Yacht Pipit

      

When is a € not worth a €? 27th July 2011


Is it when a bottle of gas costs €27 in La Rochelle, France, but only €14.50 in La Coruna, Spain? We think so... Similarly two haircuts in La Coruna cost about 60% of what we were used to paying in France last year. Incidentally, Ferreterias1 are to Spain what Coiffeurs2 are to France - not in terms of what they offer, but that there seems to be at least one in nearly every one-donkey town, although we haven't seen a single ferret in one yet...

Anyway, because of continuing bad weather we stayed in La Coruna until last Friday when, after filling with diesel (also cheaper than France - can you detect a theme?), we headed for an anchorage at Corme, about half way to Camarinas.

A view of the large number of empty berths at Marina Coruna. A shame as it's a great marina with helpful English speaking staff. No sooner had we enquired as to where we could get an oil filter than the office girl was on the blower ordering one. It was there the next morning. They also offer a 15% discount for a stay of 4 to 7 nights and 25% for 8 nights or more.


Another view of Torre de Hercules as promised last time...


We had a good sail, with fresh northerly wind behind us and not too uncomfortable a swell and, as we neared the entrance to the ria, the plotter was showing us making up to 11 knots over the ground! We thought this strange, as we were making only 5-6 knots through the water and weren't expecting currents anything like that. This, in hindsight, was a clue to what happened next. We arrived at our waypoint outside the ria mouth and duly turned to head on in. As we got closer to the coast, we sensed something was not right, as we seemed to be much closer to land than expected and could see waves breaking on rocks to our starboard that should have been to our port! We quickly 'did a 180' and returned to safe water. We can only conclude that the GPS had temporarily lost accuracy, and its interpretation of our speed led it to believe we had arrived at our waypoint before we actually did. A salutary reminder that GPS is not infallible and that planning all our passages on paper charts is time well spent. Shortly afterwards all seemed well with the GPS & plotter (and pants), and has been since. As if all that wasn't exciting enough, having arrived in the anchorage we then took 5 or 6 (lost count) attempts to set the anchor - it wasn't the fact that we still had over 20 knots of wind at the time, rather the carpets of weed we kept ploughing up. The only consolation was that one of the other yachts for whom we were laying on the entertainment had to reset their anchor half way through our shenanigans as they too were dragging. However, when ours finally did bite, we were in little doubt that it was 'in' as Andy nearly fell over at the helm when we came to an abrupt halt. Time for a beer...

Early next morning we set sail for Camarinas, again in fresh winds (max gust 35.4 knots) and were visited by dolphins again - still always a treat. As we approached the anchorage, the wind was still blowing well over 20 knots, but as we got in the lee of the land near a beach it dropped off and the anchor bit straight away and subsequently held fast for the next three nights. By contrast we later learnt that another yacht had attempted to anchor where we were and had given up and moved elsewhere because they couldn't get their anchor to bite...

Passing Faro Vilano, the first electric lighthouse in Spain, at the entrance of Ria de Camarinas.


Ria Camarinas is as pretty as we had been led to believe - a bit like a Scottish loch, with conifers down to nearly the water's edge, similarly with 4 seasons of weather in one day! We've had strong winds, no wind, sun, drizzle, fog all within hours. In fact 'changeable' best sums up the weather we've experienced in Spain so far, and we've been told that it's been the worst/wettest/coldest summer in Galicia for between 10 to 30 years, depending who you listen to! On Sunday we got the dinghy out and explored 'our' beach and its rockpools, and on Monday explored further afield by dinghy in the ria - this is what we came to do...

The best ribs we've ever had.


One of the day's seasons...




The weather forecast was indicating strong winds for a few days, and we needed to fill our water tanks, so on Tuesday morning we headed in to the marina at Camarinas - €16 per night including electricity, (hot) showers and WiFi - see that theme again? Prior to this we went to reconnoitre the marina by dinghy and were treated to a display of leaping dolphins just a short distance away, including the classic crossover pair manoeuvre - show-offs! We had a nice meal in the Club Nautico at the marina, spoilt only by a loud family gathering on a nearby table shouting over one another - English of course... We'll stay here until Friday or Saturday when the winds and waves are forecast to moderate before rounding Finisterre en-route to anchor in Ria de Muros. This seems to be a pattern too - we plan to spend perhaps 2 or 3 nights in each place, and end up staying a week waiting for suitable weather - a bit frustrating, but we know there are worse problems to have...

1Ferreteria = ironmonger
2Coiffeur = hairdresser


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