A Coruña to Ría de Camariñas

When groups of cruisers get together there is always is talk of weather and where (and when) to go next. On our last night in Á Coruña we had been invited on board Starcharger IV, an Oyster 435 owned by fellow members of the Cruising Association. We explained that we intended to leave the following morning to go southwards. Galicia Met was forecasting NW 4-6 veering N 5-6 (swell 2-3m) for Sat.  For Fri night the UK Met Office was forecasting NW 5-7 perhaps 8 for the Fitzroy sea area. As the wind howled through the traffic control tower at Á Coruña overnight and into the following morning, we rather wondered if we were being a little rash in setting out, despite the fact that both Galicia Met and the UK Met Office were giving good forecasts for the area.

The log impeller removed for cleaning

‘Nothing ventured, nothing gained’ so we elected to have a look-see. We put in 2 reefs before leaving the shelter of the breakwater and, having got outside its lee, we found a really short and nasty chop on top of the swell which seemed to stop BV in her tracks. We only needed to get 3 miles north before we could pay off to sail west but it was a slow slog into wind and sea and would take about an hour. Fairly quickly we realised that the log (odo) was not reading properly. Normally this is due to something (eg seaweed) getting stuck around the impeller and easily resolved by turning the impeller around in its housing. That trick did not solve the problem so it was time to remove the impeller, smartly plugging the hole so that the small fountain did not sink the boat, and then cleaning out whatever shrimp of barnacle had decided to set up home in the impeller. Puzzled, we found no marine inhabitants or obstructions. Also, bizarrely, the log only seemed to give a consistent (but ~40% low reading) if we put it in its housing facing backwards.

Having resolved that problem sufficiently for the time being (a full fix would require a good scrub of the bottom of the boat around the log impeller, something that could best be done at anchor), the chart plotter lost its GPS fix. Clearly the plotter had read the pilot book and had decided that the Costa da Morte was far too dangerous a place to go to. Unfortunately for us, it had not reckoned with multiple backups so we switched the kit to a different GPS aerial. The back-up aerial is down below in the plotter display so gets a weaker signal (not helped by the metal-coated insulation we have put in the headlining). We found the position accurate but got some very strange speed and course over the ground readings. Nicky ran a series of 3-point fixes with the handbearing compass to ensure that we never strayed into danger and confirmed the accuracy of the GPS.

Despite the horrid chop and the electronic gremlins we elected to continue the passage, and an hour or so out of Á Coruña we eventually turned southwest towards Cap Villano and got sailing properly. The gods, however, were clearly not happy with our attempting this passage and so threw thunderstorms at us. What should have been a good sailing leg with plenty of wind about 60° off the bow, turned into a slog with us tight to the wind fighting the thunderstorms as they came through. We timed reducing sail very well, took the heavy rain and hail on our chins (which hurt!) and then suffered the light confused winds just after the thunderstorms with us making very poor headway. Eventually, each time, the influence of the thunderstorms moved away and the steady wind returned so we could progress.

Cabo Villano

The headlands on the Costa da Morte are very impressive; all are surrounded by a goodly collection of rocks, some clearly visible, others lurking under the surface. Cabo Villano is no exception, though most of its outliers are quite close in and mostly visible. Once past and on a more southerly heading, the weather improved markedly and we had much better sailing for the final 20 miles of the trip. Even the log and the GPS started working properly again.

The sombre looking church at Muxía

Camariñas Town

We entered Ría de Camariñas, predictably for this passage, with a thunderstorm close on our tail and with the ría looking quite gloomy and wild. Whilst it was a safe ría to come to no matter what the weather, neither the ría itself nor the town of Camariñas were places to which we instantly warmed. However, we found a secure anchorage off a beach to the north of the town and spent a snug night there, albeit in the pouring rain. The area of the hull around the log impeller was cleaned by sawing a warp backwards and forwards over it but the GPS loss of fix remains a puzzle as when we reselected the main GPS aerial to fault-find, it worked perfectly and there were no sign of any loose connections in the system; one to monitor.