We left Muros in a stiff breeze with a bit of a swell rolling in from the Atlantic but the wind dropped rapidly so we had to rely on the engine again. Despite that, it was an easy run in bright sunshine, so perhaps we had finally left the poor weather behind us. En-route we encountered some dolphins, which stayed with us for a while, the first that we
had seen since crossing Biscay. We also heard a “Mayday relay” from Vigo Radio, reporting a sinking sailing boat and asking for any nearby boats to assist. We checked the reported position on the chart, but the incident was over a hundred miles from us so there was nothing that we could do. Six and a half hours later we had covered the 38 miles to Baiona which was to be our last stopping place before Portugal. We moored up on the arrival pontoon which was around 200 metres from the shore so, in the absence of any guidance, we moved closer in to a much more convenient spot, behind “Riff Raff” a boat that we had previously encountered at Camariñas. They were planning on heading for the Canaries and joining the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers (ARC). After sampling the wares at a local hostelry we ate on the boat and resolved to spend the next day exploring Baiona.
10th August 2015 Baiona
Baiona turned out to be a fascinating place and, like many of the places we had stopped at, steeped in history. The town had been the first port of call for the Pinta, one of Columbus’s ships returning from his “discovery” of America. We went to stock up with groceries from Columbus Stores and saw Columbus’s bike and also went looking for a chandlery. Yacht chandlers seem to be pretty thin on the ground in Spain but we eventually found one that was open. It turned out that everything was closing early as it was a public holiday. Apart from the groceries we bought some new fender socks, a replacement light for one of the horseshoe buoys which had split and a doormat for the boat! In the evening, we walked up Columbus’s steps, (all 131 of them, we counted) to Columbus’s hamburger joint which was shut. However, the views were stunning so we decided to take some photographs. Unfortunately, the camera was on the boat so we walked back down the steps (still 131 of them) to the boat collected the camera and walked all the way back up again, by which time the restaurant was open. All the exercise was well worth it for the great views and a fantastic hamburger.
Sailing Synergy 