Having spent a few days in 'Ria de Muros' at anchor we decided that a brief stop in a marina would be beneficial in order to replenish supplies... mainly water & fuel. Our chosen destination, Caraminal in the next ria, 'Ria de Arousa'.

The latest weather forecast predicted a gentle NE breeze until mid afternoon before dying out totally for the day. At long last we have wind so we were very keen to roll out the sails and make full use of the opportunity whilst we could... Flirtie is a sailing yacht after all.

The swell was minimal and we were able to sail gently under genoa with the wind from astern which was once again short lived and we were forced to put the engine on. Whilst rolling the genoa away it suddenly came to a grinding halt and wouldn't move... to cut a long story short the bottom bearing came adrift, releasing several ball bearing onto the deck and into the sea which left us with a partially rolled sail. Thankfully, Bruce was able to lash some rope around the sail to stop it from unravelling and afterwards I went on deck to salvage any ball bearings that happen to still remain. Obviously one of our first jobs upon arrival is to get the sail down and see what shape the roller's in. :-(

The entrance to 'Ria de Arousa' is very wide and long compared to 'Ria de Muros' with rock formations that looked very similar to that of the 'Cote de Granite Rose' in Northern France.



What is very noticeable is that the river is also full of 'bateas' (mussel rafts) which have been placed in a grid-like formation in designated spots. According to the pilot book Spain produces 60% of the worlds mussels with 50% of rafts in this ria alone - that's a lot of mussels so we had better try 'Galician' mussels whilst were here.

Total distance this season: 637.34 nautical miles