Spain: Combarro in the Ria de Pontevedra

The day did not start well. RAIN. Yes, we have had great weather since arriving in Spain, but it had to end. They do call this the ‘Green Coast’ because it does get more rain then the south. And that rain arrived shortly after we got back to the boat last night. And it rained all night.

All our weather forecasts come in as strength and direction of winds. We do not get a general weather synopsis. So if the forecast says the winds will be favourable we go, even if it is raining. Now I love the water, and now swimming thanks to my Uncle Steve, but I hate the rain. Leave the humans out in the cockpit in the rain, I am going below where I have a nice dry bed under the galley table.

The winds were meant to build through the day, so we left it to the afternoon to leave. Nothing to do with being lazy! But the winds were late and we motored out of the Ria in a deep misty haze. We followed the mussel beds along the shoreline until we reached the open Atlantic, where the sun broke through and we finally got some wind. Good sailing until we entered the next Ria and the winds died again. At least we know all the engine trouble is fixed.

Entering the shallow waters at the end of the Ria was ‘paw biting’. The water here was very shallow with lots of buoys scattered about the anchorage. The winds were SW but were meant to change in the day to strong NE so we needed to make sure we had plenty of swinging room through the buoys for the night. We also wanted to leave out extra chain to combat the strong winds predicted for the next few days. We think we found the right spot!

The town does not look like anything special from sea, but we were impressed when we went ashore. Don’t worry we moored our dingy on a wall instead of letting ourselves be locked out again. A long section of the sea front has been preserved as examples of traditional Galician architecture. The narrow streets are lined with pillars supporting the family homes above. The lower floors were traditionally storage for fishing nets and gear. The sea front is lined with small storage houses set on ‘Mushroom’ shaped legs that are corn and grain storage houses. All of this is preserved for the tourists. As a result there are ‘tat’ houses set every 5m as you go along. Lower levels have been converted into Tapas bars and restaurants. If you can see through all the tourist ‘rubbish’ it is quite beautiful. All the flowers hanging down from the balconies and the views through the narrow streets to the sea are wonderful.

We found an information centre that told us where to find an internet cafe and the best tapas are meant to be in the central square. Of course we had to check the tapas out first. The winds are meant to keep us here a few days so hopefully we will be able to down load pictures and video to the blog emails.