Position:  42:46.68N 09:03.45W

Muros, Spain

We left Camarinas into a 4m swell and confused seas.  Pretty horrible stuff, but we had resolved to get out of Camarinas as soon as possible – it was a faintly depressing place in the drizzle!  I am sure it is lovely in the sunshine, but there wasn’t much of that around.

We decided, quite dramatically, to sail South until the sun shined – it has been quite autumnal in NW Spain so far.  Luckily, within 15 miles of leaving Camarinas, the sun came out and we were saved from sailing direct to the Canaries.  Dolphins joined us as we sailed South, which as always were a great distraction from the swell.  We rounded Cape Finisterre – a significant rounding in many ways – and life seemed to get a bit better!

Cabo Finisterre

We headed into the first of the Rias Bajas – Ria de Muros – and as we headed in, the waves diminished until we were sailing in sunshine and calm seas for the first time in what feels like a long time.  Lovely! 

Our first night was spent anchored just off the town of Muros, in 15m of water, with a beautiful backdrop of the town and the hills on one side, and the ria with multiple vivieros (mussel farms) on the other.  We had some fun and games anchoring, as we put a trip line on the anchor which firstly wasn’t long enough so the buoy disappeared under the water, then got tangled round the chain.  We decided that they were more trouble than they were worth after I scraped the skin off a knuckle in getting the thing set.  How wrong we were to be…

We dinghied ashore and found that the town was really lovely.  To celebrate, we found a great restaurant and had our “standard” meal of steak and king prawns overlooking the harbour – really delicious.

The girls at Muros, Nutmeg in background

Nutmeg off Muros

The following day we enjoyed a lovely walk around the town, with the girls running riot through the narrow stone streets, before returning to Nutmeg with some groceries and meat for a barbeque in the dinghy.  This is all quite different for us – we have hardly anchored so far on this trip.  But in a place like this where there are no marinas and it is calm, it is actually really lovely, with the added advantage that it is free!  We’re also pretty self-sufficient in terms of water and electricity for 5-7 days, and with hot water from the engine it is quite a civilized life!  It will be interesting to see whether we change when we return to England – will we anchor out more than stay in marinas?  I hope so.

Muros Town

In the late afternoon, we upped anchor and sailed a few miles across the ria to Pta Aguiera, a small promontory and beach on the Southern side of the ria.  We had decided to anchor off the beach and have a barbeque in the evening.