Corme to Baiona (Bayona) 21st to 28th August

We left Corme straight after breakfast after a fairly rolly night of swell coming around the breakwater; we had also swung around far closer to the rocks. It turned out to be another nightmare journey for Ali, not enough wind to sail.

It was as calm as you ever can get around here with the glassy swell still rolling into the side of the boat constantly. It was Kaylee’s turn this day to suffer from a little bit of mal de mer.

The Northern coast of Spain is really very beautiful and the bits without trees are strangely reminiscent of Shetland. We have been astounded by the amount of wind turbines on the hills, thousands. Most of them are of the older ‘generation’ and quite small, these weren’t turning at all. There are a few of the really big kind which did seem to be turning even on calm days although not very quickly. We wondered if the little ones that didn’t turn (when it was obviously windy) were actually still in commission, and if not why hadn’t they been decommissioned? I must admit that it didn’t ruin the view but it did look a bit strange, like triffids lining the cliffs in rows waiting for some wind. The difference between here and Shetland is that 1. There were miles between groups of turbines so they didn‘t impose on a whole region, 2. They seemed to be on uninhabited sea facing hills, 3. The ones we saw anyway were no more than 30 miles from the nearest big city where the power would be used i.e La Coruna and Vigo this I think is maybe the main point of difference. Anyway enough about wind farms -what will be will be!

We were entertained by thousands of swimming crabs again. We even saw three sunfish lying on the surface sleeping, not as big as the one we saw once in Papa Sound though, he must have been a hardy fish to think that sunning himself in Shetland waters was a better idea than this!

We were very surprised to come across a guy on a jet ski about four miles off of the most North West corner of Spain just seemingly playing around and stopping a lot. We thought maybe he was a drugs runner waiting for a package to come in. Apparently a quarter of Europe’s drugs are smuggled in through Galician coastline. There are certainly plenty of customs and police checks at the marinas, some people have had customs onboard as late as midnight.

We passed Cape Finnisterre - the end of the world according to the Roman’s although it isn’t actually.

Ali’s part!! Yes he has finally decided to add a few words!

It is however a very rocky coastline and I imagine that on a winters day it may look like the world is about to come to an end if you were unfortunate enough to be out in a boat.
Having said that, the locals seem to have no fear of going in amongst the rocks and surf . We saw many small boats fishing in fairly exhilarating locations.

Soon after rounding the cape, we anchored in the very picturesque town of Muros.
The anchoring was quite precarious, the bay shoaling very steep from 16m deep to drying in little more than 100m. Therefore the anchor position has to be dead-on + a little luck. We were lucky, we dragged out the way, but a German boat went in towards the shore. They had gone ashore for the evening., and when they returned their boat was on its side. No harm done thankfully, sandy bottom..

We spent two days in Muros, swimming, strolling around the town, a nice “Tapas” lunch and a lot of anchor watching. We again met up with Andy and Leslie in their yacht Kodiak, this time nothing stronger than a Sunday morning coffee.


Back to me authoring

We have been trying our best to be eco friendly on this trip and we were quite disappointed when we had to resort to chemical warfare whilst in Muros. We bought our first aerosol in years to kill the dreaded mosquitos off that have been biting us all for the last few nights. We found a wonderful ‘ferretaria’ that sold nearly everything you could want in Muros. We bought wire and mosquito mesh to make hatch covers so we could still breathe at night and keep the little blighters out. This was our main employment in the two evenings we spent swinging around on the anchor. The shop also sold rope which we needed for our broken lazy jacks at a quarter of the price we paid for some in Thulecraft at home! Ali being Ali he bought sixty metres.

Ali’s second contribution

Our visit to Muros was cut short prematurely also. We were on our way ashore in the dingy. Linda said to me that our boat appeared to be moving- this I of course dismissed with impunity. However, almost as soon as we set foot ashore and took a “mead” it became horribly obvious that Islay Mist was away on her own. A quick dash in the dingy, praying that the Honda 2.3hp would not run out of fuel, and soon we caught up, thank god! ( the wind had gone from calm to 24 knots and 180 deg. shift )
Needless to say I did have to eat humble pie!!
So that was the decision made to move on to our next harbour, only across the bay to Portosin, a safe marina for a change.

Back to me again

We spent two nights in Portasin including a trip into Noia, the next town which was apparently having a fiesta but it seemed it would only get going after the last bus went back to Portasin so that was a bit of a non-event.

Portasin is a nice little town with a great marina, very clean showers - always a big plus especially after some of the horror stories in France!

The weather was still good and we decided to horse on down to Baiona on Tues 25th of August. We had an extremely calm motor with only the incredibly poorly marked buoys to look out for as usual and a few swimming crabs. We decided since the sea was so flat we would anchor off the Islas Cies for a night. The Islas Cies are two small islands just Northwest of Baiona, one is a nature reserve which you have to get a permit to land on. They are absolutely beautiful, which is probably why the boat was continually bobbing around in the bow waves from ferries taking tourists to and from the bigger island.
Ali and Kaylee rowed ashore for a dip whilst Alisha and I got the dinner on. Alisha has gone off going ashore since the Muros escapade -racing back to the escaping boat where the girls got completely soaked at the bow of the dinghy! She also refuses to go to the beach with Alistair as he always throws her into the sea to encourage her to swim…. It was a beautiful sunset, there were about six or seven yachts anchored. It stayed calm all night but the swell did creep in around from the north so we felt like we were still sailing when we were sleeping.
We woke up in the morning and decided to have a run ashore before we left for Baiona. This seemed like a good idea until when I tried to jump ashore and pull the dinghy up the steep beach managing to fall in to the surf bottom first. It was however amusing for some. I was so soaked I had to take my breeks off and go around in my pants. We were treated to a police air and sea demo when a helicopter and fast rib launch were whizzing around the island, at least we think it was a demo!
The wind had picked up considerably by the time we left so we had a short hop over to Baiona going between the rocks to shorten the route.
When we arrived in Baiona we found Thomas and Mjaia still there suffering from the after effects of the night before and so we thought maybe it was lucky we anchored! We went for dinner as it was our last time in Spain and had a nice meal, and realised we were really no better at speaking the lingo than when we arrived in Spain almost a month ago. Thomas and Mjaia came over for a coffee and chocolates as they were leaving in the morning.
The next day we went exploring and went aboard a reconstruction of the Pinta, the boat that brought the news back to Europe in Baiona of the discovery of the ‘New World’ by Columbus. They are very proud of the fact that the news came back to Baiona first and they have a big celebration in March every year to commemorate the date. The ship itself was excellent, it had models of all the people and food that would have been onboard down to the natives they took home, crocodiles, parrots and yams etc. We also went for a walk around the rounds of the Castillo Monte Real on the harbour which was impressive too the girls loved it running around the walls pretending to be princesses and knights.
We found some English boys to fish with at the pontoon which was all a great fun until one of them fell in. We had an early night as we were sailing to Portugal the next day and it was going to be around Force 6 with ‘considerable’ swell - yippee! Spain has been really great and we were sorry to be leaving but we also knew that if we didn’t get a few more miles in we will never reach all the bits of the Med that we want to in two years - remember we only travel at an average five miles an hour.