GALICIA, SPAIN

Galicia, Finisterre and Points South!

By Jenny Fowler, September 2007

Photos by Charles Stirling

How do you get 3 DSRL cameras, one underwater housing with strobes, an assortment of lenses, a laptop and a backup laptop, various disc drives and battery chargers, two full sets of dive kit and maybe a toothbrush and a spare T-shirt onto a plane these days? "With great difficulty" is one answer.

Partner Charles and I like to travel and see new dive sites, so a bit of lateral thinking this Autumn saw us and a carload of kit heading for Northern Spain on the Pride of Bilbao ferry which has no weight restrictions.

Our goal was to dive the rias of southern Galicia. These rias are large inlets on the coast, facing West into the Atlantic. Geologically I guess their formation was similar to Plymouth Sound and Milford Haven, and the Norwegian fiords. They are spectacular, forming huge sheltered harbours surrounded by rugged countryside. There are four main rias in Southern Galicia and this region is known as the Rias Baixas (Lower Rias) region. We set out to dive the area from our base at Casa Quireza (see Alison Boler's report Here for details of this excellent farmhouse "home away from home")

Ria de Pontevedra

The Ria de Pontevedra was our introduction, with a shore dive at Playa Lagos. It's cold-water diving but very colourful with many different types of seaweed. Green fingers waved from the rockface, finely branched yellow wrack and pink or blue coralline growths provided shelter for sea urchins and starfish. Top shells browsed on kelp and small gobies camouflaged themselves perfectly on the clean black and white sand. Spaces between the boulders sheltered shoals of tiny fish, newly hatched and still carrying their yolk sac. Pipe-fish and wrasse hid among the seaweed and a tompot blenny guarded his crevice, blending with the pink coralline fronds.

Ria de Vigo

Next we travelled further south to the Ria de Vigo. This is a long, wide expanse of sheltered water. In Vigo harbour, ocean-going fishing boats are tied up all along the dockside which is lined with huge refrigerated warehouses supplying seafood across Spain. We went out with a local club who had chartered a hardboat, a sturdy ex-mussel tender boat with plenty of deck space for kitting up.



An unusual and interesting feature in the harbour is the mussel platforms, big wooden rafts with ropes hanging down in the water where mussels grow until they are large enough to be harvested. The dive was next to one of these, near the Borneira lighthouse towards the seaward end of the ria. Navigation is easy on this dive, descending next to the mussel ropes and exploring along one of the heavy chains which anchor the platform to the seabed. There's a profusion of invertebrate life here. Maybe food is introduced into the water for the mussels, or perhaps when they are harvested the growth of algae and smaller creatures is cleaned off the shells and falls to the seabed. Feather stars flourish under the platform, and a cuttle fish made a fleeting appearance.

Further away, a large sea pen was rooted in the sand, its polyps fully extended to feed. An unusual and rather rare find, identified as Veretillum cynomorium, with help from Plymouth marine lab on our return.

This dive was fairly shallow averaging 15m and so interesting that we stayed down for nearly an hour. Despite my 7mm semi-dry suit I got really cold by the end and started shivering. This in turn increased my air consumption so I set off back sooner than I would have had to if I had been warm. I'd say that if you have a drysuit, bring it! The water temperature, in September, was only 13- 14 Celsius.

Cies Islands

The Ria de Vigo is sheltered to seaward by the Cies Islands, tough granite outcrops which meet the Atlantic surf with high cliffs to the west and slope down to crescents of sand on the sheltered easterly side. We dived here with Paulino Fernandez who has a dive shop Cies Sub which is on the harbourside in Vigo. He runs a good RIB to get out to the islands quickly. We wanted to dive the exposed side of the islands but the wind was picking up and the 2 metre swells looked like increasing. A dive close in on the sheltered side was the practical option.







We explored the granite wall of the island, where wrasse sheltered among the broad leaves of kelp. A moray eel lurked in a hole and two octopus were cunningly concealed and camouflaged. The islands are part of a National Park, protected from private fishing sadly not commercial, and huge shoals of juvenile fish swam in the open water. You need permission to dive here (mainly because spear fishing is still popular in Spain, and a ban is enforced in the Park). Paulino can organise permission but you must have your passport and qualification card as the Park rangers may check it.





Ria deNoia and Muros

Further north is the Ria of Noia and Muros. We dived this from the fishing town of Porto do Son which has a very spacious harbourside area and a wide, well maintained slipway.

Marcelino Gonzalez, of dive shop Mergullo Compostela, is setting up a new operation and already has gas blending facilities and (luxury!) changing rooms with hot showers. His purpose-built hard boat should arrive ready for the 2008 season. Meanwhile we went out in a small inflatable, which will be the tender to the new boat, and explored boulders around a point to the south of the harbour. These sheltered a good range of life and we found octopus, crabs, a variety of starfish and a Sea Hare. Large wrasse hung between the boulders and shoals of bib moved around us. Again the water is 13.5 Celsius. Marcelino was suitably kitted out in dry-suit and I explained in a mixture of Spanish and sign language that I regretted leaving mine at home.



Finisterre

This was the most northerly point of our trip. Finisterre harbour is sheltered by the point jutting out to sea and bearing a lighthouse. The name is so familiar from the shipping forecast that I was surprised to find it is a quiet little town with a modestly sized fishing harbour. Jose Carillo of Buceo Finisterre met us by the harbour and we kitted up. Joining some Spanish trainee divers we loaded up the bright yellow RIB and left the harbour, rounding the headland that bears the famous lighthouse. Conditions were excellent with calm sea and blue sky and we reached the dive site in about ten minutes. Descending the anchor line, we found the boiler of a steamship looming up on the sea bed. This was the Barco Maria del Carmen which went down in 1901 and lies in 39m of water, an atmospheric tangle of wreckage which we explored, using torches to see the colour of the gorgonians growing on the steel ribs and plates. We were all on single tanks and could not spend long here as computers soon indicated a 10 minute stop was needed on return, but this was easy to manage with calm conditions and a good solid anchor line.

Our second dive was another nearby wreck. One of the most dramatic chemistry lessons from my schooldays focused on the interaction between a small piece of metallic sodium and a bowl of water. Hydrogen is produced and catches fire. In 1987 the Cason, a Panamanian-registered freighter, was carrying barrels of metallic sodium along with other chemicals. When seawater leaked into one drum of sodium this reaction took place on a large scale with a disastrous fire and explosion, sadly killing 23 of the 31crew. The fire is pictured at this website. Here

The wreckage lies in about 10m of water. Parts of the ship which survived the original explosion are still recognisable and we were able to explore right round the ship in a 40 minute dive.

Overall Impression

The Rias Baixas area has great potential for UK divers looking to extend their horizons. Conditions are quite similar to what we are used to, so training and equipment requirements are similar. Most of the divers we met were just training locally before going off to warm-water holidays and relatively few dive here regularly. Dives sites, slips and car parks are far less crowded than in the UK, and restaurants and bars for that all-important apres-dive moment are great quality and value.

Seafaring is a long tradition in Galicia and the coast is notoriously dangerous to shipping. As diving has not been as intensive as in similar areas of the UK, there are probably many wrecks to be discovered, from Armada times and onward. Information is fairly sparse but here's is a taste of it on this website Here. It is all in Spanish but contains videos by a small group of rebreather divers who are exploring wrecks in the area. (Follow link Expediciones to find the videos.) I think that a club group of wreck or technical divers could have a really good, adventurous expedition here. Alternatively the shore or shallow diving is good for training and for newly qualified divers so there is potential for everyone in a group at varied levels of experience to enjoy the diving here.

Topside there is plenty to do for non-diving partners as the coast and countryside are lovely and there are many historic sites from the stone age through to beautiful medieval towns. (See my article on Pontevedra at Here for example)

As the area is not a well-trodden tourist trail, you may find that not all operators speak English. In fact some speak the local language, Galego. Chris Gait at Casa Quireza is bilingual in English and Spanish and can cope with Galego. He will organise diving through his Dive Galicia operation. This is a good option if you have no Spanish-speakers in your group, and you also get the benefit of his local knowledge and contacts.

Useful Information

Chris Gait's Dive Galicia Website
E-Mail: info@divegalicia.com
Tel/Fax: +34 986 753 173
Mail: Dive Galicia, Outerio 16, Quireza, 36116 Pontevedra, Spain

General information on the Rias Baixas region Here

Getting there

We drove from the ferry port in Bilbao. The road (E70) is up to motorway standard nearly all the way and there was no congestion.

P&O Ferries Tel 08705 980 333 Website

The ferry sails from Portsmouth every three days. It takes 36 hours but there is a good whale-watching programme which makes this an interesting trip in itself. See Here and my article Here for more about this.

The nearest airport is Santiago de Compostela. It could be worth checking flights to Porto as well.

Costs

The ferry costs more than flying, but you get there with your own car or minibus and all the kit you want to take. Checking prices for September 2008, a minibus with 4 people sharing an inside cabin would be around £700 return. A car with two people is around £450 return.

In Spain, petrol was about two-thirds of the UK price. We found we could get a double hotel room for 50 to 65 euros on the drive over to Galicia. Meals seemed better value than the UK, costing around 20% less, and it was easy to find restaurants offering good local food.


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