Pontevedra Now

We have just arrived at Combarro near the top of the naviable part of Ria Pontevedra. It was a surprisingly long trip round here from A Pobra de Caramiñal being over 20 miles but it is really nice here and the batteries are now nearly completely charged up which is a good thing. Our intention was to run up to Pontevedra itself with a view to visiting the chart agent there. However, as it is now past three, we are going to spend the night here at anchor, go into the marina tomorrow and then finally head off to Bayona on Saturday before taking off for Portugal.

The relief of having the ability to charge our batteries is huge though it would have been nicer not to have had to spend three days in limbo at Vila Nova

Now we are in Combarro after a longer than expected motor. Usually I chafe badly at having to motor much – something we have done a lot of on this cruise – but this time it felt good to know that a good bit of charge was going into the batteries.

Combarro is a funny town. It had it's origins in an old fishing village that wound up being selected for preservation and so is the first genuinely touristy place we have visiteed complete with street hawkers. The old village is ruthlessly restored with tiny but immaculate granite houses complete with a huge number of stone grain stores known as horrários

We spent last night at anchor but today we are in the marina having the avowed plan of going to Pontevedra to find a chart agent. As it happens, we found a suitable commercially produced chart of Ria de Vigo in the little chandlery here. We then completely failed to find the bus stop so failed to get to Pontevedra. Still, we had a good lunch in a local cafe of which there are dozens.

Tomorrow we head round to Baiona (Bayona en Castellano) where we will take our departure from NW Spain and head south to Portugal. First stop is planned to be Leixoes just outside Porto. Then, on to Lisboa, possibly breaking the trip at Peniche or Figuera da Foz.