Muros
Vega
Hugh and Annie
Mon 3 Aug 2015 19:10
| Annie and I are on the cusp of competence. And then something happens to remind us of the line from “Dolphins Under My Bed” - “other sailors seemed always to be one step ahead of events, we seemed always one step behind”. The shambles in Muxia is an example of how we can go from competence to Fred Carno’s Circus in no time at all. Yesterday morning as the boat was gently rolling at anchor I heard an alarming loud buzzing sound and immediately feared one of the various electric pumps on board had been activated. We traced the buzzing to the heads and there was Annie’s electric toothbrush that had fallen over and rolled onto the on off switch. Then, as we were preparing to leave the anchorage Annie asked me to investigate a disturbing noise coming from what appeared to be the anchor chain but that could only be heard from inside the boat. This turned out to be noise from a radio speaker that had been turned on by mistake along with the other instruments……………. Happiness is a warm southerly force 3 breeze, blue skies, hot sunshine, smooth sea and 5 knots with full sails and that was the story of our sailing yesterday. Unfortunately south was also the direction that we were headed and Annie’s razor sharp mathematical intellect soon worked out that it would be quicker to motor down the direct route rather than tack in a series of 90 degree angles either side of it. Shocking I know but we still have several thousand miles to install in her a sense of the joy of sail. En route to Muros we had to motorsail past some well charted but otherwise completely unmarked exposed rocks and shallows well off the coast. No wonder this is the Costa del Morte and the locals seem determined that it will continue to live up to its name. We motored gently up to our anchorage in the bay adjoining Muros (see how we now choose anchorage as a preference over marina berth?). We discovered that the bottom shelves steeply from less than four metres depth towards the shore rapidly to 15 plus a little farther out. Given that the rise of tide here is 3 metres we opted to anchor in about 6 metres (it being highish tide) and were in the process of doing so when the occupants of an adjoining dutch yacht informed us that they had anchored in the same place and the depth of water had fallen from 8 metres to 1metre with the tide. We thought this a bit odd but heeded their advice and anchored in 10 metres on their other side. On reflection of course it would be perfectly possible to drop anchor in 8 metres of water but then drift back on the anchor chain to only 4 metres and with a fall of 3 metres on the tide have only 1 metre of water at low tide. This was brought home to us this morning when we put our heads above the parapet and saw dozens of people lining the nearby beach and engaged in some kind of fishing activity. Binoculars and a telephoto lens revealed cockle fishing with nets and boxes. As the tide has been falling they have been walking steadily towards us and are now within 100 metres! We still have 6.8 metres underneath us……………..  |