Sunrise reflecting off the town of Muros

We left the anchorage at Muros with the windows of the town aglow and a pinky haze around us as the sun rose. It looked like the town was about it's morning exercise with 20 or so people out for a walk..... waist high in the water, walking across the head of the bay!

The anchor came up easily despite having been well set in by 5 days of strong winds. Out in the ria 5 fishing boats danced around all over the place as they chased the shoals. We watched as one dropped it's nets and motored around in a circle at some speed to enclose the fish. It smelt like another forest fire had started and smoke was rising from an area in the north of the ria.

It was an exciting jaunt out of the ria, up to F7 and Emerald doing 6 to 7 knots with 2 reefs in and no genny. But once south of the ria entrance the wind dropped to a F2 and our speed dropped to a miserly 2 knots. Time for Victor! With blue skies and sunshine, sandals rather than sailing boots, fleeces off and shorts on it was hard to complain about the lack of wind too much.

The route between the two rias took us a couple of miles out to sea to avoid all the rocky shallows and obstructions. I would guess the diving here is good. There were the usual badly marked pots to avoid which increase around the rocky areas so another good reason to give those areas a miss. You'd think that being offshore in deeper water would put us clear of pots, but no, we've come across many where the depth is 80m.

As expected, the wind increased a little as we turned up into Ria de Arosa but only a F4 rather than the howling gale that greeted us at Muros. No point in having the main flogging so dropped that with wind on the nose as we motored up the Canal Principal towards Isla Rua. Isla Salvora which protects the ria entrance must be the place to go if you're a seagull as there were hundreds bobbing about.


Motoring up Ria de Arousa to pass a pile of rocks island

First impressions are of a pretty ria, terracotta roofs standing out against the blue sky at the town at the head of the ria and lots of rocks and islands lining the sides. Some of the islands look like a heap of huge rocks, others are low lying with golden sandy beaches.

Yesterday from Muros we saw the smoke of a big fire burning over this way, it was still smouldering today and fire planes were filling up in the ria and dropping it over the flames in the forest above Boiro in the north east of the ria. It didn't look too big but we were glad we weren't going to anywhere downwind of the smoke.


Fire plane having just filled with water

Just before arriving at Vilagarcia de Arousa we called the marina, no reply so headed in hoping for an empty berth. Spotted one and was nosing into it when the marinero came along and told us to move to another. A tricky manoeuvre to reverse in a small space and line up for the new berth very well done by Colin and the marinero was there to help with lines. For once the wind didn't pick up until after we were in and tied up. Check in was very fast at the office with the lady having good English so it was now time for a quick stroll around the town. Still scorchio at 5pm.