All Quiet

Finally all is quiet, dry and in order. Anna M is berthed once again in a very peaceful Pobra do Caramiñal, resting in warm autumn sunshine, in a different mood to the place we visited in September last year.* It is a small port, not unlike Sada where we made our landfall, all with an amazing variety of marine activity.

How’s this for a variety of craft:-

Sada

Sada was very good to us; the jib halyard was sorted and the rigging tuned thanks to Paco and Carlos of Nauticayons, the radar made to work again, and above all the leaks more or less fixed, all at reasonable expense.

Here is José Manuel Gómez Porto of the Carpintería Lorbé doing the caulking.

Just the neat little wooden chest with his caulking hammer and collection of irons would give you confidence in the man, before you watch him go unerringly to the right spot and the hammer bouncing in his hands!

It was very peaceful as we motored out of the Ría de Betanzos, covered with its fleet of tiny fishing boats with old boys jigging, I think, for squid. Ay, those delicious chipirones! I went out with one of them once. We didn't catch a thing, but my friend was happy. 'Aquí hay paciencia y tranquilidad!'

Ría de Betanzos,

Cabo Villano

Once out past the Torre de Hercules we found a breeze; it became such a fine fresh north-easterly that we were glad to find the shelter of Cabo Villano and a good anchorage at Camariñas. First attempt however at the head of the bay was in vain; the anchor dragged, choked in weed. Off the harbour there was less shelter from the wind, but the anchor bit into mud and didn't stir an inch.

Out passed Mugia's church of the Virgen de la Barca, dramatic in the morning sunlight, and on with a fair north-easterly, and the shelter getting better all the time. So we came at last south of Cape Finisterre, finding warm sunshine indeed, but hardly any wind.

We motor-sailed across to Cabo Corrubedo, and through the rocks into the Ría de Arosa in the company of trawlers sorting their catch to the wild excitement of many gulls. That passage passed the Piedras del Sargo looks a bit hairy on the chart, but has a good new port-hand mark on the north side and is straight-forward enough.

Isla Sagres

Piedras del Sargo

In A Pobra we are tied up beside a Spanish lady called Maribel. She and her husband have sailed twice round the world, taking thirty years; now they are feeling like settling, and are going to get a wee country place to live. They will keep the boat though. I say that sailing the Gannetsway is pretty good.  Yes, but rather too hardy, she reckons. She believes in 'butter sailing'; the butter must be soft enough to use, but not too hard! And who can argue with that?

* http://gannetswaysailing.blogspot.ie/2015/09/o-nazareno_21.html