Matthew and I locked out of Sutton and dropped the hook in Cawsand bay which felt like a much better place to take our departure.
Come the Tuesday morning and we decided that we would be as ready as we ever were going to be. The forecast was even promising with easterlies filling in on the next day. A bit of discussion about whether to break the journey in France culminated in us taking the decision to push on all the way to Spain and go outside the TSS off Ouessant. Our last sight of the UK was St Austell bay where we turned our nose south and then through the night we had the Lizard slowly receding to starboard. Of course the wind died through the night.
At least the wind filled in for us in the Western Approaches to the Channel. I had decided to take an offshore route round the outside of the Ouessant traffic separation zone. For non-yotties, the authorities set up dual carriageway systems round headlands where shipping concentrate. Of course, there aren't corresponding purple lines drawn on the sea as you see on a chart but shipping is only allowed to travel in the direction indicated on the chart or at right angles to it. Small boats such as us are basically expected to keep well clear.
The sun didn't show her face but we had a nice easterly that gave us some of the fastest sailing of the whole passage as it turned out. We finally got south of the TSS just as it was getting dark. The error of going outside (I didn't want to have to worry about tides inshore on the Brittany Coast which run quite hard) turned out to be an error as we needed to be in side the line of shipping going between Ouessant and Finisterre 300 miles to the south. This meant crossing the shipping lane and doing it in the dark was a bit too scary for us even with the AIS to help so we gybed to the west and then veered in to time our arrival at the shipping lane again for dawn – conveniently at the end of my watch.
The passage settled into a proper routine after we had got across the shipping lane. As is usual on Sarah Giddings, we worked a six hour watch system rather than the traditional four hour one. I am now a firm convert to this when you are sailing two up. It gives the off watch person the chance of a good solid four hours sleep once they have come off watch, taken oilskins off, had a snack and god bedded down. Then you can reverse the process half an hour before coming on watch. We worked it so that I did an evening meal just after coming off watch at 1800 which we took turns to eat. We would then both be on deck around lunch time. On longer passages, I would give thought to having the main meal at midday. Of course, in heavy weather, six hours would be very tiring and a degree of flexibility would be needed.
The second day out was also when we were treated to our first dolphins who spent nearly an hour playing round in our bow wave. Everyone tells you that you will meet lots of dolphins in the Bay and it is true! We still had a good sailing breeze though very much from the north or north east. The only time when the sheets weren't eased was when we first set off from Plymouth and when we were motoring. We still need to work on getting our down wind setup working and the Aries was not behaving for us though I am confident that we can get it to play nicely with a bit of practise and perhaps some cleaning up of bits and pieces. The pawls that rotate the vane definitely need attention.
Through the third night we crossed the continental shelf though on Matthew's watch. He described the water as behaving as it would in a tide race even though it was nearly flat calm at that point with almost no sea running at all. This is one of the reasons the Bay of Biscay is so notorious of course. We now had over three miles of sea water under us!
As I took over at midnight the wind started seriously to drop. I tried to keep her moving but the slatting sails proved too frustrating in the end. I furled the jib and sheeted the main in hard to avoid as much rattling as possible though it was impossible to stop the sail slatting backwards and forwards in a manner all to familiar with boaters and loathed as much as a full gale.
Eventually, I gave up and fired up the engine, a good idea really as the batteries were in a bit of a parlous state and seriously needed some recharging. High on my list of things that would be nice to have would be a windmill! All through the Thursday, the wind remained elusive and we had brilliant sunshine and flat seas. Another huge school of dolphins past us in the late afternoon but there were clearly on business and did not have time to play with yotties, particularly when under power. The wind continued its trick of staying away and, with a couple of brief respites, we had the engine on all night. We had worked our early in the day that we weren't going to make it in on Saturday which would have been the five days predicted so I played with the satellite phone telling both parents and Audrey that Sunday was a much more likely candidate for arrival. It is a truly surreal experience sitting in the middle of the sea knowing that you are hundreds of miles from land and casually visualising the person you are talking to in their living room. The wind continued light right the way to the end.
Each watch change brought us a bit closer until on the final night I took over just after Matthew had crossed the continental shelf though we were still off the bottom of the echo sounder. This was when my fun and games started.
I continued the due south that Matthew had put in so as to raise Cabo Ortegal on the port bow as recommended by the Almanac to avoid the main shipping line, until the GPS told me we were about ten miles off. I turned to starboard with a course to raise Cabo Prior. The AIS then came alive with moving triangles of other ships all of which seemed to be converging on the same bit of sea we were looking to occupy. I spent about three of my six hour watch dodging around to stay clear of various cargo ships bound to and from such places as Bilbau, Gijon, Cadiz and Palermo. The most troublesome was one called Santa Maria which was bound for El Ferrol on a near but not completely paralell course. El Ferrol is just to the north of La Coruña and I wanted to get to seaward of him to as not to have to worry when he turned to port to enter El Ferrol. Eventually, after much muted swearing so as not to wake Matthew up, I managed to achieve being behind him and could relax a bit. That was when the reducing visibility announced itself as thick fog. I stayed up into the morning with visibility less than two boat lengths at times.
A nervous few hours now ensued with me plotting our position nearly continuously while Matthe sat on the helm and peered into the murk while imagining ghostly shapes emerging from the mist. In the meantime a triangle appeared on the AIS, now dubbed the video game, which told me it was a tanker heading to Rotterdam and would pass within .9 of a mile of us. A ten degree change of course to the east increased that CPA (closest point of approach) to 1.3 miles which felt more acceptable. He continued on at 13.7 knots though.
This picture is our first "view" of Spain!
Finally, as we got off the narrow entrance to El Ferrol, the fog lifted enough to give us a glimpse of some land – our fist sight since leaving Fowey behind six days ago. It continued to lift and we finally rounded the long breakwater at La Coruña six days and one hour out of Cawsand. We felt both elated and exhausted.
Now we are here, taken some much needed showers and are getting stuff to rights. I'll update on life in La Coruña soon.
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