Back to Pobra and on to Barra

After the weekend Modus Vivendi needed to get back to Xoufre on the island of Arousa as Gerard and Bob both had flights to catch. We however had decided to move to Pobra as the wind direction was becoming more westerly.

We sailed through the maze of bateas and anchored in the bay of Pobra do caraminel, the wizzy echo sounder visible through the forehatch is proving surprisingly user friendly., a good awareness of depth is also proving invaluable!

The weekend coincided with an Irish Cruising Club rally and the marina and anchorage soon filled up as a seemingly endless stream of Irish boats came into the bay. There were one or two local Spanish boats as well, the small motorboats were very social, the three below were sharing one anchor!

We have always had a soft spot for Pobra, Lynne loves the convenience of the two supermarkets right on the beach and the water temperature seems to be a few degrees warmer than other spots in the Ria.

There were also some old friends at anchor, Steve and Jeanine aboard Jack the Lad from London.

Later the clouds parted and a lovely evening developed as the noise from the Irish contingent in the Marina was concluded with a super fireworks display.

A boat we had come across before and were quite intrigued with became friendly, it was the lovely steel yacht "Brillig" and its owners Andrew and Rika. Andrew is an artist and as a couple I believe they have been travelling around the Atlantic from Senegal to the Caribbean and American east coast for 10 years or so. We felt like kindred spirits being at the more breadline end of the yachting fraternity and it was a pity we didn't have more time together but I'm sure we will wash up somewhere together again.

Weekends in Spain are very busy, everyone seems to enjoy the end of the working week and that usually involves eating and drinking, in Pobra every scrap of alley is a warren of tables and conversation lubricated with wine and seafood.
By contrast it is still possible to find a quiet square and admire the architecture, this is near the museum of a famous local author. Valle-Inclan on the Rue Calvo Sotelo.

The problem of the missing parcel to Garmin in the U.K. was becoming pressing, after three weeks they still had not received our possibly faulty tranducer. After numerous e-mails I decided that we needed to go back to Cangas to speak to someone at the post office regarding tracking and tracing this parcel.
Lynne decided after speaking to another yachty couple on board Arbalest, Graham and Jenny who kindly revealed the existence of a superb launderette that it was about time we had a wash day.
Its a strange peculiarity of Spanish Launderettes that they invariably have great free Wi-Fi.

As well as being great value and very efficient, (18 kilo wash 4 euros, dryer 2 euros ) you don't even need washing powder or conditioner its all in and obviously you can download Game of thrones on your laptop while you wait....

By late afternoon we were back on board and I finally got around to having a look at the weather, it seemed that the winds were turning southerly and light, I hummed and haahed, had a quick chat with Lynne and we agreed to do an evening dash the 23 miles or so back to the Ria Vigo. We should keep the fresh NW breeze until the sun set, maybe...........

Lynne was keen to anchor overnight in the bay of the beach at Barra. we upped anchor and left just as everyone else seemed to be arriving! as we crept out under sail and unfurled the genoa Dark Tarn felt the breeze ( force 4-5 ) and leapt off at 7.5 knots with a bone in her teeth. A fabulous sail saw us off Isla Ons in about 2 hours and only as we approached Isla Cies did the forecast wind shift kick in and head us. It died almost to nothing but from the south and we had to resort to engine to get into the anchorage just before dark.

Lynne watching for ferrys.

Isla Ons and the smaller Isla de onza.

Islas Cies and the entrance to Ria Vigo.
We crept past the lighthouses on Punta Robieliera and entered Ensenada de barra, there were already a dozen or so boats at anchor, quite a few were part of the 60 boats on the Irish cruising club rally.
As night fell the remnants of the Irish cruising club and us lit our anchor lights under a crescent moon like firefly's in the night. it was unbelievably peaceful.

Time to settle down and watch Game of thrones ..............

a small piece of video about the day.

Festival Del Carmen

Here it comes again! The patron saint of fishermen and sailors. This festival is celebrated all around the coast in July and August.
In Rianxo it was a three day festival of music fireworks and drinking

We took our dinghy ashore, by carefully avoiding landing on the beach and taking a much shorter dinghy ride around the corner to the inner corner of the harbour wall we ( well I ) avoided the steep climb and descent over the headland. My knee had been giving me a bit of pain and the discovery of a hidden slipway by the local sailing club made going into Rianxo a lot easier. We were aware that the festival of Carmen was going to be celebrated that weekend and were curious as to what the advertised ' procession of the vehicles ' was all about.

It turned out to be just that. At the small chapel near the fish dock a local priest was enthusiastically, and with no small degree of humour blessing a long procession of decorated vehicles. If a driver was foolish enough to open his window, they would receive a face full of holy water, a poor man on a moped became a particular target! It was also once the lorry tractors joined in very noisy!

We spotted a regular visitor to our anchorage, a classic local schooner that ran day trips tied up at the harbour and ' dressed overall'

In town was the usual fairground rides and medieval market. There were also the performers juggling knives.

I made a little film of the morning.........

After lunch we tried to avoid the heat of the day by having a beer in the beach bar. Being weekend the beach was very popular with local families.

Of course the highlight of the festivities would be the procession of the statue of our lady of Carmen. It was normal to process through the streets but we have also come to expect particularly in fishing oriented villages and towns that the statue is put aboard a fishing boat and taken out to the ' bateas ' and ' viveros ' out in the Ria.

 As with a lot of religious festivities in Spain I find the depth of faith and feeling sometimes surprising. As we walked down to the harbour this was going to be one of those times, a sizeable crowd had gathered and small craft and fishing boats were circling in the water all gaily decorated with flags flowers and palm fronds. People were dressed in their Sunday best.

There was a group of traditional dancers and the inevitable band with pipes and drums. With great ceremony the statue of our lady of Carmen was escorted out into the Ria.

I filmed the spectacle and Lynne and I walked back towards the sailing club for a drink in the bar there, we watched the fleet return as the sun set and as we launched our dinghy to return to Dark Tarn we noticed a familiar yacht slip into the channel up to the harbour entrance. It was Modus Vivendi and our friends Bob and Maureen. We would catch up with them tomorrow.

We had a nightcap in the cockpit and listened to the music drifting over the treetops from the town.

We arranged to meet up with Bob and Maureen and their French guest Gerard, a lovely and large fellow for lunch. This meant we had to negotiate the festival of foam (all mistranslations are my fault)

This involved basically covering a town square in foam, no idea why but the kids loved it!

Later in the evening there was traditional dancing and we arranged to meet up with the Modus Vivendis in the evening .

We had a great weekend.

I made a little film that I hope captures some of the atmosphere

Rianxo

The winds were still very light as we left Pobra, we negotiated the many bateas that inhabit this particular Ria quite heavily and made our way into the marked channel to Villagarcia.

We went close in to inspect the anchorage, the marina was an option but anchoring was what we were about, something about getting our voyaging heads back on. We looked at the spars littering the beach delineating the shellfish beds, we saw how constricted we would be in the corner of the beach

 and harbour wall, we figured the wind direction for the next 48 hours, we spotted the shellfish beds landing dock, Lynne spotted the industrial nature of the harbour......

So we turned around and headed through the small islets and rocks ( tricky with only a couple of metres under the keel ) headed for Rianxo, and an anchorage of a smalll beach which we figured would give good holding and shelter from the predominantly NE winds.

As we approached I opened the fore hatch and using our outdated echo-sounder and a suspicious sandy patch of water ( lighter colour) dropped our trusty Bruce anchor in 5 metres.

This was the playa de Quencho/Tanxil, a perfectly lovely spot, even better for being overseen by the towns local saint la Virgen de Guadeloupe. In fact she was looking over us from the beach.

The forecast winds certainly blew! Although generally we were blessed with sun and cloudless sky's  the wind was a consistent 14 knots and was 25 knots on the gusts, north to north east. The holding was perfect, LaVigen de Gauadeloupe was looking over us to be sure. In three days we moved not one inch. We swam ( although the water was fearsome cold) Lynne went to explore the town while I stayed on board and worried....

Later in the evening we went ashore to explore, the beach was immaculate as we had become used to in Spain. It was used by locals after work as a beautiful resource, which seems to be a lifestyle choice I can understand.

The wind continued northerly which gave us shelter in the lee of the land.

We would stay a week at anchor here.....

Ria Arousa

Delays continued, the Triducer flashing resulted in an extended phone call to Garmin service department. They were unfailingly helpful but it was looking like at least a three week turnaround for a replacement. Meanwhile we would have to rely for depth information on our antiquated seafarer mounted in the fore cabin, visible to the person on the foredeck when anchoring but not to the helmsman.
  Obviously Lynne was gutted at having to spend another month in the Gallician Rias but as the end of June approached we accepted the vagaries of fate and decided to return north and explore the Rias of Arousa and Pontevedra. Originally we had planned to split the trip north up by hopping from Vigo to Pontevedra but an unseasonal couple of days of southerly winds persuaded us to head straight for Arousa, a distance of 25-30 miles or so.

The winds proved to be frustratingly light and we closed with Isla Ons to get out of a persistent N W swell, we would return to this beautiful island on our return. Meanwhile as the calm waters in the easterly Lee of the island steadied Dark Tarn we were able to study closely the intricacies of the coastline.

We aquired a westerly breeze as we rounded the northern end of Isla ONS and headed for the main channel into Ria Arousa. We threaded our way through the many bateas and found a good anchorage in Pobra do Caraminel. We were delighted to spot a friend among the boats at anchor it was our fellow OCC members Bruce and Pam aboard the lovely Rival "Osprey" We were invited aboard for drinks and had a great evening as we slowly demolished their alcohol supply. Fantastically experienced sailors and some great stories...

There were a few other steel yachts in the anchorage just off the village beach, one was a German yacht which made Dark Tarn look quite posh, another however was a different kettle of fish. It was an ex BT Challenge 67, called XPLORE.

It's not often I am envious of another boat but for a while I must admit to being a bit smitten.

Veteran of several trips to Antarctica she was owned by Steve who had run her as a high latitudes charter boat for ten years. Beautiful, and we got a really good look at her as after a few days the wind got up and we nearly came into contact, we appeared to be in her wind shadow as she sheared about and I had to hang of our pulpit to push us away with my feet. Needless to say we up anchored and gave her a wider berth!

We have always enjoyed Pobra, it has a lovely beach and the anchorage is very secure. Like Cangas there always appears to be something going on. Our friends Bob and Maureen in Modus vivende joined us in the anchorage and we had a booze lunch which continued into the evening, we had very bad hangovers but at least the world had been put to rights!

Since our last visit a nature reserve had been established which provided a lovely walk around the small river entering the sea at the far end of the beach. We enjoyed a picnic lunch as we walked around the elevated boardwalk and returned back to the small lagoon which had become a small boats graveyard. It wasn't much further around to the small chapel we had seen from Dark Tarn.

The chapel was surrounded by gravestones, a real necropolis, however my interest was piqued by the rocks awash a few hundred metres offshore, it looked a great spot to snorkel. Later we came over in the dinghy and discovered a marvellous underwater world where we were surrounded by small fish. Luckily the water temperature was reasonable and we were able to snorkel for up to 30 mins at a time.

Soon however it was time to move on but not before Lynne had looked around the market, these are a weekly event at most towns and villages and are always interesting with the mix of colours and shouting tradespeople. The weather forecast was for northerlies so we had decided to head towards the head of the Ria towards Villagarcia.