The gathering

 Another reason to wait around in Baiona was the arrival of the East Atlantic Rally. This event was a few boats from the Ocean Cruising Club who were cruising in company from A Coruna to the Caribean. Lynne had emailed the organiser Neil and arranged to meet up possibly Sunday, we were also expecting Seawolf to arrive on her way south.

We were surprised to see yet another O.C.C. boat turn up, this turned out to be a beautiful 64 foot schooner called Wolfhound.

She had been built near Poole in Dorset and was being delivered to New Zealand by her owners Steve and Louise. We were lucky enough to be invited aboard and shown around this fabulous yacht. She is built of wood and epoxy and the workmanship is first class. There is a website showing the building of the yacht and her blog at www.sywolfhound.com there are also some links to Steves paintings ( he is a marine artist )

Neil and Helen turned up in Milveina, an aluminium yacht coming out of the weekend fog to anchor.

We had a nice chat with this Canadian couple but unfortunately couldn't stay to socialise with the other crews on the rally. I am assuming they were delayed, possibly due to lack of wind or fog. Neil had complained they had to do a lot of motoring to get here. We had walked around the headland admiring the swells crashing in on the rocks and knew that the weather was taking a little turn for the worse in the next couple of days. I had planned to use the last of the contrary ( for boats heading south ) winds on Monday to go north and avoid the northerlies which would set in possibly for weeks from Tuesday.

Monday saw us walking up into the hills to the distribution centre to pick up our pump spares, Lynne also took the opportunity to gather some fresh mint she had spotted in the fields. We had a last quick shop in Carrefour and had a last visit from Steve from Wolfhound who presented us with a magnificent foghorn I shall be fitting under the radome this winter.

Could have come in very handy the previous couple of days ( fog is very common along this coast )

We raised sail and pulled up our anchor and as we headed out past the harbour wall we met Modus Vivendi with Bob and Maureen aboard coming in!

Unfortunately we wanted to use the last of the southerly breeze to take us back up Ria Vigo to San Simon so we had to carry on as Lynne chatted with Maureen on the radio.

We sailed through the same inshore passage of the Canal de Porta that avoids the reefs and islets known as the Estellas.

The winds were gentle but we're still giving us 4-5 knots as we approached the Enseada de Carriera which also gave us great views of the Islas Cies.

As we entered the Ria proper we were on a dead run and were sailing goosewinged with the main and Genoa on opposite side. This is a twitchy point of sailing and takes a lot of concentration.

We sailed past Cangas and Vigo and had soon covered the 20 miles or so to the rather lovely inland sea that is San Simon. We sailed under the high motorway bridge and past many bateas into the calm waters of the upper Ria.

 We anchored in the shallow bay off San Adrian, just about where the number 4 is on the above chart and spotted Magnet in the marina.

We were anchored just opposite along with a French yacht. Lthough only a few miles from a major city and quite well populated this part of the Ria is a haven of peace and quiet. Well relatively!

The winds were forcast to go northerly and increase which is what they did. We were in a bar that evening ( the only one ) with Jim and Megan from Magnet when the heavens opened and torrential rain fell. Luckily the bar owner gave us a lift back to the marina but Lynne and I still got soaked to the skin as we took the dinghy back to Dark Tarn.

The first real rain we had seen in a month! That night the sky lit up from horizon to horizon with sheet lightening. Perfect shelter to watch a perfect storm. We would stay here a few days until the weather improved.