The Coast of Death
or 'La Costa del Muerte' is not to be lightly or wantonly
sailed. It stretches for 90 nm south west from La Coruna and it has
earned its name. If the sea gods offer you the
opportunity to sail it in safety, it should be promptly seized
with gratitude. Thus it was that, despite arriving on board Voltair
at 21:00 hrs on a sultry Friday night, her crew worked hard to
provision her, the shops remaining open till 22:00 - and get
her ready for sea the next day.
Hot and weary they repaired to a
taverna in the old town for a couple of jugs of the cold sweet
local beer. The music club of the University had chosen the
same place for their annual evening out and dressed mostly
in their uniform of dark blue knee breeches and loose jackets
they were serenading each other in extravagant fashion. We
squeezed into the one available space and joined in, whilst
devouring langoustines that melted in the mouth, Atlantic scallops
piping hot with slivers of garlic and slices of thick tortilla. We
finished with local cheese eaten with marmalade and a couple of
glasses of Rioja.
The party was still going strong when we left at
02:00 hrs in a state which somewhat damaged the captain's
plans for a dawn departure. So it was 11:30 that we said farewell
to the generous and gorgeous Maria and the competent Pedro of the
Club Real Nautico de La Corunna and set all sails for the
long reach out to the West.
By 16:00 we had reached the Ilas
Gigardas where we dropped anchor for a late lunch, some
seabird watching and a little siesta, before sailing on to Corme
for a dinner of roast vegetables. We anchored in sand just west of
the town beneath a pleasant promontory.
The following morning
Helen swam to the beach only to be repulsed by a young dog whose
short experience of life had not prepared him for such an
apparition emerging from the sea so early in the day. The wind
being fair from the North we set out motor sailing, now going South.
A family of dolphins came to as emissaries of the gods. They welcomed
us to their world and stayed awhile to play.
In the early afternoon
we passed Capo de Nave, the most westerly point of continental Europe
and turned to sail east of south. Tightening our sheets we hauled in
close beneath the towering cliffs of the place that the
Romans considered to be the end of the world and named it 'Finis
Terra'. Behind the headland there is a delightful bay just east of
Sardiniero and here we anchored just off a beach washed by a fresh
stream, where beautiful young gods and goddesses played in the late
Sunday sun. The waters were as chilled as the beers served in the
beach restaurant with which the crew refreshed themselves as
sunset gathered a pink glow upon the hills behind.
In the morning
slim black human forms plunged around our boat gathering St Jacques.
Fistera being just a short sail and a wet dinghy ride away, we
went ashore for provisions and lunch. Some hikers choose to add a
pagan extension to their pilgrimage to Santiago de la Compostela
and these could be found walking the town with their St Jacques
shells on their rucksacks and a weary smile on their faces (only
one more hill to climb).
From a first floor balcony overlooking
the harbour we swooned over the food the gods provided, in this
case "chiperones en su tinta" and Albarona (little squids
cooked in their ink with the local wine). Back on board we
raised the genoa and mizzen to run south towards the Ria Baixas
(pronounced 'Bar'kas') before 20 knots of Northerly wind, That day we
lived to leave the Costa del Muerte and anchored in the lee of the
Isla de San Anton.
In the morning we awoke to find the squid
fishers casting and hauling their circling nets just off our bows
and stern. "Olla Signor, how long you stay?" Taking the
hint, we left for the, as yet unfinished, marina in Muros. We had
coffee ashore with an unbelievable gifted tapas of three types of
Marisco in fine noodles and a delicious orange source, walked through
the covered walkways of the old town and visited its ancient church.
After lunch (razor clams, scallops and pimientos de Padron) we sailed
up the river to Noya, picked up a buoy and went up the silted channel
by dinghy. Noya was once very wealthy and traces remain in
the colonnaded streets around the main church. But we had to get
back to Voltair before the tide fell and left us with no way
out.
On the south bank of the Ria is the ancient settlement of
Castro de Baronna, spectacularly sited on a promontory almost cut
off at high tide. It is one of a number of ancient camps which
date from around 1000 BCE but continued in existence well into
Roman times perhaps till 500 CE. They consisted of clusters
of mainly round stone houses with thatched roofs behind three
layers of defensive walls. Castro is, to this day, a prominent
Galician surname and the family background to Cuba's great leader.
The bus taking us back to Voltair, who was recharging her batteries
in Portosin, failed to turn up, so we dined locally on a simple salad
and mixed fried fish before calling for a taxi. All the while we sere
serenaded by a singer whose repertoire of sad soulful songs
would have brought tears to all our eyes - had we been able to
understand Galeto.
Back to Muros for the fish market. Copying
the adventurous fisherwomen, Dick tried various mariscos raw and
we finished up buying red mullet, sardines and perecedes (goose
necked barnacles) These latter live by clinging to storm-washed
rocks where lesser barnacles cannot survive. They are therefore
dangerous to collect, but are prized as an expensive delicacy (75
Euros per Kg in restaurants) You throw away the claws and suck out
the inner parts of the goose neck. Delicious!
Then the
south-westerlies came in and the mist came down. It took us a day to
beat south into Ria Arousa, eventually approaching, under radar,
a sheltered bay on the NE corner of the Isla Salvara a
recommended anchorage on all charts and in the cruising guides. We
were just settling down to the Gins and Tonicas when a motor boat
approached and explained that 'you cant do that there here' of
similar import. Chased way, we anchored in the dark off Ribiera
a few miles to the North. From Robiero we drifted up towards Isla
Arousa under light airs, finding our way between intricate
arrangements of massed 'vivieros' the tarred wooden structures
from which ropes are hung on which mussels grow. There are estimated
to be 20 million ropes of mussels in these Rias!
In the bay of San
Xulian Sur we were invited to pick up the warp (10 cms in diameter)
of a substantial buoy. When it blew 35 knots in the night, we were
grateful we had, for even in the height of the blow, the tension
on the warp was barely enough to stop it dangling in the water
between us and the buoy.
It was market day and fiesta time. We
bought a great chunk of raisin bread, some delicious cheese, and a
lemon coloured liquor in an unlabelled bottle which is wonderful
as a chilled apperitif. Walking across the isthmus, we found a
mussel festival in full swing with bagpipes and barbecues. The Rias
produce about half the world output of mussels; the local ones
are cheap, plump and succulent. We dined that day for 25 Euros
the four of us including a bottle of wine we bought and
another we were given. The best Spanish white the Albarino
comes from here. Do not buy any other sort!
After mass
the next day and lunch and a swim off Playa Bodion, we worked our
way to the top of the Ria and picked up a buoy just off Pobra
do Caraminal. In the morning we went ashore for bread, but were
enticed into the yacht club for a beer, to which was added a tapas
of a couple of piping hot fried sardines on local bread. As we
left Pobra, a team of twelve big dolphins deployed around us for
awhile before going off to hunt. It was good to know that there
was enough fish for them and the rest of the world (This part of
Spain produces half of all the fish caught in Spanish
vessels).
Ria Pontevedra was just to the south. Here the Spanish
Navy has a big training school, but our destination was Combarro.
What a pretty town! Ancient grain stores covered the waterfront
and behind them straggling paths gave vistas into pleasant
gardens. We dined that day under a private vine in a courtyard
with just four tables. We had by now become used to menus without
prices, restaurants without menus, bottles without labels, unordered
dishes being served without charge, ordered dishes being replaced
with something better and bills being astonishingly small. Lunch that
day went on the six pm with three different liquors being left on
the table whilst the patron slept within. It was a very happy crew
that wound its unsteady route to row back to Voltair. Near the
entrance to the Ria Pontevedra is the small wooded Ria Aldan,
a pleasant spot for swimming along with the beautiful people.We
spent an enjoyable afternoon there, but with the wind backing to
the North, it was not a place to stay, so we motored to anchor
just East of Punta Cabicastro to the sound of bagpipes. An early
night; bed before 01:30 hrs.
The last of the Ria's beckoned and we
slipped south under spinnaker taking the passage inside the Islas
Cies before rounding up to anchor and swim east of Capo de
Home. A wind shift made that less comfortable, so we rounded the
next headland and anchored under sail off Limens. As evening gathered
we moved on towards Vigo and the Royal Yacht Club there; just
a pocket hankerchief of a genoa nothing else at all
and still doing seven knots. Till it all stopped and we had to
motor in. It was regatta time in Vigo, so there was no room at the
club, but a marina a few miles north gave us a berth and a walk to
the village uncovered another delightful fish restaurant where we
ate Jacalinos a kind of langoustine but with a shell like a
scallop and very rare (and 38 Euro per Kilo). More langoustines;
sardines, percepes, pimientos, baby squid and so many more delights
followed.
At last we reached the Isla San Simon and found shelter
around its NE corner from the expected southwesterly. A sunken
causeway almost joins the island to the mainland and at one stage
of the tide it is possible to create the illusion of walking on
water. The island has been in the hands of the Turks, of many
religious orders (Benedictines, Templars and Franciscans) and
even then English in the 16th century. Galician irregulars fought
Napoleon here in 1809 in a battle immortalised by Goya's shocking
paintings. It was a hospital in the 19th century and a prison under
Franco. No wonder it is said to haunted by the Meigas, the witch-like
women who pervade Galician myth.
And so this part of the cruise
came to an end with goodbyes to Maggie and Helen who were to
return to a strange riot-torn country and hello to Jane and
Wendy. We retraced some of the previous passages, enjoyed a soft
day in San Simon and a long beach walk to the next village in the
evening. We returned by dinghy well after dark eventually
finding Voltair roughly where we had left her.
Bright sunshine
and a nice breeze from the southwest gave us the opportunity to
hone our tacking skills the next day as we worked down the Ria to
Baiona at its most southerly point. The other famous boat to
arrive here was the Pinto first boat home from Columbus'
trip to the 'Indies'. We made fast, bows to, in the Royal Yacht
Club which is nicely placed beneath the castle where we lunched
the following day. Shopping, eating, sight-seeing and siesta took
most of the day.
And so to Portugal. Early mist gave way to light
northerlies which strengthened to 25 knots by late afternoon. We
passed the border, Rio Minho at around 15:00 hrs and noted that an
entry into this difficult river would have been possible at the
time, but pressed on nevertheless. Just north of the entrance we
had passed a port unmarked on our charts and unmentioned in the
cruising guides. Full of fishing boats and with massive harbour
walls it was not for us, but we noted it for the
cartographer's benefit .
The strengthening wind had brought out
the kite-borders in force in the entrance to Castello do Vianna,
giving Dick some interesting 'right of way' issues to resolve. One
particular one was glad to get a cheery wave from us as he lay on
his back not far off our course! The town had put on a fete in
honour of Dick's birthday and there was music and stalls galore in
the gardens by the Marina. A fine meal with some new wines rounded
out with port completed a excellent day.
Just a few more hours and
the season will be complete, so for now
Best wishes to you
all Robin and Dick