Position:  42:07.20N 08:50.65W

Bayona, Spain

Sailing South towards Bayona you see Cabo Silliero just 3 or so miles to the West of the town, and it really feels like this is the edge of the Iberian peninsula – beyond it you can’t see any land as the coastline just drops South in an almost ruler-straight line, hundreds of miles right down into Portugal almost to Lisbon. 

However, before that you reach the fleshpots of Bayona.  Being a major stopoff point for yachts heading South, the marina was busy with yachts who had come direct from the UK or France and it was wacky to meet people who had left Lymington just 5 or 6 days before.  It’s taken us two and a half months!  (and has been a lot more fun I suspect)

Bayona meant jobs.  For the first time in Spain, there was a decent chandlery so I sorted some longstanding boat jobs like replacing the pole ends on the 2^nd pole, fitting preventers and a storm jib halyard, and the girls spent a lot of time in the excellent park, as well as doing school.

We decided to hire a car for the day, partly because Sarah had – ahem – left her handbag in the bar at Camarinas, and partly because we wanted to visit Santiago de Compostela.  So we set off on a long day’s excursion, first up to Camarinas, where Sarah’s bag was still hanging up in the bar, complete with credit cards, mobile phone etc, only 10 days after she had left it there!  I think this says something for the Spanish people – it wouldn’t have lasted 10 minutes in a bar in the UK.

We drove up to Cabo Villano then had a really lovely drive on dirt roads around the coast, which is very dramatic and wild.  We found an old and very remote English Cemetery containing the bodies of 170 sailors who had drowned in 1890 when their ship, 3 days out of Plymouth bound for the old colony of Sierra Leone, had lost her way and crashed into the rocks here.  A commemorative stone mentions that the local bishops had a falling-out over the whole thing as only 67 of the sailors were Catholic.  Religion at its best…

Cabo Villano lighthouse

Driving rather than sailing round the coast gave us a real appreciation for the area we had sailed through.  I don’t think we had realised how remote places like Camarinas were, or how poor the area appeared to be. It explained the apparent lack of investment in the area.

We drove back to Santiago and arrived at about 1800, parked and walked around this amazing city.  So the story goes, the body of Santiago Apostol (St James) was transported here in a stone boat from the Holy Land after his execution in Jerusalem in AD44.  (Stone boats – crazy!)  Pilgrims started to flock to the town and today it is the end of the 800km Camino de Santiago pilgrimage route across Northern Spain.  It is a stunning city, reminding me of Bath, but even more beautiful and with even more beautiful architecture.  The stunning cathedral is the centerpiece, and we managed to sneak inside at the very end of Evening Mass, when they had lit a massive incense burner which they then hoisted into the air.

Santiago de Compostela Cathedral

We headed back to Bayona and were in bed by midnight, tired but happy after a very long day out.  We will definitely be hiring cars again – a great change of scenery.

The following day was more jobs, filling up with fuel, water, doing various things around the boat, before casting off and anchoring just beyond the marina (cunningly still in wifi range) for the night, to save money and keep clear of the wash from the fishing boats.  We had a lovely quiet night.