Costa de Morte and Finisterre

Captain Richard Wilson, Miggy’s great great great Grandfather was stationed with General Sir John Moore at Castle San Anton in A Coruna in the early 1800’s. We viewed memorabilia of that period in the castle and may even have seen a the likeness of Captain Wilson in a painting that depicted General Moore’s death at the battle of Elvina in 1809. The British forces were helping the Spanish defend A Coruna from the invading French army.

Roger and Sue Breese joined us in A Coruna for a week and helped us sail along the Costa del Morte (the coast of death), named such because of the great loss of life in numerous shipwrecks along the rugged, rocky coastline open to the wild Atlantic storms. We had a good fresh sailing wind with a moderate Atlantic swell for our trip to the small town of Camarinas.
It was Midsummer Day and, as is the tradition in this part of Spain, the local population celebrated in the evening with a Sardine supper and fireworks lasting well into the night.

Talking of fish it is interesting to know that, second to the Portuguese, the Spanish eat more seafood per head than any other European nation. Half of this is caught by the Galicians who have 20,000 boats, 90,000 fishermen and a catch of over a million tons. Much of this is Tuna, Sardine, Lobster and Clam caught offshore. In recent years the stocks around the Spanish shores have become depleted due to overfishing forcing deep sea trawlers to travel as far as Iceland and Canada.

Shops here have a wide variety of excellent fresh fish and also of vegetables and fruit. We are at last unable to buy fresh milk however and fresh meat is somewhat limited. We believe that the further south we go and the hotter it becomes the storage of fresh meat becomes more difficult. Hence the preponderance of cured and processed meats. Whatever food we buy is about 40% cheaper than in the UK.

Our next sail south involved the rounding of the infamous Cape Finisterre, the finish of the earth. The sea area Finisterre is, of course, familiar to all of us who listened to the BBC Radio 4 Shipping Forecast. Sadly they have now dropped Finisterre for a curious area called Fitzroy.

Finisterre held no horrors for us and was so calm that we hoisted our colourful cruising chute and later enjoyed an anchorage for the night just round the corner at the Ensenada de Sardineiro, a wonderful quiet, scenic bay with golden sand and stunning wild flowers in the dunes. On then to the Rias Bajas, a series of five large inlets to explore before reaching the Spanish/Portuguese border. The first of these, the Ria Muros was, like the Rias Altas in the north, surrounded by high hills with their steep sides mainly covered in pine forest.

During the sail to Muros Miggy caught four good sized mackerel on one cast from the stern of the boat – her first catch in three months of trying!! They tasted great as a starter to supper that day along with two more that Roger Breese caught at anchor the previous day.

Muros town, where we anchored for a night, was typical of a 16th century fortified Galician fishing port with colonnaded stone buildings, narrow streets and a massive church on the hill above. We called it ‘windy city’ because of the ferocious local winds coming down off the hills overnight and causing us to go gently and not worryingly aground. Our next stop, Portosin, gave us shelter in a new Marina in a pleasant town.

The next and largest of the Rias Bajas, the Ria Arosa, was, in stark contrast to the beauty of the Ria Muros and the Rias Altas on the north coast, surrounded by low hills whose slopes are lined with buildings rather than trees and the lovely smell of pine and eucalyptus. We dropped the Roger and Sue Breese off at Villagarcia where there are good train connections to A Coruna and their Airport. A two-hour train journey costs 6 euros (about £4.50)!! We could not wait to leave this crowded smelly, industrial place. The town of Caraminal on the north bank of the Ria is very pleasant and much undervalued by the pilot books.

Fish farms comprising floating platforms from which ropes dangle in the water on which mussels grow and mature dominate the Rias Bajas. They limit the free sailing in the waters of the Rias.

The beginning of July, our fourth month at sea, finds us in a modern exclusive holiday resort called San Vincente do Mar. The Marina at Porto Pedras Negras on the southern tip of the entrance to Ria Arose is very small and delightful and the staff are friendly and attentive. The facilities are so well maintained that the pontoons have recently been painted with preservative. The conurbation is totally without interest but a ‘boardwalk’ has been built linking sheltered sandy beaches in coves between rocky promontories. The granite rocks, weathered to odd shapes by the wind and waves and pinkish in colour are reminiscent of those on the ‘Granite Rose’ coast of north Brittany.
We are the only visiting yacht in the Marina. As we go south the incidence of foreign flagged yachts is decreasing although we are meeting long term cruisers including a Norwegian and a Finn.

Our next destination was going to be the Ria Pontevedre but the built up nature of this Ria and that of Ria Vigo and the presence of raw sewage not only in the marinas but offshore put us off and we made the decision to sail to Bayona directly where we are now on the 4th of July. It is lovely here and we have finally met up with our friends from Lymington, Peter and Ruth Austin on their yacht 'Jasmone'