12th to 14th October 2017
Cíes was the busiest of the three Atlantic Islands we visited, by a distance. There seem to be a number of people in both motorboats and yachts who cruise over from Vigo/Baiona for the afternoon, then leave again before the sun sets. As a result, when we arrived around 5pm it was packed and we anchored well off the beach; by the next morning we were one of maybe 5 or 6 yachts left! That pattern repeated the next night, too.
The island, from what we saw, is beautiful. We started one of the walking trails, past the lagoon, and enjoyed it immensely – the lagoon is, as the signs proclaim, like a natural aquarium and Arthur spent some time sitting on the edge of the bridge describing what the fishes were up to. Further up the path, there was some shade in the forest and space for the kids to play. Having got to the point where we could either carry Arthur or cut our walk short, and given it was the middle of a hot day, we followed a minor path which led back to the beach and spent a few hours there, mostly rock-pooling at the Southern end of the beach.
We wanted to stay a little longer, given how lovely our first day at the island was and how peaceful the anchorage was at night. We checked the weather forecast, as the anchorage is very exposed from the East, and seems to receive some swell bouncing-back off the mainland, and saw no problems, so decided to stay another night before moving onto Baiona. Our second day was spent in much the same fashion as the first.
