We spent 3 nights at anchor in Muros, our first landfall in Spain and renewed our acquaintance with its delights – attractive, stone arched buildings and great seafood tapas.  We feasted on our favourites Galician “pulpo” (octopus) and the local fried baby green peppers “pimientos de Padron” and enjoyed good wine at €1.60 a glass.  This corner of Spain is wonderful.

After Muros we motored (to top up our batteries) towards Ria de Arosa and spent a night in a little marina at San Vicente del Mar near the entrance to the ria.  The modern holiday development around the marina was very uninspiring but we had a lovely walk around the headland which made up for it.  There were numerous little coves with great granite boulders sculpted into interesting shapes and the area reminded us a bit of the Scilly Isles.  Above the headland was a military zone with some old pillboxes and artillery still in position.  Back at the marina, we made use of their wi-fi to catch up with family news.

After a windy and rather challenging exit from the marina the following morning, we had a very enjoyable sail up the Ria de Pontevedra to our next anchorage at Combarro.  We had some good practice at reefing down quickly and in tacking upwind.  We anchored just south of the town harbour at our second attempt because of the thick weed.  Combarro’s old heart is the  fishing village with the shore lined with the stone granaries on stilts called horreos that are such a feature of this area.  It has some gorgeous old houses with stone balconies and pillars and there are carved granite crosses everywhere, another feature of the region.  We came here 3 years ago but were very happy to return and have a second look at the place.  It does get a lot of tourists, but isn’t too busy late in the season.  We did buy some home produced bottles of the local Albarino wine from a persuasive old lady along the way!

Today we took our new dinghy for a 45 minute motor across the ria and up the shallow Rio Lerez to the lovely old city of Pontevedra.  It was a great way to reach the city and we had a very enjoyable day exploring its old streets and squares as well as eating another substantial and delicious lunch in very warm sunshine.  We had a slightly quicker but also wetter motor back to base but were definitely pleased with our method of transport for the day’s excursion.