Ria De Muros

Friday 12th September 2008
I woke up at 0615 utc only to find it still dark and that’s just against my religion! Instead, 0815 saw me consuming honey toast and a cuppa before getting myself and the boat ready. Last usage of the marina facilities before noticing that I have about 0.5m under my keel, ordinarily fine but the large power boat that has now moored next to me to my right (between Peter and myself) mean I have to reverse out toward the shore to ensure the bows of Doris do not scrape a nice speed stripe down the front of the powerboat. Oh well, I’ll go and buy some straps for the dinghy before departing and the tied will come up a bit. I bump into Niels and say farewells, hoping to catch him down the line.

Finally Colin helps me slip my lines. I head out into wide open water to get in the fenders etc Funny, I am a fender short, I look all over the boat but no its gone – stolen?
I head around the breakwater to see white water at each side of the Ria entrance. Out come the binoculars. It’s barrelling!!! Overhead and barrelling, ordinarily I would be pleased to see such a sight, but not today. The forecast wasn’t promising either. Swell 5-6m decreasing to 2-3m. First decision is to turn around and drop anchor, but I edge closer.

The thing I have learned is that if you can see something, no matter how small it looks – its big! I see no waves in the centre channel and edge closer with the motor on and mainsail pulled in tight. I make it past the Ria entrance and desperately try to find deeper water. At 60m depth the waves are huge. Not breaking, but just steep and a little bit confused. They well up from nothing and roll toward you and everything in your body is screaming ‘sh*t!’.

From the cockpit perspective you measure the wave height against the spreaders and this alone seems insane! But they do not break, just pick you up and roll underneath you. The secret is to not give in to the urge to hammer the throttle forward because it looks like you will not make it over the top as this means you launch the boat into a huge drop the other side of the wave. By steering hard over at the crest you allow the wave to let you down slowly the other side.
Once again sailing is pointless as there is very little wind and the weight of the boom and canvas cause a gybe with every wave. Slowly I am getting used to waves, I still hate them but I am getting used to what can be negotiated ‘safely’.

I won’t bore you with the details, suffice it to say that for the next 4-5 hours I was a slave to the helm and aside from the odd visit from the dolphins, not really enjoying the trip at all. For some reason, maybe because I hate the noise of the engine I found myself singing. Mainly elvis songs at the top of my voice – after all no matter how bad it sounds, who’s gonna hear? Dolphins can’t speak – can they?

Now … the next few words come hard for me, because for those who know me well, I have a bit of reputation to retain. I am not sure what happened and can’t even begin to explain it – but here goes…

I must have sung myself into some euphoric state of mind, because my chain of thought started to wonder towards how lucky I am. About Kat my girlfriend, all my very good friends back at home (many of whom I hope are reading this), the boat and life in general. How things always seem to work out for the best despite the (sometimes dangerous) situations I constantly find myself in, etc, etc. I reached the conclusion that I should think about saying ‘thank you’ in some spiritualist manner to who/whatever it is that’s looking out for me. With a big fat fluffy solitary cloud in sight, I looked up said aloud and with conviction ‘thank you’.

The next few seconds I can’t explain. The boat took off and surfed down another huge swell but instead of coming to a wallowing stop as always, seemed to keep going. I had dolphins both sides jumping clear out of the water and then when the ride was over, complete calm. I was completely ‘freaked’ and then for some unknown reason, simply burst into tears! I have no idea why or over what. For the entire day I had not eaten or written any log entries due to the demands of helming and yet there I was sitting and writing Kat an SMS in some desperate effort to share the experience.

Maybe I am starting to lose my sanity, or I had heat stroke from being in the sun, or lack of food throughout the day? I have no clue, suffice it to say it was weird… When I return do not be surprised if I’m chanting and making offerings to the Gods etc…

The wind finally made an appearance late in the afternoon building from 15kn to over 25kn and I sailed down wind and surfed (10kn+) for hours on the mainsail alone, before entering Ria De Muros about 19:00 utc just as it started getting dark.

Breakage for the day, upon lowering the mainsail I noticed that the slider that is (was) attached to the headboard (fitted with the bat cars in Brighton) has ripped off – yet another thing to repair!

I entered the anchorage in darkness and found that what looked like an empty stretch of water actually had about six other yachts at anchor all without anchor lights.

Anchor down in about 6m of depth, I reversed until the chain was ‘bar tight’. Took a few bearings and with the offshore breeze at around 2kn made the best tasting cup of coffee I have had for a long time before passing out!

Dave from Brighton called me to let me know all the latest and greatest from the world of boating, it was good to hear a familiar voice.