We never did check in to Spain 😬 but did enjoy a few days anchored in Baiona, did a few boat jobs and some shopping, I put my kayak in the water for the first time and went for a little paddle - (I hurt my shoulder kayaking in the Bahamas last year and as it's only just getting better a short paddle was all I dared attempt). 

The weather forecast isn’t great for heading anywhere, little or no wind and frequent fog, most days it's grey and misty/foggy for the morning but does get nicer in the afternoon when we noticed a little bit of an onshore breeze which we decided to take advantage of and make a short hop south.

We decided to head for La Guardia - a small harbour on the Spanish side of the border, when we got there we tried to anchor - it was meant to be sand but we got weed and the anchor bounced like it was on rock! with little space for 2 boats we decided to carry on and headed down the coast to the Rio Minho, a river with a shallow sand bar you have to negotiate to enter, our old pilot book made it sound very uninviting but as we were on a rising tide nearing high water Steve was keen to have a go at getting in - I wasn’t so happy about the prospect as didn’t want the stress 😬, however in we went, on our way towards the bar there were 3 or 4 small boats milling around - we realised that they were following a pod of dolphins - who didn’t seem too impressed and soon disappeared! We headed on in over the bar which was a lot easier that I had anticipated, least depth was 1.4 meters a lot better than the 0.6 we were expecting, around the corner was the pretty little anchorage of Carminha.  Within 5 mins of dropping the anchor there was a Maritime Police boat along side asking for permission to come aboard -  a nice policeman whose english was great came to look at ships papers, passports, insurance and proof of covid vaccinations, if we wanted our passports stamped we had to go to Porto - don’t think we will bother with that 🤣, they had watched us enter the river on camera and he advised us to stay near the island on our way out - apparently they will help visiting yachts negotiate the shallows if asked, soon they were off to Falkor to check them in etc. 

It's a shame we are only staying one night as it's a pretty anchorage and it would be nice to go ashore and explore a bit! 

  

    

Leaving in the morning, beautiful.