16th May 2009. Cangas Update

OK, let’s bring you up to date with the story – we’ll go back to Povoa and 5th May.

We’d been watching the weather and overnight on the 4th of May looked good for heading up to Povoa de Varzim (about 80 miles, or Leixeos about 70mls) from Figueira da Foz so we paid up during the day and prepared to leave about 10pm to have the tide in the river (nearly) right and the wind to have come round so that it had a bit more East in it. Once again the weather didn’t develop as it had been predicted (wind was too light) and we ended up with a motor-sail all the way. However, there were dozens of fishing boats out that night and we had the radar on for a good part of the journey so that we could work out exactly what was happening with them; it’s difficult to see their navigation lights when they are lit up with all the deck lights blazing and to figure out which way they are moving. Povoa is a holiday town with a very strong fishing tradition; it has been well developed since 1974 (after the revolution). The metro line also goes from Povoa directly into Porto and has an easy connection to the airport. The marina was OK but there was too much swell working its way in and the wash from the fishing boats going in and out was also a bit severe. While we were there the wind had picked up on Friday or Saturday and I had added extra lines to the pontoon. It was blowing us away from the pontoon so was no major problem – however, we had been for a walk and were sitting on ‘Sheer Fantasy’ (just a couple of fingers down) when we heard some shouting. It turned out to be coming from where Balchis was tied up and someone was holding the front of the boat to keep it from bashing off the jetty – the boat had skewed round and was blowing away from the pontoon toward the boat next door. At first I thought that the lines had broken but didn’t know why – we tend to use thicker mooring lines than the average yacht and no one else had burst lines…. It turned out to be that the mooring cleat had come away from its fitting on the pontoon – there are two bolts that hold it down and they had both come loose and the whole lot lifted out of the slot that holds the bolt heads. No damage to Balchis but a bit worrying for the people that had noticed the problem – they were going back to UK for 3 weeks two days later, so they had a frantic time putting on extra lines and checking cleats.

We had been in Povoa for almost a week now and what with the bobbing about and the squeaking lines hadn’t slept much, so we were well ready to be moving on… The weather looked good for sailing on the 12th to Baiona (about 52mls) – well, it turned out that none of the 3 weather predictions was correct, at least for the first part of the trip, the wind had turned more to the north and we had to plug into it for the first (roughly) 10 miles. The swell was also quite big but after a couple of hours the wind had come round a bit and we could get a bit of a sail. As we made our way north the angle on the wind became better, the swell lessened and the sailing improved greatly. We’d left about 7am and anchored up in Baiona about 16:30BST which is 17:30 local time – now that we are back in Spain we are 2 hours ahead of GMT (or UTC) and 1 hour ahead of the UK (and Portugal). We didn’t bother going ashore in Baiona but on Wednesday (13th) had a sail across to Cangas (directly north of Vigo) on the north side of the Ria; the weather was meant to come round to the north again and strengthen, but it didn’t happen and we could have kept moving north. However, Cangas is a nice town, not as pretty as some, but unique in its own way with a lot of granite buildings in traditional (fishing community) style mixed with modern development. Now we are in the Galicia region, the people are very proud of their Celtic history, play a form of bagpipe, and have folklore & witches, speak a different language (as well as Spanish). Oh - and the granite mountains (hills near where we are but mountains further inland) and the rain all make it much more interesting than the tourist traps of the beaches etc further south….
We feel that we are making quite good progress north and are now looking at options for crossing to France after we have enjoyed more of the Rias , passed round Finisterre and are onto the North coast of Spain.