Swallow's adventures

Rather than take our dinghies to the wall in Luarca to untie, we managed to call out, in broken Spanish, to some locals who kindly released our warps for us. A bit more wind for our sail to Ribadeo and we got soaked by a rogue wave! Ribadeo was friendly, in fact, we can’t fault the Spanish at all in the way they are so welcoming and helpful. We took the lift up to the old town and had lunch which was amazingly good value; eating, drinking and berthing on this coast is so much cheaper than France.
After a couple of days in Ribadeo we moved on to Viveiro, we have now moved into Galicia, 62 miles to go to A Coruna (just before Cabo Finisterre and a goal for us as we could possibly fly home from here). This was a monotonous journey with no useable wind; the visibility was poor the whole way and a ten foot high, eerie sea mist circled the coast. Viverio is very sheltered up a river. Once tied up a German man excitedly called us over (yacht Skokiaan)- it transpired that Skokiaan was the boat following us across Biscay from La Rochelle, he could see Millie and Swallow on his AIS but did not transmit so we never knew who he was; it was great to finally discover the yacht which had kept us company for that long, gruelling journey. Julian and Julie( Iolandra) organised a pontoon party here as there were about six British yachts moored up – nice to know that there are others making the same journey as us; this coast is not an ideal cruising ground and so you rarely have company out at sea (apart from the odd Spanish fisherman); I can see why most yachts take a long sail lasting several days across the bay straight down to A Coruna or even further into Portugal as this coast can be rather unwelcoming in as far as there are not that many ports to be able to sail into in bad weather or they are too shallow, the swell is also very challenging for sailors as inexperienced as us- we have definitely learnt a lot this past month. Paul took advantage of the calm, clear water here and adorned his goggles and swam under the boat to clean off the weed which had accumulated on the rudder and propeller.
On Sunday 4 September 2016 at 0940 we left Viveiro and let the ebbing tide carry us along the beautiful rugged coastline towards Cedeira. It was a lovely sunny day and negligible wind but the two to three metre swell sent the waves crashing into the rocks and the little fishing boats were crazily rolling around. Then at 1230 thick fog set in and the wind picked up causing a very confused sea, the visibility was about 200 metres; we had three hours of this which posed another new challenge for us – we stayed calm and navigated our way through it; there are not many hazards along this coast, apart from fishing boats or yachts who do not have AIS; I was very excited to be able to try out our fog horn. Challenging times like this are made easier by having Millie sailing along with us; we keep each other informed about anything we spot, for instance other boats or fishing net buoys (we met a couple in Viveiro who got tangled up in a discarded net during their Biscay crossing which resulted in the propeller being caught and thus seizing the engine – they had a very expensive and traumatic rescue, whereby a cargo vessel came alongside them to give them a line and when trying to fend the boat off Verlaine got her wrist crushed and broken between the two boats – it turned out that a tug could be sent out from Bilbao to rescue them but it would take 10 hours to reach them and then 20 hours to tow them in; eventually a nearby Spanish fishing trawler agreed to tow them in for 4500 euros!- we first thought that this was expensive but when you consider the trawler’s loss of earnings for the day and the fact that they needed urgent medical attention then it was well worth it. Hearing of this incident has made us all realise how fortunate we have been to be in the company of another boat). We are also very grateful that Drew (Madness) is keeping an eye on us on Ship Finder from the UK. The fog cleared and the sun came out as we approached Cedeira, a welcomed, sheltered anchorage. We had a very relaxing time here; the only mishap was when Millie’s anchor got caught on an old mooring line- another challenge to add to our collective experience.