August 22nd - September 17th
After leaving Camariñas we had a couple of stops before arriving back in the Ria de Arousa, where the wind seemed to be the dominant feature and it was either gusting up to about 36 knots or flat calm. As a consequence we had to keep moving from anchorage to anchorage as the wind direction changed. However this did mean that we had some really good sails in nice flat water, which made a change from motoring everywhere.
As well as, or maybe because of the wind, there have been quite a few forest fires, one in the hills just behind a bay in which we were anchored seemed to be particularly bad, with four seaplanes and a helicopter working continually during daylight hours for two days until they managed to put it out. As we were downwind of the fire, the boat was covered with ash, which seemed to get into everything and once the wind died down a bit we motored across to one of marinas for a night. We spent most of the afternoon hosing down the boat to get rid of all the ash and salt which had accumulated – a good way to stay cool!
After leaving the marina we spent a few more days at various anchorages and had intended going into Vilanova Marina to celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary, but due to a variety of reasons this didn’t happen. Instead we ended up having an excellent sail around the Ria before anchoring in a nice secluded bay for the night, where we had a bottle of bubbly and a lovely meal on board. It was three or four days later in Pobra do Caramiñal that we finally managed to have our celebratory meal, but it was well worth the wait! We will celebrate in style in February/March next year, before we fly back out to Spain. While anchored in the bay at Pobra we met up with Bill & Aly from Fallen Angel and spent another very enjoyable evening with them.
(Written by Mike) From there we headed up to Rianxo for a couple of days, for the start of their week long fiesta of the Virgen de Guadalupe. We had a very nice meal at a restaurant called Feliciano and recommended it to Bill and Aly from Fallen Angel when we ran into them in the town. Many events were held on Sunday and we managed to catch a brass band, traditional Galician dance troop and a Galician pipe band, before the main procession started. We got a prime spot for the procession taking the statue of the Virgen de Guadalupe from the church to the harbour for transfer to a boat for the subsequent water born procession. Only 2 flaws in the plan. The Statue was flanked by people 2-3 deep on either side the actual procession and they blocked the view for those watching. After the procession transferred to boats we then found that they did a sharp right turn away from our vantage point. Even worse, Mistroma was anchored right in the path of around 100 boats all jostling for position. They all managed to avoid her but we would have had a great view if we’d gone back on board as soon as the street procession had passed. The fireworks display more than made up for this error. It ran for 15 minutes and we felt that we could almost touch some of them as we sat in the cockpit at midnight.
The following day produced a great sailing breeze and so we set off around the Ria to anchor at Playa de Barrana for the night. An American couple also arrived on a boat named Barry Duckworth and we invited them round for drinks. It turned into a very interesting evening as we discovered some of their past history. Lou and Nancy Linden had wintered in the UK after Lou singlehanded their boat from Baltimore (USA) to Baltimore (Eire), approx. 3,000nm. I mentioned that something was gobbledegook and Lou told me that when he was a solicitor, his mentor was the son of Maury Maverick, who invented the word gobbledegook. In addition, Maury’s grandfather, Samuel Augustus Maverick had been the source of the word, "Maverick". Lou later mentioned that TV was helping to fund this trip to Europe. They own an unusual loft in Baltimore, built as part of an ornate factory for the man who invented the bottle cap. It featured in a TV series called the Wire and has now been used for many scenes in a new version of House of Cards. Lou was disappointed that he wasn’t at home to meet the director, Jodie Foster.
