July 29th - August 21st
We were safely anchored in the bay just off the marina in Camariñas when the wind peaked at 34 knots and along with the wind we had some torrential rain showers. Luckily these didn’t last too long and after they’d blown over the sun came out again. Once the wind finally died down a bit we were able to take the dinghy into the fishing harbour to have a look around the town.
Camariñas is famous throughout Spain for its lace, which is made and sold in the town. There’s a lace museum which details the history and method of this ancient craft and you can see old designs and examples of lace dating from 17th century up to the present day. It also has scaled up models of the tools used to make the lace, which give you an idea of how it all works. It was fascinating to watch the lady on the reception desk making a beautiful pair of gloves for a child, using about fifty different bobbins. I wouldn’t know where to start!
We enjoyed wandering around the town and found a couple of good restaurants where we had lunch (we seem to have adopted the Spanish habit of eating a late lunch and finishing it mid-afternoon) after which we’d go for a long walk through beautiful countryside. We walked through woodland and past huge houses, to the entrance of the Ria from where you can see for miles.
From there we headed up to Laxe and as we entered the bay we noticed a British boat lying broadside on to the wind, so motored across to them to see if they needed any help. Apparently their engine had failed and they were trying to tow the boat with their inflatable dinghy – an impossible task. We got them tied alongside us and motored them in to the harbour so they could tie up to the wall. They were still there when we left a few days later to go up to Ares and then on to La Coruña.
This is another city we visited for a couple of days last year, but this time we stayed for a week in a marina much closer to the centre of town. August seems to be one non-stop fiesta, with most events being free, including open air concerts held in Maria Pita Square. One that we wandered into was with Malú, who is very big in Spain apparently, and was excellent. There were firework displays every night, which made a change from the normal ones fired off during the day!
We visited Monte de San Pedro, which originally was a military fort but is now a huge park, with beautifully manicured lawns and flowerbeds and some huge gun emplacements. To get there we took the glass elevator, which goes up nearly vertically for 100 metres. I wasn’t quite so keen on that, but the views from the top were stunning – over the city and out to sea. On the way back we stopped to watch the preparation and start of a rowing competition, with traditional Galician traineras, before heading back to the boat.
We thoroughly enjoyed our stay in La Coruña but it was time to start making our way down south again. Our first stop was in Corme, where we were stuck for two days because of pea-soup fog and we’ve been back in Camariñas for the last couple of days. We anchored on the opposite side of the Ria from the town and took the dinghy into a lagoon and then up a river for about 3.5 miles. The scenery was beautiful and very reminiscent of the Caledonian Canal, except for the weather! We were a bit concerned that we’d run out of petrol before we got back to Mistroma, but thankfully we had a little to spare.
