The Imray Cruising Guide said that many would consider the Ria of Camarinas amongst Galicia’s loveliest, with anchorages protected from almost every direction. Sounded good enough for us, so that’s what we programmed into the chart plotter.
We were once again following our two o’clock rule and arrived on the dot. We anchored out the front of the small marina next to another yacht, who shortly upped anchor and left.
As the main sail came down, we noticed one of the batten cars had separated from the mast. The cause of all those little niggly situations with the mainsail sticking now became evident. Allan hightailed it up the mast and took some photos of some damaged track and we filed our first warranty claim.
We were also short on dingy fuel so we hopped in the dingy and headed for the marina. We got there to find it closed for siesta. We got talking to a polish yacht who were also waiting for fuel. They’d comes round from the med and were heading off across the bay of Biscay as soon as they got fuel. We hung around for a while and found a few other English speaking sailors in the marina. For such a small marina, that was the most English speakers we had come across so far.
In time, Captain Bob made an appearance and told us that he was helping out the capitiane who couldn’t speak any English. He’d been wintering there and had been sailing his yacht around the world for the last 28 years. Before that, he was in the Royal Navy. Quite a character.
The marina didn’t sell anything but diesel and Bob didn’t think there was anywhere else in town – but promised to enquire. Allan and I thought this cant be right and set off to explore the town. We eventually gave up looking and found one of the many tapas bars for a coffee down by the water. Bob came along a short while later and told us the nearest petrol was in the next town, a short taxi ride away. We weren’t that desperate so we finished our coffee and headed back to the marina. We had a chat to a few people including a couple from England who were cruising the area on a power boat and gave us a few tips.
We also saw one of the poles, a young girl called Ewa, who had been dumped on shore, because the boat had to get to Brest on Saturday and they had no time to get round to La Coruna, where she needed to catch her train from. As well as no petrol stations, there were also no hotels – only 20 million tapas bars. So we did the right thing and picked up our first “random” person and gave her a cabin and an Aussie BBQ for the night. She turned out to be quite interesting, having been to a lot of the places we were going. She had her offshore skippers cert and ran a watch team on the boat – a real watch as they had no radar and no AIS – just eyes.
Next morning it was up early to drop Ewa off and head south motoring to VillaGarcia, where we could possibly get some parts and a repair done.
And yes the Ria was really beautiful!
A Little Bit of Mischief 