Pobra

The dawn broke with the children in the 'oppys' being rather subdued, I cracked the hatch to see them flapping about in what amounted to a flat calm.  After coffee and weetabix for me we raised the anchor and set off for the short hop of just over 6 miles to Pobra do Caramiñal to meet up with Bob and Maureen from 'Modus Vivendi' and Jim and Megan from 'Magnet'.

We raised the mainsail but to be honest it was a token gesture, the wind was a force 1-2 meaning less than 5 knots most of the time.

Of course it would be churlish to complain as the day was beautiful, we got to take a leisurely look at the Ria de Arousa, a fabulous archipelago of rocky islands and white sand beaches. When I first heard of the Galician Rias this was exactly what I had imagined. Today, it didn't disappoint....

Lynne took charge of the boat as we threaded our way through the many mussel farms and isolated rocks, not to mention the very many fishing and workboats. Good practise for 'colregs' ( collision regulations ) and eyeball navigation.

 The day was building into a hot one and to be honest looking around at the small inland sea that the Ria represented with its seemingly unlimited anchorages, fishing villages and beaches along with many islands of all sizes, I wouldn't have swopped places with anyone. Not for the first time I was wondering why rush past, there is so much to explore and that doesn't include the places that we had barely touched inland.

Quite soon as we sailed along in the barely perceptible breeze the approach to Pobra came into view.

We slid around the floating mussel platforms ' bateas' and carefully checking The depths anchored in 3 metres alongside Magnet and Modus Vivendi.

We were the only yacht flying a red ensign, the other three boats at anchor were all Irish!

We joined our friends for afternoon drinks and caught up on 'gossip', lovely to get together and we all seemingly had come to the conclusion that this would be a great place to spend the winter.

After a convivial afternoon  concluding with Bob towing us back to Dark Tarn after our dinghy mysteriously lost an oar, which we retrieved thanks to Bob, Lynne and I went ashore for supplies and to explore a little.

We found the tourist information and an extremely helpful young lady gave us a huge amount of information including, when she discovered we were staying around, a beautiful book about the Camino that was created in the 60s that traced St James last journey with his two disciples Theodorus and Athlanasius up the Ria de Arousa and then the river Ulla to Santiago. Maybe a winter project?

We found a cafe and sat down for a think surrounded by cool tiles and running water. Incidental ley This café has an impressive art collection on display inside.

Drinking coffee we began to realise that we had made the right decision and it would be wrong to rush past this fabulous coastline without exploring it properly and preferably before Brexit made a stay in the EU of more than 180 days if not impossible at least expensive.

We wandered along the seafront to the fantastic supermarkets that Pobra is blessed with to buy essential supplies, we planned to stay for a while as there was a four day festival happening from Friday. Not to mention Bobs birthday. The weather was forecast to be rainy tomorrow but after that the sun would return. In the photo above DT is just under the young lady with the basket on her heads arm.

That evening after a Spanish dinner of Zorza ( spicy pork ) and pimentos de padron with bread we sat in the cockpit to watch the sunset and the moon rise, as it got dark we noticed a wildfire developing on the mainland past the island of Arousa opposite us, I'm afraid this isn't a very good photo.

 After a few hours it seemed to die down and after midnight the rain began and for once I was quite grateful as it would be sorely needed across the water.