It has been some time since we sent out our last blog entry, still from the Azores, but ready to sail to the mainland. As indicated we did try to make use of a number of depressions passing by. And they provided us with a quite reasonable passage from Terceira to A Coruña. It started slow, motoring away from the islands enjoying dolphins and comfortable life on board. Eventually the westerly winds set in with quite variable strength, dramatic looking clouds and the occasional rain front. For most of the time we were sailing wing-wing with poled out genoa, lightly reefed main and optionally the staysail in the void. Running with this configuration, the range of acceptable wind speed is somewhere from 12 kts (still slow) to possible 40 kts (fast). In the end it came out fine and we reached A Coruña after 5 /12 days averaging 170 miles a day on the GPS and about 10 miles more a day through the water as we had to fight an increasing countercurrent.
We had never before been to A Coruña and now wonder why we never visited this wonderful town before, what a lively place and the marina in the middle of the old town. It was easy for us to spent a week there before moving on. But eventually we had to, as we needed to be in Bayona for Alfredo Lagos' rally, an event he had conducted very two years for the last 25 years. By now Alfredo is nearing 90 and says it was the last one he was personally organising, but it has always been done with the help of the whole family and the younger generation plans to continue with the tradition. For us it was the 3rd time on to participate and we were eagerly looking forward to it and to meeting some old friends again.
We leisurely sailed south stopping at Camariãs, and then around Cape Finisterre in Sardineiro. Then two more stops at the off lying islands of Salvora and Cies, all nature preserves for which you have to get anchoring permits in advance. Once registered it is easy to book via the internet.
On August 4 we arrived in Bayona, ready for the rally to start the next day. While the itinerary is always the same, the 9 days of rally are never boring and so the rally slowly worked their way north again, with many onshore events, bus tours, sight seeing and infinite amounts of good food and wine. As always it ends in Portosin, with a long dinner night at the local yacht club.
Now we are on our way south again, still in Galicia, just across from Vigo in Moaña. Tomorrow we plan to anchor for a last time at the Islas Cies and leave early the next day from there, heading down to Portugal. Possible into Viana do Castello, weather permitting, or on to Leixoes, the main harbour of Porto.
We are also part of a small group that is going a long with a very loosely organised rally by the Ocean Cruising Club of which we are members. The boats will gather in Porto, Lisbon, Lagos and Vila Real for some events organised by the local port officers. It will not be until mid October, that the boats take off for Madeira, then the Canaries and Cape Verdes. We will drop out in Madeira, our home base, and haul out Taniwani for the winter again.
The 'small' selection of pictures covers the time of this report. As always more pictures, and in somewhat higher resolution are at:
And all pictures we took at the Rally Bayona are at:
There is off course some overlap as the later is meant for rally members who might find some nice pictures of themselves there.
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