Leg 9 – Northern Galicia

21 Years after her first crossing of Bay of Biscay in 2004 (at that time she did it from Kingsale in Ireland), Lovisa is once again in A Coruña. A Coruña is harbor where many sailors on the way to or from France stay either to wait for a good weather window to cross Bay of Biscay or rest after crossing the Bay of Biscay as we did. It is like an international hub, during the 5 days we stayed in A Coruña we saw many boats from Finland, UK, Sweden, France, Germany, Denmark, Netherlands and of course several boats from Spain. Most of them just come and go.

Because we arrived in the middle of the night on Monday (August 11) we also woke up very late. We ended up having late breakfast at 11, late lunch around 15 and we didn’t start to feel ready for dinner before 21. That is very late dinner time according to Swedish standards but in Spain, it is just the right time for dinner! Arriving in the middle of the night was the best way to adapt to Spanish meal time.

We celebrated the crossing of Bay of Biscay and arrival in A Coruña with our friends from S/Y Alba and S/Y Texas White Lady in a restaurant serving classic Galician foods (pulpo/octopus, navajas/razor clams, vieira/scallops, etc). Maria who studied in Santiago de Compostela many years ago and has been visiting many times since, had been looking forward to Galician food. We continued the celebration with our friends the day after arrival with a bottle of Champagne – a gift from Emilien’s mother – onboard Lovisa together, and here also invited another solo sailor from S/Y Anna Lisa.

We found in A Coruña a city full of life with many people in the streets until late in the evening. For someone living in Finspång, this is shocking!

Marina La Coruña seems very keen in introducing sailing to kids and offer them many possibilities to sail Optimist, Laser, or 420. These kids are not afraid of anything, and also they don’t loose one minute of talking if on sail or not!

We took a walk to the Torre de Hercules, a lighthouse that was built originally by the Romans. Since then, it has been object of some renovation works and modifications but it still preserves some parts of the original lighthouse. Isn’t it amazing that a lighthouse built under the Roman empire continues to serve its duty and guide sailors towards shore?

We left the Bay of Biscay behind. Ahead of us only the wonderful coastline of northwest Spain with its opportunities of anchoring. For many sailors, anchorage means freedom. Relying on harbors can somehow make you feel constrained; the place in harbor is not guaranteed, there are rules you need to comply to, sometimes they can be noisy, maneuvering can be tricky and last but not least you have to pay for your stay. Anchoring offers the privilege of the choice, they are usually calmer than harbors except if you anchor in front of a beach party, and you don’t need to open your wallet. Having the possibility to anchor is a major improvement in the sailing experience.

After 5 nights in A Coruña, while the weather was not allowing us to continue our journey westerly towards Finisterre, we felt it was time to exchange our place in the marina for a beautiful anchorage. And fortunately it was enough to cross Ria de Coruña (2 Nm) and here we were, anchored in front of the beautiful sand beach of Serantes! Just the time to inflate the dinghy that we had been storing on deck since our departure from Sankt Anna and we went on land and enjoyed an ice cream on the beach (or two actually, for Maria).

We left our beautiful anchorage on Saturday (August 16) to head towards Camariñas, a small town located a few nautical miles north from Cape Finisterre. Since no wind was to be found, we went the whole way on engine. This is unfortunately a fact that since we entered the English Channel, it has been a lot of motoring. But that seems to be a reality for most long distance sailors. We hoped the winds of Spain would be more favorable for us sailors moving south. On the way, we tested troll fishing for the first time. We were hoping to enjoy some beginner’s luck, throwing the bite and instantaneously getting a fish on the hook … but that didn’t happen (fair enough) … but we won’t give up!

We arrived in our new anchorage in the afternoon and relaxed the rest of the day. As we were on anchorage surrounded by what seemed to us to be clean water, we decided it was time to start the watermaker for the first time. We didn’t want to start it earlier because we were not happy with the idea to have water from the Baltic sea in the system (too much algae etc), and neither water from a harbor for obvious reasons. If we are supposed to drink that water afterwards, let’s start with relatively clean water.

And we got it to work! Or at least, clean / non salty water came out. This was a major achievement as the installation of the watermaker was a long project we started last winter and could not complete until we could press the start button. We celebrated our achievement with some Galician white wine, cheese and some saucisson.

We left our anchorage in Camariñas on Monday (August 18) to head towards Muros in Ria de Muros y Noia rounding Cape Finisterre or what the Romans used to believe was the end of the world (“Ria” is the spanish word to designate the fjords in Galicia). We had to motor most of the way from Camariñas but as the wind picked up in the afternoon we could enjoy a few hours of very pleasant sailing under 6 m/s of wind increasing up to 10 m/s at our arrival in Muros. We met several groups of Dolphins on the way. Wherever they live, in France or in Spain, these share the same addiction to boats and they always perform a wonderful show we never get tired of looking at.

At some point on the way, we noted that the windvane (which was not in use) was resting in an unusual position … that’s strange … and when something looks strange on a sailboat it means that something is broken. Just need to find what. Looking a bit more we noted that the small arm connecting the support of the wing to the actuator broke. This means that we will have to find a welder to reattach these parts together.

In our new anchorage we met S/Y Alba, already anchored there since 2 days before. S/Y Texas White Lady was in the harbor nearby due to some anchor system issue. This is always such a pleasure to see each other so we planned for a dinner all together! To go to shore, we decided this time to use the outboard engine instead of rowing as we did previous days … and it didn’t start. More precisely, it started after 100 tries tand stopped after a few seconds and never showed any sign of life after that. Spark plug? Bad fuel? Clogged fuel lines? We left the problem for the following day and took a good nights sleep after a fantastic day.

After breakfast on flat waters under the morning sun, we continued to work on our engine problem. Two fishermen who were nearby offered themselves to tow us to shore so we could get spark plugs. Such a lovely simple act of kindness and they didn’t want anything in return.

Replacing the spark plug didn’t improve the situation but we had a nice walk and lunch in town. And what a lovely town Muros is, with its stone buildings, narrow streets and numerous restaurants serving typical Galician foods.

We decided to move toward a marina the day after to look for a welder and some help to service our outboard engine. We started tacking our way out towards the exit of Ria de Muros y Noia under a 4 m/s breeze. After a couple of hours, the wind died and we started motoring for about 3 hours on flat water.

We finished the last 3 hours on sail when the winds picked up again and enjoyed a fantastic sailing through Ria de Arousa towards Boca De Cruz with 9m/s winds. We spent a few minutes side by side with S/Y Surabaya, a Swan 371 showing flag from Netherlands. What a fantastic view it was! From Muros to Cabo de Cruz, we had to do a lot of slalom between fishing buoys. It’s all right by day although it requires constant watch out but we definitely don’t recommend sailing in this area by night.