We are awaiting delivery of the parts we need to fix our poorly winch from the UK. Our original plan had us leaving Combarro by the 8th July latest, so this wait is now delaying us. It's not bothering us too much as the forecast for our sail south isn't great for leaving this week, being light headwinds, so we are happy to wait and explore the area more. A lovely 90 min walk along the coast and through some woods took us to a spectacular beach with a beach bar serving rum cocktails. (why did it take us a month to find that?) and the return walk found us exploring a small river upstream where we found 5 grain Mills, now ruins, in a short stretch.
The following day we had a tour of the Vionta winery where they produce wine using the Albarinio grape from this region. Matching the wine to different cheeses was interesting too. This winery makes 500k bottles a year with just 4 people, the grapes coming from both the winerys vineyard and the smallholding vineyards of scores of private landowners around the winery. Our favourite was called "Depende", ( it depends) apparently named after the Gallacian habit of never committing to a 'yes' or 'no'!! After a few glasses we decided, perhaps unwisely, to walk back to the boat. The route was a track through the woods but was rather steep downhill in the main and took 2 hrs. Fortunately it was a coolish day but we were both shattered afterwards.😀
Poor weather later in the week kept us mainly on board for a couple of days so we concentrated on some more minor boat tasks, washing and softening some salty lines, and 3 trips into Pontevedra to gets some sim cards. Apparently you need your passport to buy sims and the shops shut for random local festivals that are not published. Amanda said the third trip would be an issue with the buses, and she wasn't wrong! Anyway we now have the sims and managed to watch the NZ vs Eng match, shame they lost after such a good display.
Update on parts delivery - our woes getting stuff delivered out here continue, having excitedly tracking the delivery to Santiago, 40 mins away from here, from Southampton in only 10 hrs, we then got a message that due to the nature of the items regulatory approval was needed from another authority. What on earth do they think the parts are? We are not expecting delivery now until at least Tuesday and this is seriously eating into our Schengen time and future plans for the summer. It would have been faster, cheaper and more reliable for one of us to fly home to pick the parts up. How's that for climate impact.
We are trying hard not to think about the fact that we are now not going to get much time to spend enjoying what the Portuguese coast has to offer.
On the plus side, we left the boat at 10pm to walk along the coast where we could hear a band playing and ended up in the middle of a bikers heavy rock festival. We got home at 1am with our ears ringing. Let's just say it was an experience.
