We ended up staying on the dock in Dingle for 8 days – bringing our time in Ireland to 15 days – but still not allowed off the boat as Ireland (or at least many of her ports) are closed to all foreign vessels. We were going a bit stir-crazy, so once the weather had eased, we decided to head to a nice anchorage by Valentia with an opportunity for a mini gathering with OCC boat Stealin’ Time (Tom and Pam) who we’d last seen in Antigua in 2016 – they duly arrived and shared a beverage aboard Toodle-oo! and regailed us with their recent anchorage experience in which they’d seen gusts to 63 and had dragged twice during the night! Ouch! It was great to be able to meet up with cruising pals – the first since August of last year (Ocean Hobo)!

 

The weather forecast was continuing to give us problems – but a ‘sort-of’ window was opening to allow a crossing of Biscay the following morning – BUT it would be boisterous with tailwinds of 25 gusting to 40 and heavy seas. The alternative was not clear – with no crossing opportunities for the forseeable forecast future – another 10 days stuck aboard Toodle-oo! was not particularly enthralling! We hummed and haaaed all morning and it wasn’t until the anchor actually came up that we committed to the crossing.

A ‘crossing’ it was! Fortunately, the wind came in behind us and stayed there pretty much the whole trip. The waves were around 3 – 4 meters and slightly across – so the ride was extremely unpleasant with both of us feeling queezy for the first 48 hours. Fortunately, the rain stayed away, so we were able to stay in the cockpit fairly comfortably and avoided a meeting with Ralph and Huey! We arrived in A Coruña just 3 days 4 hours later – with an average speed of some 7.4 knots – and just 5% usage of the engine!

We anchored off a pretty beach in the north of the ria for a few days – which included a trip by dinghy into A Coruna and a hircut for Laurie…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We moved to the Marina to await the arrival of Simon and Jenny aboard Fenetia. Our second gathering in under a week! They arrived having suffered a pretty nasty crossing of Biscay too – from northern Britany. We had a lovely couple of days catching up with them and enjoyed a fabulous lunch. Our livers took a serious beating over the course of our gathering!

 

We stayed an extra day in A Coruña exploring the old city and then decided to take advantage of mild weather to get around Cape Finisterre – which unfortunately turned into a 13 hour motoring extravaganza! However, we’d prefer no wind to too much – though could have done without the fog that persisted from the cape right up to our destination in Ria de Muros. Once again, we caught up with Fenetia and once again the livers suffered!

Muros is a lovely old city with narrow streets and alleyways and we’ve been enjoying fabulous weather – though it’s somewhat tiresome having to wear masks everywhere we go.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tomorrow we’ll head into Portosin marina, where we’ve arranged rental of their car (35 Euros) and will head inland to meet Bas and Agnes (of Tisento) who are estranged from their boat which is in Australia, but who have just purchased a property in the Rias – boy are we getting to be sociable!!! (And we get to bring our laundry!!!)