Witch’s log, 20th to 23rd of June 2018
We set sail on the 20th for a relatively close town called Villa Garcia, passing Isla d’Arosa on the way waving to Peter’s boat is which stood ashore. It was only a 10 mile trip. Villa Garcia, as the great book suggests, doesn’t have much for it. It’s a town, not a pretty one I’d say, with of all things a Mac Donald’s in front the marina 😱 It was more expensive than others and its showers were the worse we’d experienced so far, with boiling water that couldn’t be turned cold. Ouch how I suffered. In a few words, avoid it!
On the 21st we set sail to Ria d’Pontevedra, or motored as there wasn’t much wind, to rendezvous with David and his boat the White Angel in Combarro. After quick dinner onboard David showed us the old town (he’d been) which is amazing and a must see, thank you! We had drinks and a very pleasant evening.
The 22nd … we said goodbye to David and Combarro and set sail once more. The next port would have been Bayona some 20 or so miles south, the last in Spain towards Portugal and Lisbon. This is when I had the brilliant, or rather stupidly late idea of calling them ahead and asking if they’d have a berth for a year. Which, guess what, they didn’t, and there was a waiting list 😱
To clarify, Lisbon has 4 marinas run by APL, they’re reasonable and affordable. They’re sadly also all full. Then there’s Expo which you must avoid at all costs, it’s not only far as it dries, has all sorts of problems and is just not very nice I’ve been told. Then there’s Oeiras which, at the rates they quoted me, are way punching above their weight. And there’s Cascais which is just ludicrously expensive pretending to be Lymington.
This wasn’t going to work. On top of there being no space for the Witch, I’d fallen in love with the Rias and had been considering their beauty and appeal. Instead of turning left we turned right, 40NM back to Muros, and moored, but this time for a period of 6 months – 1 year.
It’s been 820 nautical miles and 23 days since we left Plymouth on the 1st. It’s finally time to rest and settle for a while.
What an extraordinary experience this was, thank you to all involved and helped making it possible. Its time to go back to our lives, hoping to return later in the season for the last of the summer sailing.
Thank you dear reader for keeping faithful to these sometimes long winded chronicles. And until the next news, Witch out!
