Daysail to Combarro

We woke to another lovely sunny morning and had a leisurely breakfast sitting in the cockpit. We were in no hurry today, our next destination was wherever we were going to be by tea time. The rush to get north was over and I had allowed a few days in my planning to explore the rias of Galicia. We were going sailing!

We prepared the boat to leave, filling the water tanks and moving things around down below to allow room for Paddy to move in.
We slowly motored down the ria to where Paddy’s boat ‘Blauwe Reiger’ was berthed and we motored up alongside and tied on.

The reason we had not berthed there ourselves was not because of Paddy's snoring but because the berths are a bit tight, really meant for yachts under 30 feet and it's full with local or long term boats with no visitors berths.

Tony went onboard with Paddy and passed over whatever gear Paddy wanted to bring home with him and we passed the folding bicycle back in the opposite direction. We fitted the hatch and winch covers, checked the mooring lines etc. before Paddy closed up the boat until the next time he'd returned and then they returned to Eureka.

We reversed out and headed out towards the entrance to the ria hoisting the main on the way.
By 13.00 we reached the open sea and motorsailed out past the Cíes Islands that protect the entrance. The ‘Islas Cíes’ are a nature reserve and you need a permit to visit them which Paddy had done a few weeks ago and was able to tell us about them as we past by. Now! If we had another week or two……………….

Once we were north of the islands we unfurled the genny and turned off the engine. At last! We were sailing again, for the first time since the Algarve, nearly four hundred miles ago.

It was great to be sailing a boat which is meant to sail. I was fed up with all the rushing and motoring since Alicante, so it was nice to be heading somewhere that we could reach by teatime and under sail too.
I left off the autopilot as I was enjoying steering Eureka along the coast. Once I satisfied, I handed the helm to Paddy for a spell to get a feel for the boat and later Tony took over.

I was planning to head to Sanxenxo in the Ria de Pontevedra but as we sailed along I was reading the cruising guide and I decided that Combarro seemed a nicer place so we continued on up the ria and rounded the Isla de Tambo.
The island has a lighthouse with a spiral staircase wrapped around its tower.

We tied up outside the marina at 17.00 and I went ashore to book in.
The staff had little or no English and even less Irish but the wife of one of the staff who happened to be visiting her husband translated and we soon had the paperwork done. We headed for the showers and then got ready to go ashore and have a look around.

The marina is a large modern one with good facilities and a bar / restaurant.
There are many premises built in a row along the breakwater leading ashore but about two thirds of them were empty and seem never to have been occupied. Hopefully in years to come the marina will prosper and marine businesses will come to this area of Spain to service both local and visitors boats.

Once ashore proper it was easy to see the new and old towns of Combarro.
We turned right towards the old town which is built of rough granite stone with narrow streets and little or no cars. They'd be too wide to get around.

Down by the shore were strange looking buildings what turned out to be grain stores. There were like small chapels standing on stone legs about 2 meters off the ground. Most of them were about 3 meters in width, 6 meters in length and about 2 meters in height with slits in the wooden or stone walls which allow the air to pass through.

They also seem to have a thing about witches in the town as many of the shops had models of witches for sale and some were also hanging from the balconies of houses.

We found a restaurant down by the shore and had a nice meal. While we were eating we could see along the shore that many people were fishing for shell fish or crabs on the sand. The tide was out and as it's almost flat, the was plenty of shore exposed.

We wandered back to the marina and stopped to have a drink at the small bar on the marina before returning to Eureka for a good night’s sleep.

Leg 15 - 30 mls. Total 1616 mls.Read more