Muxia to A Pobra do Caramiñal 55nm
Sunday 16 August
At 7am the wind in the marina was only 12-15 knots and the howling in the rigging had stopped, so we made the brave decision to head out round Cape Finisterre on the Costa da Morte.
After waiting for dawn, we headed out of the Ria in a steady 20 knots of wind and put two reefs in the main.
We started with the stay sail as we were feeling apprehensive but soon switched to the Yankee.
Cape Finisterre is a notorious wind acceleration zone as winds turn the corner at the end of the North Spanish coast and as the Atlantic Ocean gets confused because it can no longer roll on into the Bay of Biscay, so the seas can get rough.
We even wore our sailing coats!
The Cape didn’t disappoint – there were big rolling seas and steady gusts of 27 knots. David says he saw 30 knots.
We had the wind behind us and we relaxed after the gybe and enjoyed the dramatic scenery.
We took turns on the helm, the sea was a bit rolly and the gybe a bit close for Greta we thought.
As soon as we were round the Cape, the seas calmed dramatically and the wind died down. Eventually dying altogether and we ended up motoring for a bit!
Gladly the wind returned and we enjoyed a very lovely sail in flatter seas, eventually turning into the pretty Ria da Arousa.
The Ria was beautiful with completely calm water and 18 knots of wind. We stormed up the Ria at 7-9 knots. We saw leaping dolphins but unlike the friendly Brittany ones they didn’t come over to play.
Very suddenly the wind died to nothing and, as we were close to port, we took the main down, only for the wind to fill in to 12 knots from a different angle. The wind is very unpredictable here!
There’s a large marina in the medium sized town of A Pobra do Caraminal (hard to say that after a glass of wine!) and we had arrived in fiesta week. we are not completely sure what it was all about. We think it was something to do with fishing for shell fish.
Fortunately, because we had eaten early (9pm with the other English) we were wandering back to the boat when the streets suddenly filled with the people following the Madonna to the church.
And there was a wonderful military band with 5 saxophones and exceptional drumming
Of course we had to follow it and then waited for them to march and play very very quickly on the way back. Everybody lined the street to show the band their appreciation.
What a lovely community! However the throbbing music from the fair into the wee hours was a bit loud!
This evening we welcomed Max onto the boat today – he managed to find us out here right on the edge of Spain! He’s Mark’s step-son (Mark was part of our start crew) and new to sailing.