Islas Cies

We organised our permissions for the visit and armed with our personal printed permissions to navigate and anchor we sailed down the Ria and covered the 6 miles or so to the anchorage at
the Praia das Rodas. We dropped the hook in 7 metres of crystal clear waters and watched the anchor dig into white sand.

This anchorage is really only perfectly safe in westerly winds however the forecast for the next few days was for very light winds so we let out 40 metres of chain in deference to the " super moon " tides that would give us a 4 metre rise and fall.

we had a slight "emergency" on what was one of our smallest trips ever when the echo sounder stopped displaying any depth on the instruments. Lynne sailed the boat while I tore through the boat looking for the problem until after about 20 mins I discovered one of the NMEA "T" connectors that connect the transducers into the NMEA backbone was broken. this was located in a locker in the heads and we had obviously forced too many things into this locker and broke the connector, luckily we had a spare and once replaced the system was working again as we pulled into the lovely bay of Praia das Rodas.

We wasted no time in sorting Dark Tarn and clearing the dinghy for a look ashore.

we decided to walk towards the northern end of the beach as there was an information point near the ferry jetty which was spookily quiet! we very nearly had the island to ourselves.

There is a very well developed network of paths established around the island and we followed an obvious trail through the totally empty campsite area towards the roadway across the neck of the island seperated by a saltwater lagoon.

Both Lynne and I had the same thought, as we crossed the roadway possibly brought on by our recent thinking regarding the big tides we were in the middle of. Namely would this roadway be underwater when we returned? As it turned out we were right to be concerned.....

The island is a national park and is a fantastic haven for wildlife. I think we were very privileged as we had the place to ourselves and the local fauna seemed almost tame.
We discovered the information centre which was obviously closed however there was a handy map to consult.

The majority of the islands are covered in pine and eucalyptus forest. the beaches, of which there are many are superb. Clean white sand, beautiful.

Although the weather was a bit overcast the water was a lovely azure colour and we were almost temted to go for a swim but time was pressing and we knew we needed to get back over the causeway.

It didnt take very long for the magic of this island to begin to sink into us, around every corner was yet another lovely view or vista, the quiet and peace washed in and out with the small waves.

 small noises in the forest turned out to be pine cones falling from the the trees...........

we made our way back towards the dinghy on the beach and by careful timing avoided getting too wet on the causeway. as we sat in the cockpit and the stars came out later that evening we were totally enchanted and were looking forward to exploring the island.