Blog 16: The Northern Spanish Coast Part 4 – Ribadeo to A Coruña

Ribadeo

We had a nice sail to Ribadeo, with the wind in the right direction for a change!

It’s cloudy again over the land, though.  We have to get under this bridge to reach Ribadeo beyond – it always looks as if we’re not going to make it, but we do – just!

We anchored the first night just off the timber wharf – the huge tree trunks look like matchsticks!  We were OK for one night, but it’s rather shallow.  

Ribadeo is a pretty Ria, but has many shifting sandbanks which mean you can’t go further up it.  

This is a view of Castropol on the other side of the Ria.  Suddenly in the middle of the evening, there was a long procession of trucks through Castropol, all honking their horns.  We thought it was some kind of protest, but found out later it was to celebrate the fiesta day for the Patron Saint of Truck Drivers!

The next day we moved into the marina and the weather perked up.

A nice pedestrianised area of shops and restaurants in the centre of the town.

It was the Indianos Fiesta that day – there seem to be quite a lot of fiestas!  The Indianos were emigrants who left Galicia to make their fortunes and then built grand houses on their return.  People were all dressed up in white with straw hats.  

This is one of the smart Indianos houses, ‘The Opticians House’

By contrast, these old farm buildings nearby look very rustic.

View from the park of some lovely buildings …

… but sadly at street level beneath this stunning dome the doors and windows were all shuttered and some of the windows were broken.

Another nice building in the town

More interesting and colourful architecture

These are typical Galician glassed-in and rather ornate balconies

The town of Ribadeo is situated on a steep hillside with outdoor lifts to get to the upper level (the grey structure in the middle of this picture) – I took my bike up that way.

I had a nice bike ride round to the Faro Illa Pancha lighthouse …

… with great views on the way there …

… and back.

Not quite sure where this unfinished bridge was supposed to be going?!

Viveiro

We started off sailing to Viveiro in a pretty calm sea. Charles has repaired the autopilot so we don’t have to steer all the time – look, no hands!!

But later the sea got lumpy and the wind dropped so we had to motor-sail.

Ria de Viveiro is delightful, very pretty, pine and tree-covered slopes, quite Swedish archipelago-looking.  

Plenty of space in the anchorage – just one other British boat.  Although it looks calm, it is quite rolly with the swell – perhaps everyone else knows that!

A smoky sunset …

The same view the next morning when I enjoyed a refreshing swim 7 times round the boat – I reckon that’s about 250 metres.

Cedeira

For once the wind was in the right direction and we had a glorious 6 hour sail along the Biscay coast and into the Atlantic coast, which is now no longer counted as the ‘Bay’ of Biscay, even though we’re still on the northern Spanish coast.

Wind mostly behind us, goosewinging at times, we had to ‘rig a preventer’ (i.e. tie a bit of rope on!) as the boom was in danger of gybing.  

The sea is quite lumpy, with biggish waves and swell, but it’s not unpleasant as we are sailing so it feels like a natural motion.  Sometimes the boat is ‘surfing’ and reaches speeds of 10 or 11 knots, even without the genoa fully out. 

Some dramatic rock formations

Cedeira is a lovely anchorage and well-protected from the swell, quite Scandinavian again in how it looks, with wooded sides.  

There are several boats here that we recognise, having met them in previous harbours.  It’s surprisingly breezy, with the wind funnelling down the valley.  Calm enough to swim, but oddly also Scandinavian temperatures, surprisingly cold, so I only did 3 laps of the boat!

Yet another lovely sunset

Ares

We had another good sail until we were off Ferrol, the major Spanish Naval port …

… then the wind died and the fog became so thick that we couldn’t see if any massive tankers were crossing ahead of us! 

We headed for the village of Ares, which has a nice calm anchorage, and is a good place to spend the night before going into A Coruña tomorrow.

Suddenly the peace was disturbed by two Spanish motorboats having a loud and drunken party, shouting and singing through a loud hailer, reverberating all round the anchorage! Two yachts close to them hauled in their anchors and moved away, and the rowdy party must have got the hint as they soon roared back to the marina at great speed.

This is the anchorage at Ares the following morning in better visibility – certainly a sheltered and peaceful spot!

A Coruña

And so finally to A Coruña, known as Corunna in English – our final major port of call before we go round Cape Finisterre to the west coast of Spain.

We had an uneventful motor round to A Coruña on a grey morning – you can just see the huge Tower of Hercules lighthouse in the distance, presiding over the entrance to the harbour.

We went to the marina right in the centre of the city, which is quite loppy especially when a big ship goes past, but an amazing location.

The harbour is surrounded by typical Galician buildings with glazed balconies

We had a wander through the old town

… and found a nice park where there is the tomb of Sir John Moore, also known as Moore of Corunna, who died defending the city against the French during the Peninsular War in 1809.  He had often expressed a wish to be buried ‘where he fell’.

Somewhere within the park there's an oak tree grown from the seedling of an oak in Sir John Moore’s garden in Cobham, Surrey.

We then wandered back to a lovely big open square with the Town Hall on one side, and lots of nice bars and restaurants around it.  We had dinner at one of them with this super view of the floodlit Town Hall.

The following day I went for a bike ride along a fabulous cycle path which goes all round the harbour.

This is the statue of ‘Our Lady of Carmen’, the Patron Saint of Seafarers

Inexplicably, this man-made beach is absolutely heaving with people, their towels almost on top of one another, while the natural beach beyond is half empty!

The cycle ride took me to the famous Tower of Hercules, an important landmark.  

It’s a tower built by the Romans as a lighthouse to warn ships of the rocks and is supposed to be the most ancient lighthouse in continuous use in the world, and still being used today.  

It’s a very impressive structure, of huge height and up on a hill.

Spectacular views along the coast …

… in both directions

This is the Rosa de los Vientos, a mosaic compass rose, celebrating various Celtic countries and regions, including Galicia.

I cycled back via a huge beach on the other side of town.

Graffiti seems to be very prevalent in Spain, but it’s become quite an art form in this colonnade under the coast road I was cycling along.

Back at the harbour – tomorrow we set off to round Cape Finisterre via the Costa da Morte (the End of the Earth via the Coast of Death!!)  A bit daunting!