Highlights – the overview
We leave the Rias of A Coruña and are headed for Muxía. We have received a message saying our new dinghy has arrived in the marina there. We motor at first until we have some wind. The “Bird Song” is sailing alongside us. The wind is increasing and the waves are right on the beam and uncomfortable. Wim’s tummy isn’t so happy, so we decide it might be better to go into Corme where we can anchor in a protected bay and continue on when the conditions are more settled.
The weather has calmed and we set off for Muxía again. We are sailing along the beautiful “Costa da Morte”. The coast of death 😱. This name is because the thousands of ships that shipwrecked on these dangerous rocky coast, in the past. The problem here is that everything (wind and seas) accelerates around this corner. Well, we’ve seen our part of that We see numerous gannets here! They are so beautiful, soaring in between the big waves.
We turn into the Ria de Camariñas and drop our anchor near the village, in front of a beach. We’ll anchor here and then go over to Muxia to retrieve our new dinghy.
Dolphins swimming around us!
What a lovely spot! Later in the afternoon the sun comes out and the wind drops down to nothing. Dinner at the cockpit table. And what a dinner! We’ve got fresh Spanish white asparagus! On a delicious flaky crust, with cream and Galmesan (the Galician Parmesan), Serrano ham and fresh basil.
Yummy!! 😋
And, such a great day has a great sunset!
We are so happy and so lucky!
We pick up our new dinghy and inflate it on the pontoon.
Sher takes a walk around the little peninsula with our friends from the “Bird Song”, which is moored next to us, while Wim decides he’s going to skip the walk and install the wheels on the new dinghy… the wheels are for ease in taking the dinghy out of the water when we do a beach landing and are otherwise stowed nicely by the outboard engine.
Once at anchor, we hoist the outboard motor on the dinghy and Wim takes a test ride. Everything all right. It’s fast! It’s lighter than our old one and a little bit smaller so the 10 horsepower makes it really fast. Later, after we have gone back on anchor in Camarinas, we take the dinghy to explore a little river, but it is very shallow and we get stuck on a mussel wall, so we decide not to proceed.
Today, the weather forecast looks good to round Cape Finisterre. This famous and notorious cape is called Finis-terre… “End of the Earth”. It got it’s name from the Celtic culture: the Celts were trying to conquer Spain and they sailed from Ireland to here. They thought: the world stops after this cape and they didn’t dare to go any further. Afraid to fall of the earth. When we sail here, it really looks like that. Only once we completely round the cape, we see land again.
Also, this cape separates weather systems, like the point of Brittany does. We have seen the wind accelerating to stormy force around the North-Western coast here but below Cape Finisterre completely easing down and sometimes even from the opposite direction, south of Finisterre!
In the past, many (they say: thousands!) ships have been wrecked on these rocks. That’s why this piece of coast is called El Costa da Morte, “the coast of death”.
And, it’s a milestone for us: the most western point of Spain.
And there, we drop our anchor in beautiful surroundings, in front of a beach, in turquoise water!
We have breakfast and coffee in the cockpit. The best!
After that, we launch the drone and make some nice areal shots.
Then it’s time for some hull cleaning…
The weather forecast says there will be wind from the South tomorrow. Our bay is open to the South so that means we have to move. After lunch, we hoist our anchor and to go the port of Fisterra.
The ramp to the pontoon squeaks like hell. Wim has a look and sees the nylon wheels are blocked and have a flat surface on one side. That squeaks loudly over the stainless steel plate. He takes the prop shaft grease pump and greases the surfaces. Immediately, it’s silent. Some people sitting on the dock start cheering! 😄
We take a walk in Fisterra. It’s a very pretty little town. A bit touristic and the many restaurants and bars along the waterfront. We wonder what all the busses are doing there, waiting on the fishing boats dock. Later, we find out these are the Camino de Compostela hikers! They walk the Camino track and end in Santiago the Compostela. From there, they take a day trip by bus to walk from Fisterra to the Cape and back. The cape used to be a spiritual place for the Celts and since these hundreds of Camino-trampers seem to have all kinds of spiritual issue’s they obviously have to go there… Another thing is, they go there to watch the sunset because they think it’s the place to see the latest sunset in Europe. Mistake☝🏻. Cabo de Roca, near Lisbon, is the most western tip of Europe 😂
Sher has a mission: save a snail 😄
She found him on a cabbage leaf in our fridge. She put him in a box, leaf of cabbage and a little water in case he’s thirsty, and we bring him a to little field of grass under a nice tree for some shade.
Remember good old George Carlin? “Save the planet! Save the whales! Save those snails!” 😄 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7W33HRc1A6c
Time for a scooter ride! We go up to the lighthouse at the cape, then we drive down to the big beach along the town, into a rural area and finally reach a beautiful beach we passed as we sailed the coast.
It’s time to depart from Fisterra. We sail to the next Ria, the Ria de Muros.
We have a light breeze from the North. We anchor next to Bird Song just outside of the town.
We inflate our new dinghy and go to see some of Muros.
The old part of the town is very pretty:
There’s a 12th century church. The inside looks like an upside down ship’s hull.
We climb up in the tower and have a beautiful view.
It’s a bright sunny day but there’s a lot of wind and it shifted to the South-East. That means we’re unprotected and on lee shore. Not so enjoyable. We decide to sail to the marina of Portosin. Sher has ordered a SUP paddleboard and there will also be some Amazon packages. So, by the end of the morning we lift the anchor and motor 4 sea miles to Portosin.
Sher’s SUP arrives, yay!!! But it will need to wait a few days before being tested out, as we’re in the marina and the wind has picked up. Also, we want to take the opportunity to visit Santiago de Compostela, a famous town and the heart of the Camino de Santiago.
In the morning, we take the bus to Santiago de Compostela. It’s about an hour bus ride. The old center of the city is medieval. Well, partially. Like many Spanish cities, there are really old medieval buildings and streets but they are mixed up with ugly, more recent, buildings which are often in a bad state of maintenance. The city is very touristic and very crowded. Thousands of “Camino” walkers with their backpacks and walking sticks.
We stop for a coffee and to finally try the “tarta de Santiago” (Santiago cake, famous in Galicia and Santiago de Compostela)… an almond cake with a bit of powdered sugar on top. Then we have a look at the ancient buildings, many churches, and the famous cathedral.
We spend one more day at the marina and take the bus into Noia for a few hours with our friends from Bird Song. Then it’s back out to anchor and wait for a last package before sailing to the next Ria. In the meantime, while at anchor, Sher inflates her SUP and takes it for a test paddle!
Sher has so much fun! But it’s time to pack up the SUP and get ready to move to the next Ria tomorrow!
The Captain’s Log [Txx,xx…xx] – the complete story
May 8.
Today, our destination is Muxía. We have received a message saying our new dinghy has arrived in the marina there.
When we leave A Coruña at 0800h, there’s hardly any wind but the forecast is North-East 25-30 knots (6-7 Bf). That will be a nice downwind coarse for us. The ‘Bird Song’ leaves half an hour before us.
Marvelous Mighty Mitsu does the job until the wind starts to increasing around noon. The waves are increasing before the wind reaches us. That means, further out at the ocean it’s blowing already. Dione IV starts to roll more and more and Wim feels his stomach a bit. At that time we pass the islands ‘Sisarga Grande’ which are north of the Cabo de San Andrian. The islands are supposed to be a nice anchorage but the pilot says: only in calm and stable conditions. Well, with the wind and the seas increasing like this, anchoring there is no option. So, we continue and round the islands while we set sail. Our downwind configuration: Yankee and mizzen. No mainsail. Here, we pass the islands:
You can see us roll heavily. The waves, generated by hundreds of sea miles of open ocean, are about 3m. But because the sails stabilize Dione IV and our course has changed a bit more downwind so the waves come at our stern, it’s a little bit more comfortable than before the cape, where the waves were more on our beam. Wim’s stomach starts to feel a little better and we do a nice speed of 6-7 knots. It’s chilly in the wind, only 14ºC.
Here you see such a big one rolling under us:
The wind keeps increasing to 25 knots and the waves get higher and higher. We were planning to sail to Muxía. ‘Bird Song’ jibes and turns into the Ria de Laxe y Corme. The bay at the North side, near the village of Corme should be sheltered. Hmm… Perhaps we should do the same. This is getting to be a pretty uncomfortable ride… We discuss. It’s another 20 sea miles to Muxía. About 3 hours. Maybe the wind keeps increasing… No, let’s be sensible, we decide. Let’s call it a day. We jibe and turn left into the Ria.
Once we we round the corner, the waves ease down and once we turn into the bay near Corme the wind eases up to 15 knots. We drop our anchor at a depth of 4m in white sand in front of the beach, next to the ‘Bird Song”.
It’s a beautiful and tranquil place although we get some heavy wind gusts blowing over the hills.
Later in the afternoon, a British sailing yacht anchors next to us.
In the evening, the wind eases down and we have a calm night.
May 9.
We stay at the anchorage. Forecast is, in the afternoon, the winds increases again to 25 knots from the same direction (N-E). Therefore, the seas will still be heavy. The other boats also stay.
And it’s a lovely spot. There’s not much happening in the village and the beaches though. We wonder if there are people actually living in these houses 🤔.
May 10.
Today, the weather forecast says light winds. But, a lot of rain. Despite of the rain, we decide to sail to the Ria de Camariñas, where Muxía is. In the next days the wind will go to the South-West. That means our anchorage here will be exposed and we don’t want to fight south against the wind to Muxía.
We leave at 0900h in the pouring rain. ‘Bird Song” does the same and so does the British boat.
There’s almost no wind so it’s a motor boat ride for now. The sea hasn’t calmed down a lot, there are still waves from the North-East but not as high as the day before yesterday. But, enough to make us roll quite a bit. We lower our centerboard and hoist the mizzen to stabilize Dione IV a bit. To our surprise, and against the forecast, the rain stops after an hour and we enjoy the beautiful “Costa da Morte”. The coast of death 😱. This name is because the thousands of ships that shipwrecked on these dangerous rocky coast, in the past. The problem here is that everything (wind and seas) accelerates around this corner. Well, we’ve seen our part of that…
Once we round Cabo Vilàn, the wind has picked up to 10 knots at a broad reach, we’re not “Morte” yet, and we set sail.
We see numerous gannets here! They are so beautiful, soaring in between the big waves.
We turn into the Ria de Camariñas and drop our anchor near the village, in front of a beach. Anchoring is so easy here. Just sail to the end of the estuary until it gets shallow, find a beach and drop anchor. 90% chance that it’s a clear, sandy bottom with excellent holding.
Dolphins swimming around us!
What a lovely spot! Later in the afternoon the sun comes out and the wind drops down to nothing. Dinner at the cockpit table. And what a dinner! We’ve got fresh Spanish white asparagus! On a delicious flaky crust, with cream and Galmesan (the Galician Parmesan), Serrano ham and fresh basil.
Yummy!! 😋
And, such a great day has a great sunset!
We are so happy and so lucky!
May 11.
A bit of a grey day with some rain showers. We stay cozy inside. We get dolphin visits however!
May 12.
At the end of the morning, we sail to the marina of Muxía. Our new dinghy and some Amazon parcels have been delivered there. We pick it up in the marina office and unbox the dinghy on the pontoon. It looks great!
We store everything in the cockpit.
May 13.
First thing in the morning: 3 dolphins in the harbor! They are big and grey.
We inflate the new dinghy on the pontoon.
Wim takes off the wheels of the old dinghy.
We bring the old dinghy to the waste disposal of the marina. We put it next to the container. Maybe somebody will take it, repair it and give it a third life??
Wim mounts the beach wheels to the new dinghy. Hm, drilling holes in a brand new dinghy requires some balls 😅 But, Wim has done it before and that went well so he’s confident.
The stainless steel bolts are well sealed with Sikaflex.
Ready to beach!
Sher takes a walk around the little peninsula with our friends from the “Bird Song” which is moored next to us.
May 14.
In the morning, we sail back the anchorage near Camariñas. It’s only 2 sea miles.
Once at anchor, we hoist the outboard motor on the dinghy and Wim takes a test ride. Everything all right. It’s fast! It’s lighter than our old one and a little bit smaller so the 10 horsepower makes it really fast.
After lunch, we take a dinghy tour into the river. It’s pretty shallow and we get stuck on a mussel bar. Luckily only with the tail of the motor and no damage but we decide not to risk to damage our new dinghy and we go back.
We take a tour around the village and the port and then we return to Dione IV.
We hoist the dinghy on deck, deflate it and store it on it’s rack. Perfect. It’s lighter and a bit smaller than our old one and that makes everything just a bit easier.
May 15.
Today, the weather forecast looks good to round Cape Finisterre. At least, in the morning. In the afternoon, it’s going to blow 25-30 knots. It’s only 25 sea miles around the cape to the next anchorage so we can do that before lunchtime.
We leave at 0745h, at sunrise.
The first few hours, there’s only 5 knots of wind from the North-East so Mighty Mitsu does all the work. The views are gorgeous and the sea is calm. Only a little swell (1m or so). And after we round Cabo Toriñana the swell comes from behind so that’s a gentle movement.
The wind picks up to 7-9 knots so we set sail. In front of us lies Cabo Finisterre.
Again, we see lots of gannets!
This famous and notorious cape is called Finis-terre… “End of the Earth”. It got it’s name from the Celtic culture: the Celts were trying to conquer Spain and they sailed from Ireland to here. They thought: the world stops after this cape and they didn’t dare to go any further. Afraid to fall of the earth. When we sail here, it really looks like that. Only once we completely round the cape, we see land again.
Also, this cape separates weather systems, like the point of Brittany does. We have seen the wind accelerating to stormy force around the North-Western coast here but below Cape Finisterre completely easing down and sometimes even from the opposite direction, south of Finisterre!
In the past, many (they say: thousands!) ships have been wrecked on these rocks. That’s why this piece of coast is called El Costa da Morte, “the coast of death”.
And, it’s a milestone for us: the most western point of Spain.
And here we sail, in benign conditions, around this cape.
Of course, benign. Because unlike the Celts, we can pick our weather window and check our charts and GPS location…😉
Here we pass this impressive rock.
We turn around this big rock and sail north to the bay “Enseada de Sardiñero”.
And there, we drop our anchor in beautiful surroundings, in front of a beach, in turquoise water!
May 16.
A beautiful day at a beautiful spot.
We have breakfast and coffee in the cockpit. The best!
After that, we launch the drone and make some nice areal shots:
It looks like Dione IV is hovering in thin air 😃
At the next flight, there’s some wind:
In the afternoon, we do an orbit:
After that, we do some hull cleaning. There’s still some thin green weed growing. We notice it grows on the spots we didn’t completely clean last time. So, we have to scrub these spots some more. Also, the propeller needs cleaning. Sher dives down with the Hookah and the electric underwater scrubber to do that.
After that, Wim goes around the waterline with the ScotchBrite pad on the electric scrubber and scrubs all spots of weed that were left. He scrubs the swimming steps on the rudder by hand with a patch of ScotchBrite.
We flush our wetsuits and all gear on deck and we take a hot shower. The water was pretty cool: 15ºC so, the hot shower feels great!
That was a lovely day 🤩
May 17.
The weather forecast says there will be wind from the South tomorrow. Our bay is open to the South so that means we have to move.
After lunch, we hoist our anchor and to go the port of Fisterra.
No wind at all. The sea is like a mirror.
It’s only an half an hour sail.
Moored on the pontoon in Fisterra.
The ramp to the pontoon squeaks like hell. Wim has a look and sees the nylon wheels are blocked and have a flat surface on one side. That squeaks loudly over the stainless steel plate. He take the prop shaft grease pump and greases the surfaces. Immediately, it’s silent. Some people sitting on the dock start cheering! 😄
We take a walk in Fisterra. It’s a very pretty little town. A bit touristic and the many restaurants and bars along the waterfront. We wonder what all the busses are doing there, waiting on the fishing boats dock. Later, we find out these are the Camino de Compostela hikers! They walk the Camino track and end in Santiago the Compostela. From there, they take a day trip by bus to walk from Fisterra to the Cape and back. The cape used to be a spiritual place for the Celts and since these hundreds of Camino-trampers seem to have all kinds of spiritual issue’s they obviously have to go there… Another thing is, they go there to watch the sunset because they think it’s the place to see the latest sunset in Europe. Mistake☝🏻. Cabo de Roca, near Lisbon, is the most western tip of Europe 😂
Sher has a mission: save a snail 😄
She found him on a cabbage leaf in our fridge. She put him in a box, leaf of cabbage and a little water in case he’s thirsty, and we bring him a to little field of grass under a nice tree for some shade.
Remember good old George Carlin? “Save the planet! Save the whales! Save those snails!” 😄 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7W33HRc1A6c
We have a delicious Costa da Morte ice cream 😋
May 18.
It’s a windy and partially cloudy day. We’re very well protected here for the South wind, behind the big breakwater.
Sher does some sewing and Wim is fine tuning our OpenCPN navigation software. It is so nice to communicate with these guys that programmed OpenCPN and the plugins. And very interesting. We even got a custom version of the engine dashboard! The British guy who programmed it got so involved that he made a black background version for us 😀.
May 19.
A beautiful day. We take a long scooter ride. First, we climb up to the lighthouse on the cape.
Then, we drive down to the big beach along the town.
From there, we drive uphill and downhill through a beautiful valley to the other side of the peninsula. We get to a very beautiful beach on the ocean!
We did a really long ride with lots of uphill and we still have 60% left in our external batteries while the scooter’s internal batteries stay steady at 80%. Great!
Back on board, we charge them with solar power!
We have so much solar power, even in a marina we don’t bother to plug in the shore power any more. 🙂
May 21.
At 0900h, we depart from Fisterra. We sail to the next Ria, the Ria de Muros.
We have a light breeze from the North.
Gradually the wind increases and when we are at the Cape “Punta Queial” we have around 15 knots and increasing waves.
We always say: at a cape, everything changes. So, the wind dies down to nothing and the waves disappear. We start the engine and motor up to the bay “Ensenada de Muros”.
There, we drop our anchor. Another lovely spot!
Offshore, the wind increases to 25-30 knots in the afternoon. Here, we have wind from all directions and sometimes some light gusts. Sometimes, there’s no wind at all and sometimes we swirl 360º around our anchor!
May 22.
We inflate our new dinghy and go to Muros.
The old part of the town is very pretty:
There’s a 12th century church.
The inside looks like an upside down ship’s hull.
We climb up in the tower and have a beautiful view.
Holy water basin with a snake in it.
After some little shopping it’s time for coffee in Dione IV’s outdoor café 😉
In the evening, it gets very windy. The wind funnels around these hills and we get gusts up to 30 knots from all directions. Wind shifts of 240º! We worry a little bit because we get severe blows on the beam sometimes. But the anchor holds well and after sunset the wind eases down and we have a quit night.
May 23.
It’s a bright sunny day but there’s a lot of wind and it shifted to the South-East. That means we’re unprotected and on lee shore. Not so enjoyable. We decide to sail to the marina of Portosin. Sher has ordered a SUP paddleboard and there will also be some Amazon packages. So, by the end of the morning we lift the anchor and motor 4 sea miles to Portosin.
Yay! A group of large bottle nose dolphins! They are over 2m long and they come to say hello briefly. They explore of bow wave for a minute and then they move on.
We moor in the marina and in the afternoon the wind increases to 25 knots, blowing through the Ria. White caps in the marina. After sunset, the wind is completely gone again. Funny weather…
May 24.
In the morning, we take the bus to Santiago de Compostela. It’s about an hour bus ride. The old center of the city is medieval. Well, partially. Like many Spanish cities, there are really old medieval buildings and streets but they are mixed up with ugly, more recent, buildings which are often in a bad state of maintenance. The city is very touristic and very crowded. Thousands of “Camino” walkers with their backpacks and walking sticks.
We stop for a coffee and to finally try the “tarta de Santiago” (Santiago cake, famous in Galicia and Santiago de Compostela)… an almond cake with a bit of powdered sugar on top. Then we have a look at the ancient buildings, many churches, and the famous cathedral.
After a so-so lunch we decide that we’ve seen enough old stones and enough tourists, souvenirs and noise, and we get on the bus back. In Noia we have to wait 2 hours for the bus back to Portosin, and we relax on the riverside and have a delicious ice cream. At 1900h we’re back on Dione IV. It’s warm: 28ºC, and we have dinner on the cockpit table. Best restaurant!
May 25.
A 15 min bus ride to Noia. There’s an open market and a farmer’s market. It appears to be not really special but it’s nice to see. We share a nice tapas lunch in a little local restaurant with our friends from the “Bird Song” and another one of these super-delicious ice creams.
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