Time flies when you are having fun. We are just across the bay from Baiona, stalling a little, as we only have to collect new crew, Tayo and Josie Thorne in Porto on 16 August. There are definitely worse places in the world to kill time, worse places with worse weather and worse scenery, we count our blessings. So let’s start at the end, Baiona is the last of the Rías as you make your way south. From here it is the coast of Portugal, with longer passages, fewer harbours and nooks and crannies for refuge. Baiona is famous as being the place that Columbus made his first landfall in 1493, after returning from the New World. We are on a tranquil anchorage about 1NM north of the main harbour and town, saving money on marina fees, as we kill a little time. The slow down and wait modus operandi is also because for the first time in two weeks, the so called Portuguese Trade Winds are taking a siesta on Thursday and Friday, so we will head for Porto Saturday and Sunday in time to meet the new complement on Tuesday.

So, back to where this blog needs to start and I will try to stick to the highlights, which will be difficult because there have been a pleasant abundance of them.

After having the competent and much needed help from Aidan on the Biscay crossing, we were disappointed for Aidan, having to leave without seeing any of the scenery of northern Spain. Aidan left and Dylan flew into La Coruña on the same plane back to back. We were resplendent in the Club Nautico marina and spent some time catching up on laundry and soaking up the Latin summer culture in narrow streets and rammed Tapas restaurants. I indulged and bought a Tuna rod and lures, which is still to see its first catch. We did a few long walks taking in the forts and history and the beautiful beaches. Here I have to give a bit of a geological treatise on the region and any place similar in the world. Basically, the geological formula for a good beach is simple, if you erode shit, you get shit. If you erode a nice granite or quartzite, you get a fantastic quartz dominated white sandy beach. Of course the other piece of the puzzle is wave energy, being open to the fetch of a large ocean gives you plenty of grinding power for uniform grain size. Type examples for this formula would be the sliver of continent that got left behind in the Indian Ocean, The Seychelles, Cape Town, Rio……..all the same formula and same geological inputs. Well guess what? Galicia is the same! Fantastic granite landscapes and stunning beaches. The Guardian newspaper ranked the beach on Isla Cies as the best beach in the world in 2011, with good reason. There is also a huge industry in mining cut-granite. Houses here are made to last, solid granite blocks and even fence poles are granite. I can say the same about this area as I said about Atlantic France, it is a cruising ground in its own right and a lot of Brits leave there boats here.

I would bore you if I gave a blow by blow account of the period between end July and 10 August but I will try to cherry pick some experiences.

After La Coruña, we sailed west and south, and anchored in the sleepy backwater of Corme between an idyllic cove, with a natural cave on the beach and viveros (big floating wooden racks to grow mussels and oysters on). Dylan and I wandered around town and stumbled on the Saturday craft market. Timeless Odyssey was later joined by two Dutch and two French boats at the anchorage.

The next night we anchored in Camariñas and spent a windy night overlooked by verdant hills that hid granite mines. We knew this as there was an afternoon blasting display that sent tracers high into the sky, I still have not figured why this is necessary. From here we set off to pass another milestone, Cabo Finisterre, the westernmost point of Spain (but not Europe). We rounded it and went on the wind making a default decision to head for the shelter of Corcubión rather than Finisterre harbour. It was gusting 26 knots and we had to progressively take 2 reefs and the choice of shelter was driven by the simple fact that it was where the current tack would take us and looked good on the map. The shelter was good but the town was unspectacular. The next morning we were dealt a surprise, in that, as happens on yachts, the gear selector/throttle mechanism jammed solid in forward after 5 years of working perfectly. This was interesting and again lucky it did not happen in a marina at an inopportune time. Veronica sailed the boat while I went through a process of elimination, thankfully ticking the box that it was the selector mechanism at the helm and not something in the gearbox itself. I disconnected the gear cable at the gearbox end and now we could stick our head in the engine compartment and manually select forward, neutral and reverse. The throttle control still worked well from the helm.

We were going into a marina at Portosin and this was going to be interesting. Veronica was to do the lines and fenders, Dylan would be down at the engine listening to me barking forward, neutral, reverse. We had a few practice runs out in the open water before approaching the marina. We honed the technique following Dylan’s clever suggestion that we use the micky mouse Motorola two- way radios we had onboard to assist against the onslaught of engine noise. What could go wrong? We were thankfully allocated a pretty easy berth to get into. I opted for a super slow approach, thankful for the light breeze. The few barks of neutral, forward brought some meerkat heads popping out of neighbouring yachts. We coasted in perfectly and got a line on. I should have just left it for the line to jerk us to a stop before we tee-boned the pontoon but I was supremely overconfident that we had the helm to engine room coms nailed, so I gave a reverse command to the engine room. Reverse was duly selected but the deselect command got lost in translation and in fact I had not realised that the throttle had to be absolutely closed to effect a gear shift. So after the almost perfect arrival we reversed out of the berth again and jerked the line taught, got sideways before we got neutral. Amusement for the meerkats but no harm done, we were pulled back in on the lines and we had on and avoided any contact with other boats by using the thruster. The meerkats were actually quite sympathetic when they heard the story. Out came the throttle mechanism. Of course, the part that was jammed was a riveted closed box. The marina kindly arranged a mechanic, who took one look at the mechanism I had extracted and gave the Spanish shrug and head nod. He said “new one, two days, €200”. [What do they say about boats and wells and money??] Well luckily, we were planning to chill for a while and go inland to see Santiago de Compostela, from where Dylan was flying back to London.

We had 3 nights in Portosin in the Ria de Muros. It was the best Marina in Spain mostly because of the convivial staff. After unsuccessfully trying to hire a car, we took a taxi to Santiago de Compostella. We could have taken the bus but Dylan had luggage and it was 2 hours with a change halfway. It was a bit of a cop-out I guess because it is, of course, the famous pilgrimage destination and many walk hundreds of kilometres along the numerous Camino Ways to reach. The walking wounded were very much in evidence around the magnificent passageways of the old town. Many strapped knees and calf muscles, hobbling along clutching signature walking staves with the Pecten shell on top. I am just wondering if Shell Oil paid the Catholic church for the use of the brand. I did figure that the shell is actually a good visual representation of all the Camino ways converging on one point. It goes without saying that Santiago de Compostela is worth a visit for its many intricately sculptured buildings belonging both to the Church and to the University. It is also good for gastronomic wanderings amongst the plethora of eateries and establishments dedicated to customary Spanish fluid replacement. After all, it would be rude to walk all the way here and not have a drink.

We said goodbye to Dylan and Veronica and I took the long and cheap road home on the local buses. The new gear selector and throttle mechanism had arrived and was installed with only minor contortion and profanity. With that done and a fresh following breeze we headed for Ría Arousa where we spent a night anchored off Playa del Corosa, departing the next day for San Vicente on the Peninsula de O Grove. This was a special place, with a magnificent beach and an impressive boardwalk all the way around the bottom of the peninsula, that connected many stunning little coves and beaches nestled between granite boulders. The granite landscape had some interesting rock forms, evident of previous sea level stands and ferocious wave energy at times. This place and the walk are highly recommended.

When we plugged into local knowledge everyone told us that Isla Ons and Isla Cies are the jewels in the crown in this area. They are however National Parks. We had been battling for the last few days with the process of first obtaining permission to navigate in a National Park and then obtaining anchoring permission. Luckily we have a printer/scanner on board, so the easy bit was sending off copies of all the ships papers and our passports. This gave us permission to navigate. The tricky and frustrating bit was trying to navigate (no pun intended) the online web page application to get anchoring permission. We set sail without it and anchored off what turned out to be a nudist beach. The anchorage was a bit exposed so we took turns to go ashore. I walked up to the top of the island in searing heat but was rewarded by 360 deg views. We then spoke to a British boat next to us with two young families aboard. They gave us some tips changing passwords and getting a new one by email. This worked and at the last minute we got anchoring permission and duly printed it as requested. This was fortunate as later we heard a deep throaty roar and stuck our meerkat heads out of the cabin to see an ominous looking stealthy black boat hovering astern with four uniformed armed and mean looking dudes preparing two large orange ball fenders for a boarding. They skilfully put two guys aboard, checked passports boat papers and permits for the park. They were friendly and in very broken English said we must visit the other island too. There were not interested in looking around and departed leaving a pair of sunglasses behind. They were halfway across to the other British boat when they realized and came back for them, we had not noticed the sunglasses were left behind. Later the two guys on the British boat came over for a drink. It was just us and them who spent the night at the anchorage, evidently because the locals knew better. It was rollicky and uncomfortable and we scampered at first light for the comfort of a marina at Sanxenxo (x=sh). It was a swanky place lined with big motor boats and upmarket restaurants and clubs on the quayside. We shopped, watered the boat and spent a pleasant afternoon on the spectacular and crowded beach, admiring the impressive brass sculptures both on land and on a drying rock in the bay. The marina though, is not recommended on account of the ‘Camino Way’ length walk around to the facilities, the nearby club with a drunken rave that goes through the night until 5am and Veronica’s rant about the Euro 44/night-and-no-toilet paper-after-Camino-walk!

We left in bright sunshine in 20 knots of wind, put a reef in and did not bother with a foresail for our downwind dash to Isla Cies. On the way there we came across two yachts, one stopped with a flogging foresail and the other circling it. Of course this was a dreaded lobster pot incident. As we approached we saw the mobile yacht go over to some nearby fishing boats and back. We had a discussion about whether to stop or not. Of course if there had been no one else around we would have been duty bound to stop. The call was that there were enough people involved already to sort it out and if I had to go there and perhaps put a wetsuit on and dive the rope this would leave Veronica alone driving the boat around in circles in quite choppy conditions. At the time this did not completely relieve the slightly sheepish feeling as we sailed on by but when we were 1 ½Nm downwind we were relieved of that feeling as a huge coastguard boat came screaming over to the rescue. Beware the damned lobster pot! We keep a sharp eye but we have missed some and had some near misses, so fingers crossed.

Isla Cies was stunning, we anchored off the main beach (of Gaurdian beach of the year fame) which is an isthmus. It was tight and close on a lee-shore and in 20 knots I was nervous, so we went around to the other anchorage which was better shelter but the wind was still blitzing. We stayed for lunch but sadly decided not to go ashore and not to stay the night. We headed for the bay of Baiona, which made me think of the band Little Feat through the obscure association of their album “Waiting for Columbus”. With some help from the pilot guide we happened upon a totally sheltered anchorage off a small beach and within walking distance of the little village of Panxón. It was a find as we could see the gum trees on the hill dancing in the near gale but we were in the wind shadow with only the occasional much reduced gust tickling its way in. It was so good we stayed 2 nights. The church, built from hewn granite blocks and dedicated to all things nautical was impressive with the main dome and other ceiling vaults lined with intricate mosaics. The exterior was also interestingly different.

This morning we have woken up, after two days of seeing smoke plumes from inland fires, to haze and ash on the deck of the boat. There are 2 days of calm winds that will hopefully give the fire fighters the break they need to get it all under control. Our thoughts are with them and any affected families.

Today we chug across the bay to Baiona for a marina, some washing machines. Saturday and Sunday are set aside for a passage to Porto and the land of the Galo de Barcelos (Rooster). Adios Amigos.