September 21st - 30th, 2012 (Spain)
Progress so far (Click picture to zoom)
We had rain overnight and the next morning was very misty and cool, but it cleared up a bit by lunchtime so we could eat out in the cockpit. After lunch we motored down to Punta Lagoa Marina to check out the cost of winter storage, but the price was too high and the marina too far out of Vigo town. We’d had a text from Greg (Vlad) regarding costs for Marina Davila Sport in Bouzas, a couple of miles west of Vigo, which seemed to be very competitive, so we decided to go down to check it out.
This marina is built at the end of a very long finger of land in the middle of a dock complex (sounds lovely doesn’t it – it’s not that bad really) and is a 15 minute walk into Bouzas. On the plus side, the price is excellent, we can have a couple of days on the pontoon at each end of the season, there’s 24 hour security, we can live and work on the boat on the hard and there are bikes we can borrow. There’s no washing machine at the moment, but they have a laundry service – hand in washing one day and it’s delivered back the next. When we come back next year they will even collect us from the supermarket if we have a big load of shopping. So all in all it was pretty much a no-brainer and we’ve now confirmed this is where we will be over the winter, along with Vlad. One more thing ticked off the list! Although the marina itself isn’t all that large, everything in it is. The pontoons are huge (we’re sitting on one which is about sixty feet long) and very high (our deck is only marginally higher, so we can step off easily). The cleats are huge and the cradles are substantial. I think this place is really aimed at huge gin palaces, but with the downturn in the economy they never turned up.
The following morning we walked into Vigo, which is about three miles away (there is a regular bus service, but we thought we’d get a bit of much needed exercise) to do a bit of sightseeing. We were very pleasantly surprised by the town, as from the water is doesn’t look particularly inviting. It’s a large town visited by cruise liners, and we wandered around getting our bearings before stopping for lunch. Food quantities seem to vary enormously here. The last tapas lunch of one dish each was slightly small, so we decided to include a salad this time. However, the dish Mike wanted was not available so we ordered a tortilla and salad with the intention of ordering another tortilla. When the food arrived, the helpings were massive and way more than we had expected, so it was just as well we hadn’t ordered anything else.
Traditional Galician dancing in Vigo
After lunch we discovered a shopping centre near the front which was full of small shops and a Media Markt, so we had to go in to have a look around. Mike was in his element! The place was like a huge Comet or Currys on two floors selling every kind of electrical item and we spent about an hour wandering around, but didn’t buy anything. We walked around the old town and then up through the Parque do Casstro to the top of the hill where we had spectacular views of the surrounding countryside. It was then mostly a downhill walk all the way back to the boat. We’d been walking for seven hours and covered about seven or eight miles but had thoroughly enjoyed the day.
The torrential rain showers arrived that night and continued for the next couple of days, with the wind gusting 35-40 knots. During a brief lull, Mike changed over the mooring lines to the heavy duty ones, as the wind was forecast to increase. Luckily we were being blown off the pontoon, but with such force that the boat was heeled over most of the time. Greg & Juliet came aboard in the afternoon and stayed a lot longer than they intended. Every time they were about to leave the heavens opened again. We were thinking of offering them a bed for the night! There wasn’t a lot we could do in the rain, so most of the time was spent on the boat, with Mike making up his to do list of all the work required before we go home and me catching up with the blog. When the weather finally improved, we borrowed bikes from the marina and cycled along the coastal paths for about 10 miles to get a bit of much needed exercise, but needless to say we did stop for an alcoholic beverage on the way back!
The next day we were back to sun and clear blue skies so we headed out of Bouzas and down to Baiona, and for a change had a really good sail the whole way down. The yacht club marina had been recommended to us so we decided to go there. Mike went up to the office to complete the forms and it was only after we had gone into town to do some shopping that we realised that we still didn’t know the overnight tariff. He checked at the office on the way back to the boat and was told it would be €60, which is over double what we have been paying recently, so we left immediately and anchored in the bay just outside the marina.
Baiona is a Spanish tourist resort with an attractive old town which has plenty of churches dotted around and we spent a very enjoyable afternoon following a tourist map around the area, ending up at the huge stone statue of the “Blessed Virgin in the Rock” which is on the top of a hill overlooking the bay. The next morning we took the dinghy ashore and after finding a nice little restaurant in the old town, we had a lovely leisurely lunch, sitting in the sun watching the world go by. We then thought we ought to get a bit of exercise to work off our lunch so did a coastal walk around the base of the Castelo de Monterreal which had some spectacular views across the bays.
