Ria de Cedeira

We left the Ria de Barquero soon after eleven a.m., forty minutes after Lycka had left and soon had the sails up and pulling us briskly along in the force four breeze.  Cedeira is about twenty miles further west, but we were to pass two rocky headlands, outside which the sea can be very rough when any wind is blowing and this would add a few more miles to the journey.

Dolphins played around the boat for a few minutes as we left the ria and our course suffered a little as my concentration wandered . . . .  I still feel very honoured to receive these visits.  Chris, while admiring their high-jinks, thinks that they are a bunch of posing exhibitionist show offs.  He does have a point.

The rest of the sail was quite a blast, downwind with the wind steadily rising to the top end of force five as we turned to enter the Ria de Cedeira.  The entrance is quite narrow, with both sides of the channel rising steeply with barely anything green able to cling to the rocks.  The rocks are not only on each side, but also below, and we had to pay careful attention to the leading lines as we were coming in right on low water.  Added to this, we were also enjoying a little healthy competition with a French family on board an Ovni, a large aluminium yacht.  The children were clapping and waving as they attempted, unsuccessfully, to pass us!  Once through the narrow entrance the Ria opened up in the shelter of the hills, fringed by a narrow sandy beach and wooded slopes.  We pottered in and dropped anchor a stone's throw away from Zephyrus, who we had last seen at Ribadeo.

Later that evening Ian and Jo from Zephyrus and Jochen and Hanna from Lycka passed by in their dinghies, returning from a shopping trip, and told us that tonight was the fisherman's' fiesta and the town would be celebrating the bountiful catches Neptune had permitted this year.  We made plans to go ashore en masse that evening.

Cedeira is not the most sophisticated port we have visited and the fiesta had a distinctly agricultural feel, more a barn dance with live music.  Nevertheless it was good fun and we stayed late, enjoying the vibey atmosphere, a few beers and some good company.

We rose late the following day, enjoying the cool, clear morning air before planning the next hop, thirty miles west to La Coruna.  We have read a great deal about La Coruna as it is a popular place for people to make for after crossing Biscay direct from Britain and were looking forward to a night in a marina to get some laundry done and visit a big supermarket to stock the pantry!