Khujada 2

That’s more like it. Small beach less than five minutes from the marina, big beach a walk through town further.

Aperitif in the marina club restaurant the first evening: calamares spot-on, bacalao with black olives great too, and the view (embellished by our Ovni) lived up to what one might expect a ria seaview to be.

The town is simple enough but a little more up-market than the ‘rustic’, ‘quaint’ charm of Camarinas.

Time at the beach each day saw life start to feel a lot more like a holiday than up until now. To such a degree that I’m wary of writing any more, risking sounding like anyone else talking about their holidays – wandered round town, lunch of tapas / fish in the town square on the terrasse, then all afternoon on the beach swimming, volleyball, petanque, football, sandcastles, ….

Leaving for the beach was delayed by the arrival of Campos, a Volvo Ocean Race 65 with Michel Desjoyeaux at the helm – Skippette took full advantage of the French flavour of the crew to scrounge an invitation aboard. A real push since there was about 10-15 minutes between the crew returning from lunch at the Club Nautico to cast off their lines.

Sunset at the end of our first day was a striking pink ria sunset as we enjoyed aperitif of rose, tapenade, crisps, coke and sirop de grenadine in the cockpit. I hope everyone reading this has had a few of the same, and is enjoying sunshine wherever they are.

Securing permission to visit one of (reportedly) the best beaches in the world was facilitated by the very helpful marina staff who helped navigate Spanish bureaucracy.

Even the local Eroski bent their rules for us – payments with debit cards must be accompanied by passport or other photo id here, no matter who you are (local or tourist) – allowing us to leave with our shopping without paying.

One of the local fishermen even gave the whole crew a lesson in how to catch octopus and sardines.

Sunny, calm weather. No wonder we ended up spending three days here.

On the beach within half an hour of mooring in Portosín. Enough said? Probably not … you should be so lucky.

We decided to leave Camariñas almost no matter what, after a number of factors

• southerly winds (we want northerlies) with persistent rain then drizzle
  • at least the unfavourable weather gave us time to catch up with our blog, but eager for warmer waters and sunnier skies further south
• mediocre supermarkets / restaurants / shops
  • underwhelmed by Galician fare (tapas, raciones or other) so far, where establishments persist in avoiding serving the well-cooked fresh seafood we naively expect to be the norm, with bread the sole exception – the torta from the only bakery in town is excellent
  • 
  • almost every shop seemed to sell lace, although credit to the hardware store’s efforts in the absence of any chandlery
• lack of alternative activities (one beach, no playground or parks to speak of)

had curbed our enthusiasm, so fully aware there was likely to be swell with wind on the nose we left the “capital of lace” (definitely seeking to appeal to a different demographic ) and headed out into the Atlantic, perhaps naively allowing the children breakfast.

An hour later all three buckets had been used, with a short 2+ metre swell on the nose then abeam as four days’ worth of westerlies / south-westerlies piled into the shallows of the ria entrance. Poor children. The general mood of sickness or guilt (children / parents respectively) brightened when we saw our first pilot whale abeam as we motored down towards Finisterre.

Still an hour or two later the sea state had settled (a bit …), and as we rounded Finisterre the wind dropped, the sun peeped out, the swell had evolved into a longer wavelength and period, and we had Mille Bornes and then Uno out in the cockpit and Skippette relaxing.

A second pilot whale turned up on the approach to Ría de Muros with dolphins going the other way, and once safely moored and on the beach in the evening sunshine we were very pleased to have decided not to wait any longer.

Nous sommes restés 4 jours, sous la pluie à Camariñas. La Ría est très jolie mais nous n’avons pas pu vraiment en profiter… Le village a beaucoup de maisons délabrées et quelques chiens errants. C’est un village de pêcheurs et nous avons été reveillés tous les matins par les voix excitées des pêcheurs et le raillement des goélands.
Nous avons trouvé la panaderia excellente, la seule du village, son pain est à tomber!

Un petit peu d’histoire sur Camariñas:

Un être vil au nord, l’imposant  Cap Vilán, et une sainte au sud, Nosa Señora da Barca, ou Notre-Dame de la Barque, reçoivent ceux qui arrivent à la Ría de Camariñas. Le Cap Vilán avec ses falaises, nous avertit du danger de ces eaux. La vierge, elle, bénit les eaux et leur demande d’être clémentes envers les hommes sur cette Costa da Morte, la côte de la mort, endroit où la puissance de la mer dépasse celle de la terre. Juste à côté du cap, le cimetière des Anglais rappelle la tragédie du Serpent, navire de la Royal Navy échoué en 1890 et duquel trois marins seulement ont survécu. Mais une fois le cap passé, la mer se calme.

A Coruña (La Coruña) – recovery after Biscay.

• Washing the boat (intended just to be rinsing the salt from the boat)
• Tourism (Torre de Hercules, the oldest functioning lighthouse in the world, first lit when the city was known as Brigantium, along with a succession of churches and convents in the old town)
• Helados (also our milk supplier – best milk since the Channel Islands)
• Tapas y raciones (all the children had to try el pulpo)
• Skateboarding
• Street artist entertainment
• Open air concerts (summer of culture) and
• Shopping

Tempting to stay longer – so easy when in a city centre! – to try and find some better restaurants (we were less than impressed by the renowned Galician fare), make the most of the beach, but the clement weather demands that we move on.