ENG - Galicia National Park Permit

As there are quite a few boats bound to cross Biscay and spend a few weeks along the Spanish NW coast, and I just followed the procedure to obtain the sailing and anchoring permit for the Illes Cies National Park, I thought to write down a brief summary of the whole thing which might be of help; there are actually two necessary authorisations:

to enter the Cies National park you must have two permits. The first one is general, they say it's valid for one year but then they sent me one valid 2009-2010.. Anyway, once you have this permit, and once you know exactly which days (eg July 28+29 and 30th) you will sail or anchor in the National park area, you have to ask a second permit. They will only give you this second permit if you already have the first one.

The nice thing is that you can get the first permit from home:

1. go here http://reddeparquesnacionales.mma.es/parques/cies/guia_auto.htm

2.scroll down and download the word file "Solicitud de navegacion", it should be at this address

http://reddeparquesnacionales.mma.es/parques/cies/pdf/form_navegac.doc

3. AT the top of the page, change the year "2008" to "2009", then fill the form

Nombre y apellido del propietario: Name and surname of the boat owner

DNI/Pasaporte: ID or passport number

then add Email, address, town, post code, phone and fax number (if you have it)

Nombre del barco: name of the boat

Nº de pasajeros: number of crew [I stated the max number of crew allowed in my boat]

Lista y nº de Folio: write "UK Registry numero xxxx" whatever you have SRR or Part1

eslora: Length over all

Puerto base: registry port

nacionalidad: boat registry, UK

Add place and date. Add then

4.a copy of your UK boat documentation: SSR or Part1

5.a copy of your personal qualification documents if you have any (YM, ICC or whatever); if you do not have any no problems just write "No necesario para veleros ingleses"

6. copy of your passport or ID card (whatever you indicated at the beginning of the form) [I sent by email scanned copies of all the documents and the request was accepted]

7. Save the file and send everything as attachments to iatlanticas@oapn.mma.es

8. You should receive the paper autorization by post after a couple of weeks (at least it took that long in my case in january). Once you are in Galicia and know exactly which dates you intend to stay in the Park you may ask the second permit, called "Autorizacion de fondeo", fondeo being anchoring. During summer it is granted for a maximum of three days, and it can be asked either at the local National Park office (in which case you need to ask it at least four days in advance, but no more than 20 days in advance, or you can ask it through this web site

http://www.iatlanticas.es/

in which case there is no minimum advance time
From http://www.iatlanticas.es/ click on "Si desea solicitar un permiso de fondeo clicke aquí".

It will ask you to input DNI number (passport / ID), as there may be different format depending on your particular country, take the one they have put on the yearly authorisation (for example my ID number is something like AF123456, they wrote 123456 on the permit, so you should write 123456)

To get the "Clave de Acceso" (password), look at the yearly permit number, on top of the document: there will be something along the lines of "9876/2009-2010" --> your clave the acceso would then be 9876 (just take off the stroke and year indication).

Tick the two boxes where they ask confirmation about you knowing the park rules, then enter. You will be asked to change your password, type the old Clave de acceso on the first line, then another password, repeated below. Not sure 100%, but as they use numbers everywhere it is probably better to choose a numeric password, anyway in my case it accepted a numeric password. You will end up in a form where you will specify which island and which specific days you intend to anchor there. I have not gone any further yet, but as they say there is no minimum advance time to get the permit I suppose once you click enter they will give a number or something as proof of your second qand final authorisation.

From what I have understood from their site, during summer they will only allow a maximum total of three days (not necessarily consecutive) in the Park, so it's maybe worth considering beforehand which exact place to visit.

Hope this helps, sorry for being so pedantic (It's a nice surprise anyway when you receive the first paper in you home mailbox from "Xunta de Galicia", makes you dream about the upcoming holidays).