The Spanish met office forecast for Finisterre was NW 5 or 6 occasionally 7 later. Not what I was seeing in my forecasts, but they'd been pretty consistently giving that sort of forecast all week. 3 of us left Camariñas at the same time. A French boat turned north into the swell, where as we turned south in the company of another monohull. It wasn't that windy, but we were making progress under genoa alone whilst we had some breakfast. The monohull alongside us was rolling its guts out - looked distinctly unpleasant onboard. The wind was now reaching 18knots and another boat was catching us by motoring we think. So we put the parasailor up, and were soon doing 8-9knots and pulling away. Marvellous - but would it get windy as we reached the Finisterre headland? The short answer was no. The wind never passed 20knots and by the time we were south of Finisterre it had almost disappeared. We were delighted to be passed the headland, and on to the "softer, southern rias". We had plenty of time to work out the pilotage into Ria de Arousa through the Paso del Carreiro and onto our planned anchorage for the night. The coast reminds us of the North Brittany Coast - large lumps of pinkish rocks. It's a lot warmer though!

We planned to spend at least a week in Ria de Arousa, then a few days in Ria de Pontevedra and the Atlantic Islands that form a national park before stopping at Baiona for fuel and provisioning. At least 2 weeks without a marina - bliss!