Bay of Biscay

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We got a weather forecast from GRIB which appeared to indicate an ideal weather forecast from the Wednesday, but if it took us 3-4 days to cross the bay of Biscay, if we left it much longer we may see much stronger winds towards La Coruna. The decision was made to not delay.

We began with leisurely start on Wednesday after refuelling to catch the west going tides in the afternoon. With SW winds we had to tack past Ouessant (Ushant) avoiding the Chenal du Four with strong tides. It was a very lumpy sea through the gap with wind against tide. Once past Ouessant we set a course of 210⁰ for La Coruna and set up a watch system to take us through the night. With a lumpy sea that continued for the next few hours, it was hard not to feel a bit queasy, which I think we all suffered from. The wind progressively freed up throughout the passage and as soon as we were able to ease the sheets a little our speed picked up giving us a steady 6 or 7 knots - even up to over 9 knots at one point.

The watch system of overlapping 3 hour night and 4 hour days watches seemed to work well where we all tried to spend as much time off we had sleeping to maintain alertness. For a lot of the night sailing we had the moon and stars to steer by, but the second night with a lot of cloud cover, this proved difficult in pitch darkness. Throughout Thursday we were joined by dolphins at different times of the day. For this we were grateful as it meant we all got to see the impressive sight. The sight was really something to behold, one minute you’re sat chatting to the helmsman with nothing around and then from nowhere dozens seem to be jumping out of the water behind the boat. It seemed that the more fuss we made the more they would stick around and be playful, swimming around the bow, jumping over each other. At night you could see their white underside illuminated by the starboard bow light. They almost looked fluorescent. Who’d have thought it - glow in the dark dolphins (allowing for some descriptive license)!

Once we were within 50 miles of La Coruna the wind had swung behind us - perfect spinnaker weather. We hoisted the small spinnaker - it seemed more appropriate to do so with still quite strong winds but after a series of mishaps fuelled by fatigue we settled for a poled out genoa. This maintained our 6-8knots into La Coruna bay.
We ate well underway, mainly thanks to Pete who made sure that everyone was fed and watered most of the journey across.

Two days and two nights later, we arrived in La Coruna very pleased with ourselves and thankful for the full nights sleep we were about to have and for the shower. Imagine how much better this shower will feel after three weeks of sailing... hmmm.

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Photos

Pete at the helm
Leaving France behind...