This is a favourite and very pretty lunch stop anchorage SW of the Isla de Arosa. It is marked with an anchor symbol in the RCCPF Pilot Atlantic Spain and Portugal (page 90 Ed7) but is not mentioned in the text. The Islotes Jidoiro are a group of islets and rocks, the biggest of which are Pedregoso (“rocky”) to the W, and Arenoso (“sandy”), to the E. Anchorage is available in 8 to 10m, close N and NW of Punta Laño, the N point of Arenoso, with its very conspicuous sandy beach. The area is quite badly charted, despite the survey dating only from the 1990s. A group of tiny above-water heads shown on the Admiralty and Navionics charts close NW of the island clearly do not exist, while other charted rocks are not now visible. Punta Laño itself is not rocky as charted. There is however no difficulty in making the anchorage. An approach steering SW, with the beacon tower on
Bajo La Loba bearing 220° over the rocks, and the island beach kept half a cable to port, leads to the anchorage; but do not venture past the N tip of the island as
it shallows very suddenly. The edge is very obvious, and very steep - the bottom rises from 10m to a metre in a matter of 30 to 50m or so horizontally, but at the anchorage and immediately to the S of it, is all sand. Approaching from Bajo Piedra Seca beacon NW of Pedregoso, stay close to, or between, the numerous viveros
to avoid the drying rocks between the beacon and the anchorage.
Arenoso doesn’t offer much shelter, so unless the weather’s very settled it doesn’t make an overnight anchorage.
The island is a nesting site for gulls, and the birds get quite annoyed if you venture up towards the high water mark in the nesting season in early summer. Don’t cross the fence.