Moxie - Beck Family Adventure

Ria de Muros

Mike, Denise, Asia and Aranya Beck

Thu 5 Aug 2010 23:30

Ria de Muros 42.47.17N 009.02.95W

We have anchored here and see a couple of familiar boats, one of them is the one with the dog we rescued at Ria de Ares, alas we did not see him perhaps he was inside. We are quite close to a wee beach here and at low tide the locals come and gather shellfish so we went off to do the same. We took the kids out for a proper snorkel but the water was really really cold even with our shorties on. Aranya refused to get her head wet to give you an idea of temperature so Denise and her dug for shellfish and Asia and I went for a proper look around. Probably one of the most satisfying things that I have done with Asia is this 30 minutes out diving. I needed to tow her but that was fine we just meandered around amongst the weed and rocks pointing out fish in the cracks, different seaweeds, the odd starfish, crab etc. Asia came back full of excitement telling Aranya all about it and how the water was even over Daddy's head some times. The girls were both super keen to go again as soon as possible despite the cold. We tried again the next day but it was very windy and the water honestly felt much colder, Aranya and I tried for 5 minutes but was too cold, Asia and I also aborted after about 5 minutes. There will be warmer water and sunshine another day.

1. Looking to shore from our anchorage 2. This island is where we snorkeled, later a small fishing boat came and dropped his pots all round this shoreline no more than 6 feet from land.

One of many small fishing boats (over)loaded with pots.

I spent the morning trying again to figure out where all our duogen/solar power disappears to. I have now read the 12 volt bible for boats so I have volts, ohms, electrons etc all sorted but I still can't figure out what's going on. All seems to be wired up correctly but there's nothing happening on the battery monitor still, it has beaten me again and will again wait for another day.

Whilst I was down in the Lazarette I heard running water and upon investigation found that the hot water tank hose had become unclipped, we lost 200 litres of fresh water into the bilge. That's bad but the bad news was that the hose had popped up into my Volvo spares container and filled it with water, I now have £500 worth of filters etc that I am trying to dry out.

Town was a good kilometer away in the dinghy but we braved a trip in strong winds to find the supermarket. 'Town' seems to mostly be restaurants and Tapas bars for the tourists but after a while we found a butchery and then eventually a supermarket which would have been much closer to get to in the dinghy directly from the boat so there was a bit of back tracking to do. We'd left the dinghy a bit nervously up on a boat ramp amongst the fishing boats and cars. Normally we just beach it and leave all the life jackets, ours, outboard, fuel tank etc aboard - wander off for however we like and feel quite safe in doing so. It's a fact of life for us now as there are no other options really but I'm not so sure we'd be so relaxed doing it in NZ, ignorance is bliss. Thankfully we managed to arrive home reasonably dry this time despite the strong headwind.

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