Porto to Muxia the last of mainland Europe :-(

Very reluctantly we decided to leave Douro Marina in Porto and head north into the mist in the afternoon rather than fog. We shortened our sights for this trip as we had decided maybe to motor all night up to Spain - but when we realised our autopilot was broken and there was no wind for the wind vane to steer and we would have to hand steer to where ever we were going..... And it was my birthday which I didn’t want to spend motoring in the gloom all night! We got across the entrance to Lexioes harbour without coming to grief under the bow of any large boats in the fog which was a relief. I say fog as although it had looked quite clear from the marina as soon as we got out past the breakwater at the end of the river the fog very quickly came back down.

Hand steering - boring!

Apart from hand steering the trip North that day was pretty uneventful you couldn’t really see anything, we went to see if the Pelamis seasnake was in operation as it hadn’t been on our way South 3 years previously and it wasn’t there, they have even taken away the warning buoys now. Why Shetland is pandering a company whose largest prototype has hardly ever worked is beyond me. Also if the swells of the Portuguese coast have broken the one they put down here then don’t you think that another one will definitely be in pieces after one Shetland winter (or summer for that matter?) Rant over! Still on the renewables front there was one addition to the coast line that loomed up out of the fog that definitely wasn’t there last time........

It is a bit of a shock as you can’t really see turbines against the mist, we kept on going carefully with the radar for a while after that but it seemed to be a lone turbine maybe if we ever come back this way there will be a whole forest of them we must remember to buy new charts before then!

We got into Viana Do Castelo just in time for a nice tea cooked by Alistair and a bottle of wine. We were here three years ago and so we looked forward to using the cafe on the pier for internet and a birthday beer but it was not to be as the whole complex on the pier which had cafes and restaurants is now all empty. It seems the north of Portugal hasn’t escaped the recession at all we wondered what happened to the friendly Welsh/Portuguese waiter we met last time. There was however a new play park so the girls were pleased.

We left at around 9am setting off to Portasin in Spain which is a 70 mile trip; we couldn’t go any earlier as the office didn’t open to pay until 8.30. This proved to be good in a way though as Ali bought this ...

Kaylee had been very angry at him the day before as I didn’t get a cake and she said it wasn’t fair as I always get them cakes for their birthday. You will notice I didn’t say bake there as if I can I get mum to do it and if you saw Kaylee’s this year you would know why!

This trip started the same, flat calm and foggy but at least Ali had fixed the auto pilot it was just the ‘arm’ which had come loose (don’t ask me.) This was probably good timing as if it had come loose crossing Biscay we may not have been able to fix it in the conditions and I would have had to learn how to use the wind vane very very quickly! We motored north until the wind finally came up in the afternoon and we sailed for about half an hour before it died again (poor Ali) When were about 20 miles from our destination the wind finally came up properly but from -you guessed it – directly the direction we were going in. The last few miles were fairly choppy and very slow. We anchored just outside Portasin harbour being the canny Scots we are we don’t like to pay a whole days marina fee without actually getting our money’s worth of electricity etc. It was actually fairly windy and we don’t like manoeuvring into marinas in the dark and wind as it can end up going disastrously wrong.

We went into the marina first thing the next morning to use the facilities, washing machines, wifi etc. The wifi is really good at Portasin and reaches right onto the boat the first time we had had this since Gibraltar. It meant the girls could get some time on too and feed and clean their moshlings – don’t ask!

We met an Irish guy on the pontoon next to us who was returning his boat back to Ireland that week too and wasn’t setting off until through the week not the next day as we had thought to do. We looked at the weather and decided to put our trip off for a couple for days too which was a bit of a relief for me. Then we met an English couple, William and Helen, whom we had seen as we were leaving Viana Do Castelo and they were also crossing Biscay. They told us about a free marina in Muxia which from where we were was just around Cape Finisterre and a much better start off point for crossing Biscay (and of course free) so we decided we would go there the next day – Sunday and leave for Ireland on Tuesday. It was amusing when we had William and Helen on for a beer in the evening and Ali was trying to impress with how we had sailed to Turkey and back and then we found out they have been the whole way around the world including the pirate infested Gulf of Aden!

There was a slight puff of easterly wind across the marina on the Sunday morning so Ali was up like lightning and pulling the gennaker up the forestay shouting at the rest of us to get up. Lo and behold we did sail most of the way down the bay and then the wind died but not for long. As we had sailing company Ali was determined to sail the whole way to Muxia although I wasn’t entirely convinced as the forecast was for the wind to die in the afternoon and the tacking course we were having to take seemed to be taking us South and West rather than North but who am I to argue with captain? The other boats going the same way as us all motor sailed or just motored close in to shore whilst we were about 7 miles off to ‘catch the best wind’ tacking back and forth in the lumpy sea with small girls hanging over the rails spewing. We were still about 7 miles off when the wind really did die and we had to put the engine on. The statistics of this trip were – straight line around cape distance – 36 miles, miles sailed 39, miles motored 21 which means basically we took all day and a lot of miles to get where we were going but apparently it was all worth it because we used 20 miles less diesel and we sailed.

We did see a pilot whale very close to Muxia and the scenery up this end of Spain is beautiful even though it is peppered with turbines. And most importantly we had passed Finisterre which can be very rough and wouldn’t be a good way to start a five day crossing of Biscay.

William and Helen’s boat Out on the Blue was obviously already tied up at the pontoon in Muxia when we got there and there was a Belgian boat with small kids onboard who are just starting out on a two year trip with their kids which made us a bit wistful! The situation with the marina in Muxia is this, the Spanish government or EU decided to invest in the area and to build a Southern breakwater and marina in the harbour however he locals did not want this and the local council refused to take responsibility for it! There are pontoons and cleats to tie to and it is very sheltered but that is it, no water or electricity but we had just filled with water and don’t need electricity. We really like the place and Ali wants to move back and offer to run the marina but I have heard enough of these types of schemes to realise it probably won’t happen! It could be an opportunity for others though....

Muxia marina

Anyway as I said we really liked Muxia it is a small coastal town and as we realised after a bit of exploring it is one of the ends of the pilgrimage route “Camino de Santiago” which is the one that goes from somewhere in France up through he Pyrenees and across Northern Spain to Santiago de Compostela and then to here or Finisterre. Thankfully this town wasn’t full of straggly hairy people with battered leather sandals and long walking sticks like Santiago de Compostela was three years ago -they must all go to Finisterre. I suppose finisterre translated as the end of the earth would have more resonance with most pilgrim types although this town certainly tries to cash in on it all with the little tell tale scallop motifs everywhere you look.

Unfortunately our knack this trip of arriving everywhere there was a fiesta on was still holding and there was a funfair on the pier opposite the pontoon with lots of rides to entice the kids. We went out for a beer or two with William and Helen and a few spendy rides. We wished we had taken the camera when Ali discovered the merry go round with real horses tied to it! William and Helen invited us to their boat after and as always it made us jealous they have an Oyster 485 which incidentally is for sale now they have headed back home so if anyone wants a new boat this one is pretty good and big It is certainly big enough inside to have a good old party!

How many pins can I stick in my finger

The next day we located the internet cafe and made a final weather decision that we would go at around 2ish the next day as the North winds coming down the Spanish coast abated around then and the Westerlies would start a few hours later. We spent that day getting final provisions and just relaxing I couldn’t do my usual pretrip hoovering as there was no electricity - oh well. Also there isn’t much point in cleaning before a long trip as everything gets thrown around and messy anyway.

Camarinas Bay

The girls and I went to the beach which is lovely and did some rock climbing and stone collecting it is really pretty there and the girls did plead to stay for a day or two more which we would have done gladly if the weather window wasn’t as good as we would ever get for crossing Biscay. On our last night in Spain we decided to eat out with William and Helen and have one of the menu’s we saw advertised around town. We should have gone to the place they went to the night before which had been nice but we tried somewhere else on one of the back streets and really it was a bit bogging the wine was OK and the chips but the veg seemed to all be canned or frozen... That really says it all! It was a shame as we have had some wonderful food in Spain but never mind the beer and wine was OK! Now Helen if you are reading this I will inform you that we all (except Alistair) got you cold, Kaylee went down halfway across Biscay, and I went down with it just as we were tying up in Ireland and Alisha still has it now! But hey ho it will just be preparation for launching ourselves back into the bug infested first few weeks of the school term!

So that’s just about it for this post.  We love Spain and wished we could have cruised Galicia and the Rias for a few months but as always we rushed through and were on to the next part of the journey Biscay......... YIKES!