the strange red French boat, that we now know is also off to the Caribbean.  The marina also had a computer for internet access, two washing machines AND a tumble drier, that really was exciting and we had to do three whole loads of washing. A bit more Tapas and Rioja later we left for the next Ria, and yet again seemed to have managed to pick a day with decent wind. We only had to motor a tiny bit around midday, and although at times we were only going 2 knots, we glided peacefully up the flat water of Ria de Arosa in blistering sunshine watching the barometer fall. Discounted the anchorages and went to the marina at Villagarcia (quite ugly and a bit like Ocean Village when the Tapas bar was still open). It was so hot we were both dying to jump in......until we saw the hundreds of massive, ugly jellyfish, so we settled for a shower and trip to the bar instead! 2 hours after we arrived there was the most spectacular thunder storm that lasted over 2 hours with big gusts, torrential rain and incredible lightening, both sheet and fork (We need Emma - family meteorologist - to explain why the lightening was pink and why the forks went horizontally most of the time) So we were really quite happy about our choice of stopping place! (It thundered again in the night.)

Obviously later we went out for Tapas and Rioja, an exercise we repeated at lunchtime on Sunday although Lucy had white Rioja and Andy had beer. This was after we had been to the station to get train times to Santiago de Compostela and had a very good look around town - strange but quite a nice change to be somewhere much bigger again. Later in the afternoon we had a long walk along the beach to the next much prettier village and watched a bit of local dinghy racing.

Been to Santiago de Compostela - so its got a great big cathedral and lots of old buildings but is absolutely full of tourists and some very weird groups of pilgrims and masses of tat shops and cafes - we walked round the cathedral and had some tapas (and Rioja) - very good but very expensive

Disappointments:

1)The unbreakable Bodum cafetiere we got in Gunwharf Quays has a crack and is leaking

2) The port water tank isn't fixed...sometimes it vents and fills to the top and doesn't leak and sometimes it doesn't! -I have to admit that this is really beginning to get to me, I have given up trying to fix the gauge and now just want the damn thing watertight. Next place we stop at where I can find some engineers the gauge is coming out and a patch is going to get welded on - it will not defeat me ! (Andy)

3) However early we go to bed, and sometimes it is before midnight, we just don't appear able to wake up before 9 in the morning, (unless its a sailing day where we just about manage to get up by 8.30 if we set 2 alarms) and we'll leave you to work out just how upset we are about that!

4) Spanish trains - just like English ones - late!

5) Only the old and large sunbathe topless.

Lucy and Andy