Sunday 8 – Tuesday 10 September
By now very ready to continue our own journey Southwards, we slipped our lines and crawled out into the bay against the incoming tide, until we cleared the Torre de Hercules, majestic in the evening light. We were keen to sail out beyond the 100m contour, into water deep enough to minimise the risk of snagging unseen fishing pot marks overnight. With the barometer high and a fresh North-Nor’Easterly behind us, we made good progress in spite of a slightly contrary swell, keeping the first reef in the main and balancing it with the staysail. As ever, after a week in port resulting in the usual harbour rot and loss of sea legs, Mate enjoyed the first watch rather less than her Skipper, but things did settle down in the early hours of the morning.
On the plus side, she does love night sailing; the waxing half moon was very bright until it set around 0230, clear skies meant a canopy of stars, and good visibility to shore gave her favourite views of land, frequently punctuated by reassuring beams from the lighthouses along the coast.
After some cosy warm rest, things looked a lot better when she came back on watch at daybreak on Monday morning, enhanced enormously by a personal performance by numerous groups of dolphins, and a brief visit by what she thinks was a minke whale. Typically, after too much wind at the beginning, it died completely for the last ten miles, enabling her to change up from staysail to genoa, as we rounded Cabo Finisterra, the end of the pilgrimage for the most dedicated peregrinas/os, and the point furthest West on the Spanish mainland. As usual, a marked drop in wind speed often means a considerable change of direction, and sure enough it soon filled in, from the North Nor’west.
Ria de Muros
By lunchtime, we were comfortably anchored in the Ria de Muros, just South of the town that gives this ria its name, on the North shore in the Ensenada de San Francisco. The scenery was beautiful: rolling green hills with rocky outcrops behind red-tiled roofs and white sandy beaches.