All at Sea

Yesterday began unpromisingly enough with what sounded for all the world like heavy gunfire. I suppose it could have been some of the notorious fishermen who use explosives to blow the fish out of the water but it did sound strangely like cannon fire. And this before we had even got up!! We wondered if the ghost of Sir Francis Drake had been spotted in Vigo bay and someone was firing at him, trying to prevent him from getting away with more treasure.

In addition to gunfire we had clouds, rather thick clouds. Now, this was a disappointment as we had made plans to take our friend Steve to spend the last full day of his visit on the Islas Cíes. We put off the decision until after breakfast which was just as well as it did begin to clear up. By the time we set off for the port you could see that the sun was shining on the islands, even if it had not quite made it all the way to Vigo itself yet. Down at the harbour we had a choice of ferries to the islands: three different companies competing for our custom. We opted for the one that left earliest; there seemed to be no point in hanging around for three quarters of an hour if you can set off in ten minutes time.

We did wonder if we were going to make it as the two charming assistants seemed unable to deal with a customer apiece but had to deal jointly with each request for tickets. Then they asked for my DNI. (Why? I noticed that the Irish family who were behind us in the queue were not asked for passport numbers when their turn eventually came. I never fathomed that one out.) Then it took them forever to enter data on the computer and then write by hand on our tickets the departure times for our outgoing and return journeys. We finally made it onto the boat, no thanks to the VERY garbled instructions from the aforementioned charming assistants, and sat there for well over ten minutes after departure time before we weighed anchor and were off for the islands.

The sun had come out properly by now so Steve and I slathered ourselves with sun cream while Phil chose to sit in the shade. And off we went, admiring the small boats on the water, oohing and aahing at the sights and generally enjoying the journey.

The harbour on the main island has been much improved since we last visited and there is now an excellent boardwalk going from the harbour café up to the path through the trees leading to the campsite. Last year we watched poor campers struggling to pull their gear over sand dunes in small handcarts. Life must be much easier for them now. More importantly as far as we are concerned is the fact that the harbour café is now equipped with proper machinery for making espresso coffee, producing excellent café solo, cortado or café con leche instead of pouring coffee coloured sludge from huge thermos flasks as they did last year.

Like the Grand Old Duke of York, we walked Steve up to the top of the hill – to see the lighthouse – and we walked him down again – to have lunch at the Café del Lago restaurant on the campsite. I didn’t realise it had a name until this visit. En route we saw numerous seagulls (but only ONE pigeon all day) and a reasonable selection of lizards.

We also saw an antisocial creature who clearly could not walk up to the lighthouse without taking his music with him. Now, I find it hard to see WHY anyone needs to be plugged into their MP3 player as they walk through the peace and quiet of a nature reserve but as long as they keep it to themselves, that’s their business. This happy chap must have broken his earphones, however, or maybe he thought he just had excellent taste in music, because he had his music playing at full volume for all to share. We exercised restraint and did not tell him what an idiot we thought he was. Instead we just overtook him as quickly as possible and crossed out fingers that he was not planning to eat in the same place as we were. Fortunately this turned out to be the case and we were well pleased.

After lunch and a couple of cold beers we went for a paddle and a stroll on the beach and then watched with interest to see how long it would take for our boat to decide to come to the quayside. It had arrived some two hours earlier, discharged its passengers and moored itself in the bay. As departure time came and went and people started to queue in the sunshine – we sat on the terrace of the café finishing our newly available good coffee – the boat eventually got going, pulled up at the quayside and we all embarked.

Now all day long, on the outward journey, while we were clambering up the winding path to the lighthouse we had seen a different kind of boat circling around.


A bit ominous! Was something going on that we didn’t know about? Did this explain the sound of apparent cannon fire earlier in the day? We had no idea. When we got back to Vigo there were a couple more of them tied up alongside the Estación Marítima. Curiouser and curiouser!!!

No explanation being immediately available, we made our way homewards, stopping of at La Porchaba bar, one of our favourite watering holes in Vigo, for a couple more beers in the evening sunshine and finally home for a light supper and the end of a splendid day.

Now, this morning in El Faro de Vigo I read that the Infanta Elena, eldest daughter of King Juan Carlos, is coming to this fair city tomorrow to take part in a flag-presenting ceremony involving the imposing grey vessel we saw in the bay. As one of various acts accompanying the Festival Aéreo Internacional, the frigate 'Méndez Núñez' is going to be officially presented with a flag and Princess Elena has the job of handing it over. The other two boats in the harbour are apparently the 'Galicia' and the 'Juan Sebastián Elcano'. There will also be lots of planes and parachutists getting up to high jinks.

It’s a good job someone has been decorating the Plaza de Compostela then, isn’t it?