Rias Bajas

[MarkDarley]

Also, my brother Richard is coming down with his Dufour 36ft sloop.  He loves the rias of western Spain as a cruising ground.  He has good crew for the Biscay passage (but often singlehands Channel crossings) and his wife is flying down.  We hope to do some daysailing in company and might cadge a couple of nights on his relatively luxurious yacht!

[Sea Simon]

trying to find an emoji for "envious"...this will have to do...


I'll try to console myself with a couple of bottles of Albariño and some "Pimientos de Padron".
Both now available from Lidl, strangely?

[MarkDarley]

Well the Rias Baixas are full of surprises especially with the weather at this time of the year. 

When we first arrived it was blistering hot for three days. Then the fog rolled in for the better part of a week while the UK toasted! Each day it looked like it would burn off but did not. Nevertheless with the aid of a fog horn at times we did some exploring to lovely coves and small ports.

The last two days were forecasted for rain but have been glorious beach days, and the next week looks to be fine hot weather.  Basically the weather is so local that the forecasters seem stumped.  When the marine layer comes in no one knows how far in it will roll, or when and if it will burn off.  So go sailing anyway!

We have just moved to Combarro where we found BRe 20 "Carys" hiding under a cover in the boatyard where we have left our trailer.  See you on the water Cary's?

Looking forward to exploring Ria Pontevedra this week.  So far the food, the wine and the people have been very good to us!

Going sailing,
Mark
"Pippin"

[Ged]

The weather forecast sounds about as reliable as the west coast of Scotland!

[MarkDarley]

A short report on our trip to the Rias Biaxas, mid July to mid August 2021.

***Be warned, local large scale paper charts of the rias appear to be nearly unobtainable in the UK and even in most of Spain.  The chandler in Vigo was the only one I found who stocked them.
I was lucky enough to be lent both Pilots and charts by a generous Swallow forum member.  I then bought new ones when in Vigo. The charts you will need are G20 and G25 published by Cartamar, Spain. They are on waterproof paper. However inexplicably they do not quite connect, missing the section of coast between 42 degrees 26' north and 27' minutes north! (handicapping pirates?)
Admiralty charts 1734, 1732 and 1764 are large, not waterproof and therefore a bit unwieldy (and expensive) but they will get you round the corner!****

Getting there:

We ferried "Pippin" from Plymouth to Santander, took 4 days to drive along the north coast stopping in Soto de Luina for a night (no parking for a car and trailer in a hotel in Santander) and 2 nights in O Lourido just south of Carino.  Our choices of hotels were driven by room to park the rig!  Both hotels were extraordinarily helpful finding a place to park, and very welcoming.  We did not launch in Carino or Ortigueira but we would in the future as this looks like interesting water.

Ria de Arousa:

On arrival in Cambados we were met by the young man who manages the AirBnB house we rented.  Jose not only helped us launch in the commercial port, but had arranged for his father-in-law, who was their equivalent of Commodore of the local sailing club, to set us a "tira vira" (running mooring) right off the town seawall in the harbour.  In fact Fernando was just surfacing from the bottom of the harbour when we sailed in, having threaded the rope for our tira vira through his own ring on the harbour floor.  This was beyond hospitality and set the tone for our time in Cambados. 

Most days we walked down to the boat, hauled in Pippin and sailed to an island or beach. At weekends we were often accompanied by Fernando in his 100 year old gaff rigged fishing boat swapping crew. (All the boats in the sailing club were local traditional sailing boats).  On return we often found the "smoked fish" as we called them, a group of retirement aged fisherman, swimming and sunning themselves on the seawall in the evening sunshine. Almost no one spoke English and "Spanish" was not much more help.  Galician spoken here!  Smiles and sign language helped a lot thanks to the incredibly helpful nature of the locals.

Destinations were typically out to one of the nearby islands such as Illa de Arousa and a beach, sailing between the "bateaux", the shellfish rafts, on the way.  Longer sails, when wind and tide allowed, were up the ria to Rianxo or to Illa Pombeiro. We did not overnight due to the cool weather, a comfortable bed ashore, and the good food and hospitality to be found in Cambados.

Weather:  Very changeable.  We were later told that this was the worst summer in NW Spain for 30 years.  What that meant to us was that the forecast was never correct.  Some days it started clear and we got some rain or at least heavy cloud.  Others it started foggy and stayed foggy, or cleared to a lovely day.  Mostly it started foggy, in fact it was not unlike the coast of Northern California in the summer but with small fronts coming through. We resolved to ignore all but the wind forecasts so we shoved off warmly dressed to see what the day would bring. We even shoved off in fog so thick we could not see more than 50 metres ahead, but with the aid of Navionics and the fog horn, we made it safely into Puerto de Campo for coffee.  The greatest danger that day was from a large fishing boat that was apparently so intrigued by our red sails and yawl rig (mizzens are unknown in northern Spain) that it chased us to see what we were!

Conclusion for Ria de Arousa: 
Perfect small boat cruising ground provided you are willing to cope with summer Atlantic weather....(not so different from Cornwall but with warmer air temperatures).

Cambados was a lovely base with outstanding seafood restaurants, the fine Albarino wine, incredibly friendly locals, and a very pretty old town not spoiled by tourism. (They all go to the northern ria beaches).

After 10 days in Cambados and the Ria de Arousa, we moved south to a small house in the hills above Combarro on the Ria de Pontevedra.

Ria de Pontevedra:

Once again we were incredibly lucky in our hosts, Leonardo and Teresa. Not only did we spend some wonderful evenings sharing great food and wine, they found us a mooring in the Combarro marina which was otherwise full for the season.  (Spanish marinas do not usually have visitors' berths.  The berths are owned by the yacht owners and, while they could be let to visitors when the owner is away, the staff of the marina prefer not to have to do the reams of necessary paperwork!).  Once we were in, the marina was very helpful.

Be warned: Combarro is a very crowded tourist destination in high season because of its extremely picturesque waterfront.   Having said that, due to the difficulties travelling in Europe this summer all the tourists were Spanish and they are remarkably considerate and polite.  Parking is hard. We solved the daily parking problem by negotiating parking along the fence of the boatyard where we stored our trailer.  The public parking lot next to the marina is frequently full and extortionate!  The daily fee for a car was far more than the marina fee!

We used the public slipway next to the ferries which did have some challenges, specifically the tourists who blocked the slipway when parking to ride the ferry for the day.  With Suzanne policing the top of the slipway, we managed to keep it clear for launch and retrieve by going early in the day.

Sailing on Ria Pontevedra:

This is a very different ria with very different coastline from Ria de Arousa.  It is deeper, less protected and with only one small island that requires permission to land.  We found the sailing good and free from obstacles, but beaches are harder to approach as they are often either very rocky or condoned off by buoys for a swimming area.  Basically this is a far more open, deep water ria.

Having said that we found a favorite very small beach with excellent cafe behind it at Covelo which seemed to be the beach for local families not tourists.  The first day we landed for lunch and flew the Red Ensign, a young boy and his mother asked what country the flag represented.  When I told them we were English, the boy asked if we were pirates.  I responded that we were only here for food and wine and that we would leave the church gold and silver behind this time.....Drake ransacked the Monastery on Illa de Tanbo. Happily they laughed!

Other days we dropped the hook off a lovely harbour or beach.  Our longest day sail was to Punta Seame intending to go to Illa de Onza (permit required), but as the wind really picked up, we changed course for Puerto de Bueu, had lunch at anchor off the small beach outside the harbour setting Suzanne ashore to pick up coffees, and had a very spirited sail home to Combarro.

A month later I discovered that the very same day, just off Illa de Onza a small boat had its rudder destroyed by Orca off the island, so perhaps it was a good thing we were not out there in a small plywood boat!  (If sailing off either the NW of Spain, or just north of Gibralter, check for Orca activity. It is now a considerable problem in some areas.
https://www.orcaiberica.org/last-interactions )

Weather was again very changeable so we spent several days ashore visiting wonderful gardens in the area.  We also took a drive to Vigo to obtain new charts.

Conclusions:  Ria de Arousa is friendlier to small boats and daysailing.   With a larger boat or more settled weather and visibility, the Islas Atlanticas would be a great destination, but for us we decided it would probably be better by ferry. http://www.iatlanticas.es/html/index96e7.html

Wonderful people, great food and wine, lovely island beaches.  Hope for better weather than we had!  We will probably go back. In 2018 my brother Richard had spectacular weather for a month.

Contact me if you are going that way and have questions.

PS. We justified the ferry cost by staying a while, and later in the summer going from Bilbao to SW Ireland (Baltimore) before returning to Devon.  Ferries were certainly a happier way to travel than by air in the summer of 2021 by all accounts.

[MarkDarley]

More photos. No idea why they do not appear the right way up as thumb nails, but if you click on them they seem to open and correct.

[MarkDarley]

http://www.cartamar.com/productos/buscador_resultados_48232_0_1.do