Domestic chores in A Coruña

We had arranged to stay in A Coruña for 4 nights because the forecast had lots of strong winds and rain, plus we needed to do some clothes washing and food shopping. That turned out to be a good plan as there were strong winds, it rained pretty much non-stop on Thursday 16 May, and Friday was just a regular series of heavy rainshowers. Drying the washing outside initially seemed to an absolute non-starter and so a small fortune was poured into the marina's tumble drier. We’d chosen the marina close to the entrance to the harbour because it had good refuelling and washing facilities. It turned out to not be the best protected from the swell and so BV moved around a lot on her mooring but we did get a discount on the mooring fees because we are members of the Cruising Association.

The other marina we considered is pictured above; a little closer to town and seemed to be a little better protected from the swell. It also had great views of the grand façade of Galician glazed balconies but was probably just too close to the tapas bars; you’d never have got us out of them! Maybe a mooring spot for our next visit to A Coruña.

The only potential concern was that they seemed to be trialling a novel high density mooring regime to double the capacity of each finger pontoon!

Before the worst of the weather hit we explored the old part of the city under glorious blues skies. It is a labyrinth of narrow stone streets with an impressive collection of old churches and some very pretty small plazas.

The Plaza de María Pita, the main square, is very grand with the impressive town hall pictured above. It also has a statue of María Pita, the Joan of Arc-esque Spanish heroine, who led the defeat of Sir Francis Drake’s failed attack on the city in 1589.

We seem to be finding it harder and harder to keep up with the neighbours!

Having had our fix of the ‘bright lights, big city' and tackled our chores, it is time to start looking at the next step in the adventure. When we arrived we were slightly amused by the groups of worried looking sailors huddled over the internet computer in the marina office checking on the weather. Now we find that we too are looking closely at the weather with the next few steps of our journey around the disturbingly named Costa da Morte (Coast of Death) and the place the Romans named as the end of the world; Capo Finisterre. There aren’t too many safe havens from a storm on this stretch of the coast and the best protected rias are at 40-60nm intervals. There is also a relative lack of tide on this coast which, on the plus side, reduces the planning constraints but, on the negative side, means that there is no watery conveyor belt to step onto to speed us on our way. However, the forecast for Saturday 18 May looks promising for continuing south down the coast, probably for about 50nm to Ría de Camariñas. We should be able to anchor in the northern arm of the ria, well sheltered from both wind and swell, for a couple of days to explore around this wild and rugged ria, before continuing to the 'End of the World' and beyond.