Sunday, 25 August 2013

Portosin to Baiona

Portosin is a fishing village. The previous night all the fishing boats were dressed with flags and there had been massive fireworks. When we arrived the town was suffering from a collective hangover. Nevertheless fish at the local restaurant was very good. The proprietor brings the uncooked fish out for you to inspect before deciding. We sat next to a load of crabs and lobsters on death row in their tank. They did not look very happy about the situation.
Portosin, nothing like it's name!

We visited Santiago del Compostela for the day. The cathedral is a fantastic medieval shrine to St James the disciple who spent some time in Galicia. He had his head chopped off by King Herod in the holy land and the legend has it that his remains were transported to Santiago. The church never blind to a good business opportunity declared it proven and opened up Santiago as one of their sites of pilgrimage. Pilgrims who may not necessarily be Catholics were all over the town. They could be spotted because they were either chilling out lying on concrete or limping about with multiple bandages for blisters.  The interior of the cathedral has an impressive amount of gold and you could go below the alter into the crypt and light an electric bulb (European health and safety regs) . 2 Euros for one hour and  3 Euros for 4 hours - a bargain!  There were a number of priests in confessional boxes for different languages. Sadly James and Colin, both good Catholic lads, did not want to go to confession as they felt it would have entailed an overnight sitting for the poor priest.
Pilgrims with painted feet to hide the blisters! 
Peacefulness and gold, historically incompatible

We managed to switch our gas supply to Spanish camping gas with the aid of a new adaptor, a bit of a struggle linguistically in the hardware shop and sailed across the Bay to Muros where we anchored in black mud and deployed our new SwissTec tripping line as there were rumoured to be underground cables. Going ashore in the dinghy we developed a leak and glued another patch on which worked -Hurrah ! Sending our malfunctioning chart plotter back to Plymouth was the event of the week in the sleepy post office with three different forms. One hour later we emerged. No wonder the economy is in trouble. We will hopefully pick up the replacement from Lagos marina where they will kindly hold onto it.

A view from our berth in Portosin

Muros, a view whilst at anchor

From Muros we spent two days motoring and sailing down the Rias via Porto San Vicente to Baiona in its spectacular Bay. The fishing rod and trolling line was deployed and to everyone's great excitement we hooked a fish. It was a vicious looking beastie with as Colin put it a long and " very sharp beak". It didn't look very edible so we put it back. James looked it up on his i phone and we discovered it was a needle fish described as the most loathsome fish imaginable. They have killed one or two people by stabbing them as they leap out of the water. Things went quiet after that so we have started a competition to see how many original excuses we can come up with as to why the fish are not biting.

San Vincente del Mar, Mother and child await anxiously 

The strain tells on both the rod and the skipper

and after hours of playing the line.....

.Baiona has a splendid bay and there is a replica of Christopher Columbus's ship the Pinto moored up near us. He arrived here after discovering the new world - forget about the Vikings who were over there on a regular basis. The wind is gusting 30 knots offshore so we are snugly tied up until Monday when we head for Portugal.  Sephina will slip her moorings the day after.


  1. Glad to hear all is is going well ....ish! It seems to me that sailing is a lot of breaking down and being sick but it's good to hear you are enjoying it nevertheless. Colin kept his singing prowess well under wraps on land. Hope all shipmates are enjoying his talent.

  2. Not exactly Jaws is it?! You'll have bigger fish to fry in the Pacific...

  3. ...and Dad is quite the whistler too!