Safely round Finisterre and all alone again

To be honest, we'd been slightly apprehensive about Cape Finisterre - it juts out into the Atlantic swells and the prevailing northerly winds accelerate round it to produce some pretty unpleasant sea conditions. Received wisdom is therefore to go offshore by at least 4 miles into deep water.

We rounded it yesterday, less than a mile offshore in absolutely perfect conditions! We had a following northerly wind, up to Force 5 at times, but a flat sea so with the sails goosewinged (foresail poled out one side and mainsail out the other; the Germans call it 'butterfly') we fairly sped along with no rolling. Wonderful!

The local fishing boats were pretty active all along the coast (the the fresh fish here is amazing - last night we had the most delicious baby squid and razor clams at the little restaurant in Camarinas marina).

To make a pretty special passage even more memorable, we were joined by dolphins again:

Finally we rounded up into Ria de Muros, the most northern of the four Rias Baixas which indent deeply into this coast for a nice beat in flat water up to the little marina at Portosin. Pretty much a perfect 44 mile voyage so we really enjoyed our post-sail beers in the very smart yacht club here.

Sadly we've parted company with Stormvogel, for the moment at least, this morning. It's been great to have their company (and Peter's brilliant photos) but they are making south to Vigo to meet up with family and, they hope, resolve the engine overheating problems that they have so far been unable to solve.

We're going to take our time and explore the Rias for the next week or more with hopefully more great sailing and fabulous scenery.