Islas Cies
26th May we motored and sailed to the Islas Cies, an island nature reserve outside the RÃa de Vigo. We anchored great first time in the middle of the bay on the isthmus which joins the two halves of the island, and went to the beach in the afternoon. The island was full of schoolkids camping or on day trips, their ferry eventually came to pick them up. The sand was fine and soft and Dan played for ages.
The next day we went back to the beach and went exploring the Isla de Faro (the southern part) although we were being chased by loads of Spanish schoolkids and Dan was a bit alarmed! When we got to the top we went on the path to the lighthouse which was long and winding, we saw a lot of tiny lizards and a few big ones as well as a lot of nesting seagulls, we were afraid they would start to attack but they didn’t seem too bothered on the whole. The view from the lighthouse was spectacular despite the misty weather.
There was a great view of the Atlantic side of the island and also of the southern separate island which you are not allowed to land on. On the way back down it was getting warmer and many medium-sized lizards were basking on the warm granite edges to the path, if you approached really quietly. We got a couple of good photos of one lizard. We were a bit footsore when we got back down near the beach so we stopped at the restaurant and had a late lunch, it was really nice but not cheap!
After staying on the beach awhile we went back to the boat. We invited over a British couple from another boat for a while later, but at this point the Customs boat from Bayona came for a nose around at who was there, this time it was stopping at each boat and unloading someone for what seemed long periods of time. It was a very scary-looking boat, larger than many yachts and painted dark blue and marked ADUANA, it had very throaty V8 engines designed (maybe) to spark alarm whenever it revved up to move to the next boat! There were only four boats at the beach but it took them probably over two hours to get through two of them, firstly a French catamaran, then the Customs boat returned to Bayona then for some reason returned again and attempted to get the attention of our guests yacht with their hooter but of course they were not on board, they were with us! They went and interrogated the Norwegian yacht. Our guests returned to their boat but after a long wait the Customs boat finished with the Norwegian boat and did not approach us or the English yacht again. Perhaps it was because we had openly stared at them on deck for so long, they thought we had nothing to hide? It was so dark by the time they left, about 10:35 pm, we hadn’t been able to get Dan to bed until then because we were waiting for the Customs boat and Dan was really excited! He wanted them to come and visit but of course we didn’t! We had all our papers ready and I was quite interested in what they would ask about but we didn’t get the chance to find out.