Somewhere Outside Spanish Territorial Waters
Vega
Hugh and Annie
Wed 5 Aug 2015 10:01
Spanish bureaucracy may be getting out of hand. In response to an offer to pay for two replacement plastic fenders in Muxia I have been asked for copies of our insurance policy, boat registration document and my sailing qualifications. We had noticed several other similarly broken fenders (that are small, plastic and clearly replaceable) both in Muxia and also in the marina at Muros. We had planned to move from our anchorage into Muros for a day as part of my recovery strategy but then I awoke in the night in a hot sweat from a nightmare about the fenders. It had occurred to me that the marinas in Muxia and Muros are owned by the same group and that if we went into Muros the boat would have a writ nailed to the mast and I would be in a Spanish jail with the boat impounded until the full might of Spanish maritime law had been brought to bear. Not an inviting prospect so we have cleared out of Spanish waters until they respond to my request to know how much two small plastic fenders cost before involving insurers etc.
Actually we are in a better marina on the other side of the Ria so I just have to hope that the Spanish Authorities haven’t discovered my blog. We now know what it is like to have committed a crime and be on the run. The berthing guy repeated with emphasis the name of our yacht and my heart sank. The lady in the office was very keen to get copies of all our documentation - particularly the insurance policy - and studiously refused to look me fully in the face……….
Annie did all the sailing yesterday including raising the anchor. Apart from an old mooring line caught around the anchor, what may be a plastic bag around the propellor as the boat was not responding well in reverse and the anchor wedged on the bow so that we couldn’t house it fully everything went swimmingly. There is an incredible amount of plastic floating on and lying under the water here. We pulled up a large plastic bag on our first attempt at anchoring in Muros.
Crossing the Ria downwind at a steady two knots, one of which was tide, even I was thinking things were a bit pedestrian but Annie was adamant we persevere and we arrived at our secret destination quicker than expected. Berthing was flawless with Annie on the wheel.