Reeling in the rias
42:07.16N
8:50.35W Friday
15th October 2010 “Quick –
cut the rope Stella…”
I felt
myself being dragged backwards, and had little strength to hold on to the stern
ladder for much longer before the line plucked me away from the safety of
Ananda. We had
left Bayona a few hours earlier, and had just entered Portuguese waters when the
problem occurred. The area was
peppered with lobster pots, and it was only a matter of time before the
inevitable happened and we caught a rope around the prop. Stella was quick to put the gearbox into
neutral. But it was too late – we
were held firmly by the stern in the northerly swell and a following
breeze. We dropped the sails and
followed our well rehearsed procedure; me climbing into my wetsuit, donning
weight belt, diver’s knife, safety rope around waist and makeshift breathing
apparatus, Stellie working hard on the dinghy inflator. With a plentiful supply of air, over I
went. Stellie’s
quick action on the throttle had saved the stern gear from damage, and it was a
quick job to dive under the boat to untangle and release the rope and pickup
buoy from the propeller blades and shaft.
But I had neglected to cut the buoy free, and it had caught around a
bight of my safety line, effectively dragging me backwards as the newly released
boat surged forwards with the wind and swell. “Keith…
what is it?” Stellie
couldn’t understand me - no surprise, as I still had the breathing pipe in my
mouth. I spat it out, and she
quickly understood my predicament.
Freeing the diving knife from its holster, she cut the line around my
waist with one stroke. The buoy
released me from its fierce grip and floated harmlessly astern, leaving me
breathless but still holding on. Back on
board after tea and a hot shower, the learning point from this experience seemed
obvious. Before untangling the
mess, always cut the boat free first!
The
picturesque Galician Rias make a wonderful area for cruising. The estuaries are wide and sheltered,
with pretty bays where one can anchor against a backdrop of wooded
mountains. Add to that, the
historic villages and friendly people and you can understand why we want to
return someday. Fishing is prime here, and Ria de Arosa
is one of the main mussel producing area in Despite
their number, the vivaros do not
overwhelm the huge Rias and the old villages cater well for the industry,
modernising where necessary. Rather
than rely on the limited space of a fishing wharf to unload catch, some have
built fishing marinas – like yacht marinas, but scaled up to provide space for
the larger pontoons that fishing boats need. A bus ride
takes us further inland to Santiago de Compostella. Here, the tomb of St James provides
still provides a focus for thousands of pilgrims, as it has done since the
beginning of the 9th century.
Nowadays, the pilgrims arrive by foot or bicycle, over prescribed long
distances (100km walking, 200km cycling) in order to qualify for their official
compostella (certificate). Understandably, with their backpacks,
canes and cockleshell necklaces, the pilgrims look tired, but the gilded shrine
to St James in the 13th century cathedral is certainly
impressive. They queue for long
periods to touch the ornate statue of the saint. The city
is larger than we imagine, and we pass a large and austere granite
building. With its barred windows,
it looks like a prison but is in fact an old convent. Designed to keep women in or men
out? Our new
washing machine arrives, and is carefully placed on the pontoon by the amused
delivery men, who thankfully take away the remains of the old machine (pillaged
for spares).
So how do
you get 75kg of bulky machinery on and off a yacht?
Easy, when
you have a ready made crane in the form of a mast, boom and electric
winch…
…just drops in like
this. We don’t
understand the Spanish labels and instructions, but Mr Google soon finds some
English ones and we’re back in the laundry business!
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