Northern Spain

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Scallywag

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My Boat is currently on the Loire.

We are gradually heading South. The plan at the moment is to sail to La Rochelle and then make the hop to Spain. The question is how far West to aim for the initial landfall in Spain.

Our sailing is a series of 7/10 day cruises with returns to the UK in between, so we need sensible places to leave the boat along the way.

Could anyone who has travelled east-west on the Northern Spanish coast suggest, from their experience, what they would do? And any dos / and donts of places to visit in northern Spain?

Cheers,
 
We hopped across to Gijon which was our planned destination but if doing it again I would tend to be a bit flexible on destination depending on wind direction. On reflection we could have made a good course for Viviero or La Coruna, wonderful thing hindsight.
 
We did what you're doing starting in 2009. We did an overnight from Royan to Cap Breton & then days sailed the entire coast of N Spain. There are some terrific places & we have no regrets. Hondaribia on the French/ Spanish border still ranks amongst the nicest places we've been.
PM me if you wish & I'll send you the link to our blog.
John
 
Suggest you search for threads on this forum and on Scuttlebutt over the last three years where this question has been answered in great detail, several times. Search for Plomong and then go on to widen your search. IIRC, one of my posts references a set of earlier threads.

Plomong
 
mogy said:
There may be flights from Gijon to the uk.From what friendas tell me the inner harbour is best if leaving the boat unattended.
Click to expand...

I seem to remember that Marina Yates was slightly cheaper than the one nearer the town. http://www.marinayates.es/

We were there last year and it was very quiet. Security was fine and I seem to remember that they passed our documents to the police office in the same building. Free use of decent bikes and I think a big supermarket was closer to Yates than the town marina.

There's a train station in the town and I think that you can get to Aviles & then Asturias airport fairly quickly.
 
There's a fairly detailed description of the coast at http://jimbsail.info/tidal-europe/biscay/n-spain with a map of locations

Harbours which can be entered in any conditions are marked in green on the map - necessary if any swell develops! A coastal rail
chugs (slowly) between Bilbao and El Ferrol, making it easy from any point to connect with an airport. Compared to most other Tidal Europe coasts, this is unspoilt cruising, with relatively few concessions to yachts, and no concessions to foreign tourists. Overnight Ferries to UK from Bilbao and Santander.
 
I will probably be much criticised for this, but particularly if you are short on time I would go west, we only really started enjoying the coast once we got past Ribadeo and particilarlyl into the Ria's. If I where in your position I would plan on leaving the boat in La Coruna, because the airport is very convenient. Good places for us on the way there where Ribadeo, Foz (but don't have ice cream from the little store on the beach, we had really close relationship with the commode for twenty four hours!) San Ciprian (recovering from food poisoning but very welcoming in spite of the comments in the pilot) and Cediro.

The Ria's are the real 'star' of this area, make the most of them :-)
 
Agree with J Fowler. We did the tour of Spain starting in 2009 too. Dropped down the Landes coast from Port Medoc one Friday afternoon in early July. The missile range told us not to pass Archachon until 1800 (the lady in the marina phoned for us so there was no language difficulty)! We were there at 1900, kept going on a beautiful starlit night, slight breeze, gentle low swell, motorsailed all the way to keep the speed up. There are lights along the shore all the way, we were about 3 miles off. By breakfast time there were the mountains of Spain and we too loved Hondaribia.
From there we stopped at a couple of places before Santander, where the marina is walking distance from the airport. Or a taxi ride with luggage. A nice secure marina with good marineros to help you in......quite a change from French ports! We loved Northern Spain and spent a month getting to La Corunna. Don't miss it unless you are really in a rush!
 
I found that N Spain coast so interesting that I covered it 3 times.
Places I found particularly interesting:-

1. Donostia - one of the world's gastronomic centres
2. Bilbao - stayed in Abra Gexto for the Gulbenkian, more interesting architecturally than the exhibits
3. Colindres - big fishing fleet and totally unspoilt fishing town.
4. Santander - big city, enjoyable Club Real
5. Ribasdella - nice anchorage, pleasant town
6. Gijon - over-developed, lots of petty crime
7. Viviero - plenty of protected anchorages and a decent marina.
8. Cediera - excellent anchorage, friendly folk ashore
9. Ferrol - uncomfortable
10. la Coruna - expensive, charming town, but badly catered for yachts.

Once around the corner you've got the Rias Biaxas, one of the best cruising grounds in Europe.

One other worthwhile visit - the Picos d'Europa - variously kept the boat in Llanes, Ribasdella, San Vicente (not recommended), hired a car and went to visit them.

I'd suggest giving that N coast at least 6 weeks for thorough exploration and another 8 weeks for the Rias Biaxas.

The Med is a banal disappointment when you get there so do linger on the way.
 
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