Compared with the last couple of days when it has been so hot, Saturday was "cold" and foogy.  (Still warm enough to be about in shorts and T shirt, though!)  I manoevred the boat to the fuel berth and back - the going more successful than the return - and moored on the adjacent pontoon so that Roger  could scrub the other half of the hull and rejuvenate the antifouling.

 

It was Ascension Day and everywhere was shut.  After lunch we cycled up the ria to the Marina Seca, where boats can be hauled out for work.  It looked the biz.  We had a free beer - not deliberately, but owing to the generosity of the barmaid who let us have the beer despite our having brought no money with us.  We saw Awaywegao, our former US neighbour ashore, for sale - no mention of that to us when they cleared down all the stores to us!  We looked it up on the web: it's a Trinidadian firm, and so maybe its a boat that is always for sale?  We then cycled on the river at the head of the Ria, and saw the bridge at Burgos.  There are big sandbanks and we watched a man swim accross the channel, and then wade ashore the other side, waist deep in water.

 

On Friday we visited the Castel St Anton, which overlooks the marina.  From the vantage point you could see just how empty the marina is.  It is a lovely little museum, the repository of a lot of archaeological relics, including finds from the Castro at Barona that was so impressive.  The entry price (2euros) was the same as the icecream we had afterwards, walking back. Roger says we have been totally corrupted by Wendy and Richard and seem to be having Holados every trip!

 

On Friday, as I shopped, I had stopped in the Plaza Maria Pita to listen to the youth orchestra of Galicia rehearsing for their Saturday concert.  We attended.  The concert started at 21.30 - but as we are still on UK time the finish of 11pm was not so exhausting(!)  They played Rhapsody in Blue, Beethoven's Pastoral (but not the final movement) and a couple of encores, which were fun.  (We remembered a concert in Lowestoft, featuring Toby as the Whip - Tim will remember too!)  The playing was patchy; the maestro inspired and extremely energetic, literally jumping (not just hopping) up and down.  The crowd was vast: in addition to seats in the square, there were two large banks of raked seats.  Roger estimated that there were a lot more than 1000 people.  But they came and went: at the end of each movement there was an exodus of people who wanted their supper.  We walked back at 11pm to the boat, luxuriating in the warm evening and with the rest of the crowd enjoying the lit restaurants, the al fresco eating and the lighting of the historic buildings.

 

Off to Cedeira next... about 30 miles.  Looks like a Biscay crossing on Wednesday.