RÃa de Pontevedra : Porto Novo
23rd may moved to RÃa de Pontevedra, anchoring between Porto Novo and Sanxenxo off Playa Silgar, anchored. The beach looked like Weymouth – full of newish buildings such as hotels and tourist places, and a busy beach.
24th May spent some time in Porto Novo, looked like everything was closed but went up the hill into what looked like the old town, lots of tavernas were closed but found a fruit and charcuterie shop with a few customers. We got pounced on by an old local lady in the shop, not sure if she was staff or not, she spoke no English but detained us for what seemed like hours going on in Spanish, but not seeming to have any realisation that we did not have a clue what she was on about, or not seeming to care. She kept touching Daniel which he hated, he hit her to try and make her go away but unfortunately it didn’t work so I picked him up to get him out of most of harm’s way. In this part of Spain at least there are lots of old people about and they seem to absolutely love kids, mostly its great but they also feel it is their right to touch the kids, old men ruffle Dan’s hair which is ok but the old ladies seem to consider it their right to touch his face etc and I would hate it myself, sometimes Dan is never left in peace!
On the bright side in the shop we also met a lady called Beatrice and her daughter Carmin, this put Dan at ease a bit and Beatrice helped a little bit with a smattering of English. After a coffee in a bar with menus out but no food available until the next day (?!) we went down to the front where we found a café which served us a good cheap lunch of chorizo (spicy sliced dried sausage) with bread and beer and coke. A couple arrived with a little boy who Dan instantly started playing with, they got on very well and played with the gravel with a toy spade and rake. We made friends with them, and the little boy Javi, who was four, soon sung us a perfect rendition in English of “I can sing a rainbow”. They start their language tuition early here! Then he sung us the Spanish version of “The Wheels on the Bus” and so we got Dan to sing the English version to them! Followed by Twinkle Twinkle Little Star in English (Dan) and in Spanish by the little boy. The family came from Valladolid towards Madrid way, and were on holiday in Porto Novo for a long weekend. The father spoke the most English, he works in television on the technical side and he travels around the region for his job. We swapped email addresses and took photos.
We went back to the boat and then to the beach for a couple of hours. Dan jumped off the rocks and splashed around while Nigel snorkelled with speargun and caught a mullet for tea, we cooked it later with garlic, onion, leeks and cheese sauce, it was delicious and Dan had loads of fish!
It was a quiet night, except that we were buzzed several times in the night by a boat and in the morning by a police boat.