More planning - and a change

Well, the winter progresses and the temperature has taken a dive here which makes us hanker for southern sun all the more. We have been giving more thought to where to go and I have also been consulting others - particularly the Med Section at the Cruising Association. One posting and we now have a wealth of advice most of which is looking very useful.

Our suspicions about the Balearic Islands have been confirmed as being very expensive and overcrowded in high season. Sadly, the mainland coast of Spain is also not looking too attractive and we are now seriously considering heading further east to Sardinnia and Corsica. We would then decide if we wanted to head back to the Atlantic or push furhter east to Greece and Turkey.

There is one worry as reports are coming in of a planned visiting yacht taxt in Italy. The stuff I have read so far has it at 5 Euros a day but reduced by 50% for auxiliary yachts and a further 40% off for older boats which would make it something less than 2 Euros a day for us. I cannot imagine that it would be economical to collect such a small amount of money - not least since it would hardly make a dent in their Berlusconi generated debt of however many trillions of Euros they have. Anyway, it might be Lira by the time we get there!

Apart from that, Christmas, the ROA AGM and the Boatshow are looming. At least the latter two are something to look forward to.

The Planning Process

Well, we have been having various desultory conversations (and some not so desultory). We have been thinking about options for next year. One must remember after all that it is the Olympics here in London and it will be a vey good place not to be - London in 2012

As I probably said before, we are cooling on the idea of heading right into the Med but rather are thinking about staying in the western end and working up the coast of Spain, probably with a visit to the Balearic Islands as well before going up to France and through the Canal du Midi and wintering in somewhere like La Rochelle.

This should be doable in six months to allow us to be tucked up before the autumn gales kick in. We would then also be well positioned to spend much longer on the Atlantic coast of Iberia in 2013.

We do of course have other plans and the least desirable would be not to leave work but to use holidays and weekends to work her up the Coast of Spain and winter on the Mediteranean coast of France perhaps near Montpellier. Still, the worst case would be to have to bring her back the way we came all in a hurry.

We might still head east properly but that is looking less likely. It could all be subject to change though as we are going to the Med Section meeting at CA House this Thursday which might well change our minds again. Time will tell really - as ever.

Of course we haven't had many photos so here are a couple.

First off - back to Easter in the Fal

Now the view from the hill at Muxia

Cabo Sao Vincente

And finally, a sunset while at anchor in La Ria Formosa

Three weeks Back Now

Well, I have been back three weeks now and Audrey has been back for more than a month. I am I suppose properly accustomed to being in the office rather than planning the next passage. It has been quite a struggle to get back into the swing of work. We have however been giving further thought to our cruising plans as well as getting framed enlargements of the better pictures hung on the wall.

This blog has the subtitle of An Attempt to Take Sarah Giddings Cruising in the Med. Well, we have successfully got her to the threshold of the Med and we are now looking at options for the next stage. Our original plan of taking six months to get to Turkey is hopelessly unrealistic - well it would be so if we want to see stuff and enjoy ourselves rather than just rushing on to the next port.

We are also unsure about whether we do want to spend the entire season in the Med given rumours of increased expense as anchorages are gobbled up by expensive marinas and ever more people though the Euro crisis might have an effect on that.

We are also very keen to spend another trip exploring Atlantic Iberia more thoroughly than we did this year. Thus, our current favoured plan is to work our way up the Mediteranean coast of Spain and France before entering the Canal du Midi with a view to wintering in somewhere like La Rochelle. We would then be well placed, in 2013, to revisit the north coast of Spain and onto Portugal. From then, we are really not sure. Planning two steps at a time is probably a good maxim as well.

The CA (Cruising Association) is having a Med Section meeting next week which we will be going to. Our plan is to spend at least part of it picking other people's brains about the best strategies.

If any of the myriad readers of this self indulgent bit of frippery have any suggestions, please feel free to leave some suggestions in the comments.

Testing embedded google maps

View Larger Map

Since Sarah Giddings is now in La Linea, it makes sense to show her there.

Webcam

Turns out Puerto Alcaidesa have a webcam

webcam

We are on the third finger from the left. You can just make her out near the root of the pontoon.

Back in Harness

Well, I have now been back at home for a week. I still dream that I am on the boat at night but now manage to feel the edge of the bed and not leap out to deal with dragging anchors or whatever. That is a relief for Audrey of course.

Getting back into the routine of work has been a bit more challenging but we need to keep plugging away at that for now.

Today was more fun with a run down to Bursledon and the rash purchase of a Rutland 913 windmill. We had a bit of heart searching about it and as Force4 are offering a good deal on the complete kit at the moment it seemed sensible to get it now. We wondered if we should spend the extra ninety quid on the newer 914 but feel that the 913 should be able to provide for our modest needs.

Another purchase has been Lynn and Paul Chandler's harrowing book about their year and a bit in captivity courtessy of Somali Pirates. I am reading it on the tube to and from work. Although you know it has a happy ending it is still very difficult reading and a salutory lesson in how badly the whole thing can go wrong. They are working hard on getting Lynn Rival back in shape ready for more cruising. The book can be purchased here:At Amazon as well as other bookshops etc.

Plans for the future are still quite nebulous but we are currently favouring the idea of heading up the Mediterranean coast of Spain to France and then through the Canal du Midi with a planned winter over in La Rochelle before repeating the Atlantic coast of Iberia more slowly

It is strange being so far away from the boat and not being able to get down to see her simply by jumping into the car. We hope to get down later in November for a long weekend, as much for Audrey to get a look at her winter home and "do" the Gibraltar thing.

I am going to work on getting some sort of online photo album up so can then present all the indifferent as well as better pictures to an advisedly indifferent world.

Reflections on being back have reinforced more than ever the motto I read a while ago that runs: Live slowly, Sail fast

Finally, you will note that I have skillfully found the tick box that allows paragraph breaks to be inserted into text. I will have to see if I need to go back and edit previous posts or if this is a global setting. Thank you blogger!

More Photos

This is the classic image of Gibraltar really. The cruise is now complete!

Here for reference is a picture of Plymouth as we were leaving it two months ago followed by a picture of the Rock and from where we are now.

Much nicer looking methinks!

Where to now?

Some Photos

The method of incorporating photos on Blogger is quite difficult in the dark with a dodgy wifi connection so I will follow past practise and put a bunch up here.

This is a typical street scene in Cadiz

Barbate is famous for it't tuna which they catch using a system called Almadabra which involves mooring very long nets to the sea bed for the entire summer. They are a particular hazard when navigating the straits. Happily the season was over when we went through but there was this collection of impressive anchors ashore.

The Sraits of Gibraltar are one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world - very similar to the Dover Straits really. This is a picture of the AIS screen when a few miles short of Tarifa. For the uninitiated, each of the triangles represents a ship which could be anything from a yacht to a supertanker. It is not as scary as it might seem since there is a thing called a traffic separation scheme which is like a virtual motorway on the sea and I am outside the TSS and in what is called the Inshore Traffic Zone. Big ships don't go in the ITZ. :-)

Passage Update

We have arrived in Gib. Well, La Linea really of course but there is a dirty great big rock towering over me which kind of makes it Gibraltar for me. I have cracked open one of the Betty Stoggs and drunk it. Now, in honour of the other Iberian country we visited I am having a glass of a very nice Douro wine we acquired somewhere. As I approached the marina I saw a few boats anchored and was suddenly grabbed by the desire to spend a night at anchor so I will be going into the marina tomorrow. It feels very nice to be at anchor though it is also a bit odd to have finished the cruise. It will take a little while for all of that to resolve itself. I have no doubt though that planning future cruising will be a good antidote to any post cruise blues. As I approached the Bahia de Algecireas which is a better name than Bay of Gibraltar the Mediterranean was looking tantalising beyond Europa Point. It feels both great and rather strange to have finally finished. The inevitable question now is what next. We will have to decide what to do now but we can decide that over the next few months. The passage round from Barbate was a very long and tedious motor into the teeth of a very strong wind around Tarifa. The RCCPF guide says that it blows more than thirty knots of wind around Tarifa for 300 days of the year! I had a good thirty and for a while even thirty five which is technically gale force though it wasn't a gale as the wind was so localised. The seas did not build up much but there were unbelievably short and steep being almost less than a boatlength. This seriously slowed us up especially at first as we had a foul tide – I had allowed as much time as possible. The strangest thing was when we got past Isla de Tarifa. Two miles past, and the wind had dropped from a 7 gusting 8 to a force six. Five miles past and we had a force 3 and no wind at all in La Linea. It was a relief that I did not turn back as I did consider at one point.

Found the Place to get a Stronger WIFI here

The signal is impossibly weak on the boat but when I walk all round the marina to the office it works like a dream. Today, was spent in Gibraltar - after tying up here at Marina Alcaidesa in La Linea. The woman in the office was extremely helpful and seemed astounded that I was able to stutter a few words of Spanish. As noted previously, crossing into Gibraltar is a surreal experience. Still, after a quick investigation of Marina Bay for chandleries, I took myself to the cable car and rode it to the top of the rock. This was certainly the best thing to do as you leave the city behind and are treated to spectacular views of both the Ensenada de Algeciras and the Mediterranean to the east. I also found that you can walk down which was a great if rather hot experience. On the way, I visited the old gun batteries and was underwhelmed with the fact that they were able to fire around 29000 yards while North Africa was 25000 odd yards away. Then, I walked out to Europa point but a fog had descended on the straits and Africa was hidden from view. There was also rather a strong smell of drains and, sure enough, the evidence was there and Europa Point seems to be a sewage outfall! Anyway, here are some reflections of arriving yesterday.

We have made it at last. I will get a more detailed posting up soon but we are now established in Marina Alcaidesa literally just over the border from Gibraltar at La Linea. It feels good to have completed the cruise successfully but also a bit strange.

Saw Andy and Katrine Off

The taxi arrived promptly and they are now on their way to La Linea the fast and easy though expensive way. Now the dilemma is when exactly to leave sunny Barbate. The weather window is undoubtedly today and the tide favours a nine start - imminently but I think I will wait till nine thirty as the wind is still dropping and since it is on the nose as little as possible is of the essence really. It was a shame for poor Katrine and Andy to have to miss out the last few miles, not least since an arrival in Gibraltar by sea should be quite a spectacular affair. Still, we are nearly at the end and the Betty Stoggs in the bilges _should_ be drunk today!

Got a wifi here now

The Levanter is still howling away but all the weather sources are confidently predicting it will drop for tomorrow though not go into the west. Too many highs out in the Atlantic I suppose. I don't think that this connection is strong enough to upload photos but here is the text of the last few days anyway. Here, also is the current weather forecast for those of you who can speak Spanish :-) http://www.aemet.es/es/eltiempo/prediccion/maritima?opc1=0&opc2=1&zona=and1 08/10 Well, we are in Barbate now and gearing up for the final leg of them all. We are about 40 miles short of Gibraltar though when people get to read this we will be there as there is no wifi in this marina. The chief benefit of Barbate is that it is a convenient break in the journey from Cadiz to Gibraltar. The trip here was not the nicest one unfortunately. We had a bit of wind out of Cadiz and managed a broad reach for an hour or so until the wind went light. Then, just as we approached Cabo Trafalgar (no pigeons or Nelsons column) it blew up from the east with a proper levanter and we were pushing into a force 7 on the nose with a nasty steep chop to go with it. By contrast, we had a very nice visit to Jerez de La Frontera yesterday with a cheap and reliable train and a good tour of the Gonzales Byass Bodega though I succumbed to buying one of their best sherrys which we will open at Christmas. 09/10 The weather continues frustrating with very strong easterlies. The forecast for today was for a force 7 off Tarifa which I interpreted as being closer to 40 knots and a no go for us. Accordingly, Andy made a very sensible suggestion to get the bus to La Linea and so that they get a chance to visit Gibraltar – henceforward to be referred to as “The Rock” on this blog. Very naff and it will probably not last. We walked into Barbate and found the bus station where there was even a helpful person who sold us tickets to La Barca de Vejer where he assured us we could get a bus onto La Linea. Amazingly, they also meshed quite well in timings but the bus to La Linea took a long time and we only had two hours there. Nearly four hours on the bus for two hours visiting. The bus ride was an enjoyable affair as it passed through some very scenic but windswept valleys full of wind generators before following the coast near Tarifa confirming my interpretation of the weather. Lots of board sailors and kite boarders. The views from the N340 over Algeciras towards The Rock were spectacular and there were also very good views of Africa along with lots of ships in the straits. The two hours on The Rock were chiefly enjoyable for the walk, first through customs and then across the airport runway. We just had time for lunch and then had to rush back to catch the bus for 1600. I will spend some more time there when we eventually get the boat there. Current forecast is for the wind to drop on Tuesday but to stay in the east. I am rapidly warming to the idea of sailing in tradewind areas where you can count on the wind to at least blow from a consistent direction and plan accordingly.

Weatherbound in Barbate

For the last few days there has been a persistent and annoying Levanter which has prevented us from getting anywhere. This is being done from an internet cafe here in Barbate as the marina has no wifi. We have hopes of the wind dropping tomorrow and getting round the final 35 miles to La Linea/Gibraltar.

Some Photos

Rather than try and edit the past post which is a bit of a nightmare. Incidentally, apologies for the lack of paragraph breaks. There seems to be a bit of a funny between blogger and Open Office! I have a reasonably good wifi connection here in the bar at the Puerto Atlantico in Cadiz. Here is a sunset on the first night we spent at anchor in the Ria Formosa. This was just inside the entrance off the Cabo de Santa Maria

Here you have the sand dunes at Culatra. This was one of the true highlights of the cruise discovering this place.

Cadiz is famous in Spanish history for being where the first liberal constitution was written and this is the monument to it. Given the importance of this to the nineteenth and twentieth century history in the Iberian penninsula it was an intriguing experience seeing this monument.

Today we "sat still" here in Cadiz and took the train to Jerez de la Frontera where we visited the Bodega de Gonzalez Byass as well as drinking some sherry and eating some good food. I'll do an update soon.

Longest time yet out of touch

Well, since this cruising malarkey is supposed to be about getting away from it all this should not really come as a surprise but one of the things on the list for the future is going to be some sort of 3G dongle that we can use in different countries. Since the last update a lot has happened and we have both changed crew and country. Poor Audrey had to fly back to the UK on the first of October but Andy and Katrine are enjoying Spain. We are in Cadiz today having arrived about lunchtime and had a walk around the city. Below are the various ramblings from the last few days. 24/09 We are just finishing our second day anchored in Alvor and for a change have moved up to anchor outside the town. Yesterday, we left Lagos and payed the eye watering 86 euro for the two nights we spent there. Although we liked it in there, there is very much a feel of it being an English outpost and it was also nice to get to the quiet of the Alvor lagoon. Alvor is only a couple of miles east of Lagos but, so long as you stay near the entrance and on the boat is a world away being very peaceful though busy with kite boarders when the sea breeze picks up. There were a surprising number of boats anchored there including Tala Hinna who we had met in Muxia and then Baiona. She is en route to the Rio Guadiana. Owing to a massive surplus of onions and garlic thanks to the Pingo Doce supermarket and a miscalculation on my part we were able to pass on some spare ones which were gratefully received. Today, we spent most of it ashore exploring Alvor. It is very touristy and much less nice close to than from a distance. We also made a classic mistake of choosing the first cafe to hand when I felt like a coffee without noticing that everything was in English first and then Portuguese. Cue a thin and watery coffee. At least lunch was an enjoyable affair and we had a nice walk amongst the sand dunes in the afternoon. Tomorrow is on for another change at Portimao which will be a fair sized town though we hope to only spend one day in the marina since they seem so expensive on this coast. 25/09 After another very short passage we are anchored in the entrance to Portimao. The anchorage is quite crowded but is a pleasant spot with the light wind we have at the moment. There is lots going on with dinghies sailing around, powerglider things buzzing overhead and cruise ships leaving. Tomorrow we plan to go into the marina, so this should get updated though we are finally going to get the train and bus out to Sagres. 26/09 We finally got around to doing our trip out to Sagres. We put the boat in the marina for security and also because we wanted to do marina like things such as charge up batteries. More on the marina later. We decided to try the train to Lagos and then the bus on from there. I enjoyed the train though it is a bit of a trek from the marina being at the northern side of town and the marina being right near the mouth of the river. Still, we enjoyed the short train ride and picked out where we had anchored in Alvor. As is typical with such trips, the times didn't mesh at all. We started with a one hour wait at Portimou station and then a thirty minute wait at Lagos bus station. Still, we got to Sagres for a latish lunch and had a very nice if rather expensive lunch in a restaurant overlooking the bay where we had anchored five nights previously. We walked out to the Fortress on the point – supposedly a school of navigation set up by Henry the Navigator. It was a bit underwhelming. It is far more likely that the stuff done by Henry was at Lagos and he just had a fort out on the point though of course, there is little way of telling as Drake attacked the fort then the earthquake in the eighteenth century destroyed it completely. Still it was a good spot to visit and the information provided by the visitor center was amusing if badly translated. We had another half hour wait for the bus and then a further half hour wait at Lagos for an onwards bus to Portimau. The marina has not best pleased us here. It is very expensive as they all seem to be along the Algarve being just short of forty euros a night. They don't have free wifi and the toilets are distinctly poorly maintained. We tried to pick up fuel but an unusual easterly had picked up preventing us from tying up so we left and anchored back on the other side of the Rio Arade. The wifi was particularly unhelpful as they would only sell it for a weekly package rather than by the day. One of the things to look at for our continuing cruising will be a local 3G dongle. 04/10 For various reasons I have not had a chance to update this much recently. We are back in Spain and have also had a crew change. Poor Audrey had to fly back home last Saturday but Andy and Katrine are now with me and we have got as far as the Rio Guadiana now. Today we plan to head to Mazagon at the mouth of the Rio de Huelva. The pace is going to be a bit fast till we get to Cadiz which we hope to reach on Thursday by way of Chipiona at the mouth of the Rio Gualdaquivir. It has been nice to get back to Spain simply because I am able to speak more than the three words – bom dia, Obrigado, un ceveja. The young woman in the office here at Ayamonte was staggered that a yotttie should be able to speak any Spanish which I find a bit surprising but there you are. The town of Ayamonte is very nice though it was a bit strange to change time zone with the crossing of a river and there is a very nice big sign by the ferry dock pointing across the river and saying Portugal We really feel to be on the last stages now being less than a hundred and fifty miles from Gibraltar. Once we get to Cadiz it really will be the final stage though we hope to sit still for a bit and visit Jerez de la Frontera. 06/10 We actually managed a bit of sailing today on the way from Mazagon to Chipiona. The forecast was for an easterly-southeast three but we got a bit of a four for a while and the main had it's first outing since the northern rias. Sadly, it didn't last very long and after a couple of hours it was back to the donk. Chipiona is a nice place and we had the thrill of opening out the chart to have the last bit with Gibraltar on it. Tomorrow will be round to Cadiz and a couple of nights there sitting still for a short break. For me the end of the cruise is now looming and we will have less than a hundred miles to cover. As ever, this has led to mixed feelings. At one level, I am really looking forward to getting to the end of this particular adventure and plan for the next one. On the other hand. I will find it very difficult to get back into the normal daily routine. Audrey is back at work already.

The Glamorous World of Sailing!

A day in Lagos

We were intending to get the bus out to Sagres and have a look from the land where we had been at such a rolly anchorage but got delayed by chatting with Edmund on the fellow Rival moored next to us. Instead, we took a bit of a walk along the beach to the east of Lagos and then through the town and had lunch in a very nice tapas bar as recommended by the Rough Guide. It felt very strange walking along the beach as it was of course, packed with sunbathers. Neither of us have done a beach holiday for decades and it emphatically isn't our thing. Clearly it is for lots of people though and there was an almost overwhelming pong of suntan cream and acres of naked flesh on show. We were quite relieved to get to the harbour channel and cross over to start the sort of tourism we are more familiar with. Lagos is very much a tourist town and english is almost ubiquitous everywhere - a marked contrast from the towns on the Atlantic coast. We'll be interested to see what the rest of the Algarve is like. On another front. Our faltering steps into the world of chart plotters took a big step forward when we acquired some charts and tried them in opencpn. We also borrowed a usb gps receiver from Edmund which works a treat. I have ordered one from Amazon now but, in the meantime, will work to get by with my smart phone for which there is an app to allow it to work as a gps tether. The whole process is a bit odd and I am not used to the concept yet. More on this later I suppose. Photos will also follow soon.

Got To the Algarve

For various reason we have been out of wifi for a while so here is a big update. We really liked Baiona and the passage pas the Islas Cies really gave us a wish to be able to come back with more time and a permit to anchor there.6 After originally planning to go into the marina at Baiona, we decided to anchor on the spur of the moment which proved to be a very good idea. Firstly, it is always better to be at anchor generally as well as being free. Secondly, we met up with a fascinating woman called Ellie on her rebuilt Hilliard nine tonner. We had originally met her in Muxia but we joined her for a drink and exchanged various stories about sailing of which she had an enormous fund. The next day was to be the big kick off for a long passage down to the Algarve. It all started very auspiciously with a nice fresh northerly to speed us south. The problem was that it proceeded to become brisker and brisker till it was gusting more then 35 knots quite a lot. As the sun got lower it became clear that it wasn't going to drop very quickly and neither of us fancied a long rough night. Had the wind stayed below 30 knots most of the time I would have pushed on but the seas started to build and some of them were breaking, though not seriously thankfully. As the sun reached setting point we decided to stop at Leixoes and visit Port which we had always wanted to do anyway. The approach to Leixoes was an interesting one. The coastline here is very low lying and the first thing I saw was the light at Leca while still 12 miles away. Then as we closed the harbour all the shipping decided to get moving including a cruise ship called the Braemar - all lit up like a Christmas tree and headed for Dover of all places according to the video game (AIS). Still, we got in at 12:20 Spanish time and dropped anchor and went to bed exhausted. Today, we went into the marina which is very friendly and helpful. We have dropped our laundry off which will all be done for 2 Euros a kilo. The showers were nice and there are some nice friendly people here and all for less than half the price of a marina in Galicia. We then walked to the metro and went into Porto. I am really glad we did as it is a beautiful city in an incredibly dramatic location. It is such a shame that the entrance to the Douro river is so difficult as it would be great to take a boat up to Porto. We had a lunch which included a local speciality for Audrey. We can't remember the name of it but it consists of ham, sausage and steak between two slices of bread with melted cheese on top, the whole then being soaked in spicy tomato sauce. The best heart attack on a plate you can imagine!

Following that, we walked across the bridge and visited the Sandeman Port house. The tour was of average interest but it was nice to see the port being produced and the tasting was also interesting as well though I would have preferred the 15 Euro tour with more to taste. I then scared their gift shop into a fit by buying a bottle of 2007 vintage port. I will open it for my sixtieth birthday when it should be nice and mature. I also got two bottles of ten year old tawny. Leixoes is very different from the places we have been visiting. It is a port pure and simple with no tourism or anything like that. The approach made that clear but it is interesting to be in a purely working port and the marina is excellent though you can smell the port as soon as you come past the breakwater. Others tried to persuade us to stop at Povoa de Varzim rather than here but I am pleased we came here. A cruise ship left this afternoon and the tug/fireboat gave it a traditional send off with all the water spraying. All in all it was an excellent day and the weather proved very fortuitous in stopping here. 19/09 This netbook seems to be throwing a bit of a wobbler and the track pad is not working now but at least the keyboard is working so I will soldier on. We are in Sines now having sailed a good couple of hundred miles from Leixoes. The sailing has been brisk to say the least. The nortada has certainly been reliable though a good bit stronger than what the books give you to understand. The theory is that over the summer they build form the north blowing from between 16 to 25 knots. In the afternoon, the sea breeze is supposed to augment the wind so it typically blows harder the afternoon and then drops when the sun goes down. Our experience however is that it seems to drop a bit in the afterrnon sometimes and then gets up and blows a high force 6 to 7 all night and often through the morning. 20 knots seems to be the minimum except occasionally. The sell has also been quite big which has made for a fast but roller coaster of a ride. We have been clocking up good averages with nearly 110 miles a day being possib le. It has been quite uncomfortable though. At least the engine has had a bit of a rest. We sailed right through the night to Cascais arriving there just after sundown. Coming round Cabo da Roca was an exciting experience. The winds had actually started moderating in the run up to it but when we got round and started heading for Cabo Raso they blew up in no uncertain terms and we recorded a consistent 38 knots with gusts to the mid forties for about five miles. They then moderated until we turned into Cascais a couple of miles further on from Cabo Raso. We anchored and all night the wind was howling a gale. It moderated a bit in the early hours. At least I had got tired of worrying if the anchor was dragging and got faith that it was well dug in.

We took a flyer on not doing the official checking in with authorities at Cascais looking on it as a psssage stop rather than a proper stop. Certainly we didn't go ashore. Yesterday we took off a bit later as we were wondering if the wind was really blowing as hard as it seemed to be but left around 10:30 for Sines. The sail was much the same – 53 miles of fast rolly sailing. The entrance here was very exciting though. Firstly, the end of the breakwater is derelict for 500 meters past the light supposedly on it's end. There is a red bouy to leave to port which is “lit” and so easy to find. We couldn't find it at all. After deciding that we must be past the broken bit we made a turn in. In the dark I saw some jagged bits just as Audrey shouted that she could see the bouy off to our starboard (the wrong) side! We hastily made a rapid turn and snuck round the correct side of it. Then, to add to the excitement, we descried a tanker on the move. Sines is a major tanker port and can handle ships up to 400,000 tons. Cue another rapid about face and gilling around waiting for it to clear. We then headed in but were perturbed to see tugs hanging around. Sure enough, another one started heading in! Luckily we were sufficient far advanced not to have to bother it. The wind was still blowing very hard but it eassed nicely as we got into the old harbour where yachts can anchor. We would rather avoid that sort of excitement in the future. The anchorage and town are interesting. From the boat you would hardly know that there was a major oil port outside as it is all behind the breakwaters and there is a nice sandy beach in front of us with people sunbathing and gingerly swimming in the clear water. Above that is the old town. It is mostly famous for being the birthplace of Vasco da Gama who established Portuguese trading links with India at about the same time as Columbus was getting ready to open up the Americas to plundering by rapacious europeans from Spain and the UK. Tomorrow we start the last bit of the Atlantic stage of this adventure when we make the final hop down to Cabo da Sao Vincente. This is an enormously evocative point. It is the southwesternmost corner of this peninsula though not the furthest west ponit. Cabo da Roca takes that honour at 9° 30' W. For information, this well to the west of Cork in Ireland though not as far west as the west coast of Ireland. After Sao Vincente, we will be all east bound and on the last lap of the trip. 20/09

Well, we are round Sao Vincente. The anchoreage is rather rolly here behind Cabo de Sagres but it feels fantastic to be round the final big point of the voyage. The cape also lived up to expectations in all ways as the photo shows. We took a bunch more but will refrain from cluttering up the interrtubes with them. 21/09 Now we are in Lagos and a complete contrast with a major tourist resort town complete with english cafes serving egg and chips though the marina is useful. We need to do laundry and such like as well as wifi access. The wind has been disappointing after the roller coaster down the northern end of Portugal. We had no wind at all from Sines and none this morning coming round from Sagres. It is also a lot hotter here and we really feel that we are in the south. A meal ashore is called for this evening as well as a shower for us and a good clean out for the boat.

Fogged in

Thick fog this morning. I doubt we will be moving unless something dramatic happens. There is a fog horn blowing mournfully at the entrance to the harbour and that is about all we can see. At least the northerlies are holding so we should still be able to get south when we can move.

First stop in Portugal

We really liked Baiona and the passage pas the Islas Cies really gave us a wish to be able to come back with more time and a permit to anchor there.6 After originally planning to go into the marina at Baiona, we decided to anchor on the spur of the moment which proved to be a very good idea. Firstly, it is always better to be at anchor generally as well as being free. Secondly, we met up with a fascinating woman called Ellie on her rebuilt Hilliard nine tonner. We had originally met her in Muxia but we joined her for a drink and exchanged various stories about sailing of which she had an enormous fund.

The next day was to be the big kick off for a long passage down to the Algarve. It all started very auspiciously with a nice fresh northerly to speed us south. The problem was that it proceeded to become brisker and brisker till it was gusting more then 35 knots quite a lot. As the sun got lower it became clear that it wasn't going to drop very quickly and neither of us fancied a long rough night. Had the wind stayed below 30 knots most of the time I would have pushed on but the seas started to build and some of them were breaking, though not seriously thankfully. As the sun reached setting point we decided to stop at Leixoes and visit Port which we had always wanted to do anyway.

The approach to Leixoes was an interesting one. The coastline here is very low lying and the first thing I saw was the light at Leca while still 12 miles away. Then as we closed the harbour all the shipping decided to get moving including a cruise ship called the Braemar - all lit up like a Christmas tree and headed for Dover of all places according to the video game (AIS). Still, we got in at 12:20 Spanish time and dropped anchor and went to bed exhausted.

Today, we went into the marina which is very friendly and helpful. We have dropped our laundry off which will all be done for 2 Euros a kilo. The showers were nice and there are some nice friendly people here and all for less than half the price of a marina in Galicia.

We then walked to the metro and went into Porto. I am really glad we did as it is a beautiful city in an incredibly dramatic location. It is such a shame that the entrance to the Douro river is so difficult as it would be great to take a boat up to Porto. We had a lunch which included a local speciality for Audrey. We can't remember the name of it but it consists of ham, sausage and steak between two slices of bread with melted cheese on top, the whole then being soaked in spicy tomato sauce. The best heart attack on a plate you can imagine!


Following that, we walked across the bridge and visited the Sandeman Port house. The tour was of average interest but it was nice to see the port being produced and the tasting was also interesting as well though I would have preferred the 15 Euro tour with more to taste. I then scared their gift shop into a fit by buying a bottle of 2007 vintage port. I will open it for my sixtieth birthday when it should be nice and mature. I also got two bottles of ten year old tawny.

Leixoes is very different from the places we have been visiting. It is a port pure and simple with no tourism or anything like that. The approach made that clear but it is interesting to be in a purely working port and the marina is excellent though you can smell the port as soon as you come past the breakwater. Others tried to persuade us to stop at Povoa de Varzim rather than here but I am pleased we came here. A cruise ship left this afternoon and the tug/fireboat gave it a traditional send off with all the water spraying.


All in all it was an excellent day and the weather proved very fortuitous in stopping here.

weatherbound again

Ten years ago today I was installing some reporting software for a group of users at London Guildhall University when someone came in to say that a plane had flown into the World Trade Center. It was one of those Kennedy moments. Now, by contrast, we are weatherbound here in Combarro and doing some laundry by hand as there are no facilities for this at this marina and we have been caught out because we expected to be in Baiona by now where there are washing machines to be had. There is a laundry here in Combarro but it is a service laundry and closed on Sunday of course.

Yesterday was a frustration as we motored out of the ria into increasing wind which then proceeded to gust up to off Cabezo de la Mourisca which forced us to turn back rather than get to Baiona There was a long low blue boat tied up at the marina which announced itself as customs (Aduanas). Two very polite men proceeded to peer at all our paperwork and give us the blue copy of the form they filled out in triplicate so we can then wave that at any other customs people that may take an interest in us. Their boat was long, low and looked very serious being bedecked with spotlights and numerous aerials. It also had very large engines -presumably for intercepting drug smugglers in the remoter rias.
Today, there is a motorbike festival ashore which explains the number of bikes roaring up and down the roads yesterday. We took a wander around but my old fogey element prevented me from liking any of the hundreds of bikes around.

The weather continues to blow from the west so we are sitting here with not much to do. When I head up to the bar to post this, I will b be able to check on the forecast as well. The Spanish met office doesn't post it's forecasts very early. The Portuguese web site by contrast has a very useful table to present their information and it seems to be saying we will have northerlies by Tuesday. So it looks like we will be hanging around here for bit then.

Having just checked the forecast - we will be sitting still for a little while yet by the looks. The chances of visting Lisbon are receding as well with a long passage round to the Algarve looming now.

AGENCIA ESTATAL DE METEOROLOGIA
PREDICCION METEOROLOGICA PARA LAS ZONAS COSTERAS DE LA COMUNIDAD
AUTONOMA DE GALICIA

DIA 11 DE SEPTIEMBRE DE 2011 A LAS 08:00 UTC

1.-AVISO A LAS 0900 UTC DEL DIA 11 DE SEPTIEMBRE DE 2011:
HAY TEMPORAL FUERZA 8 DEL SW EN EL AREA DE BARES.

2.-SITUACION A LAS 00 UTC DEL DIA 11 Y EVOLUCION:
HURACAN EXTRATROPICAL KATIA SITUADO EN 47N-38W DESPLAZANDOSE
HACIA EL NORDESTE HASTA 54N-19W, CON POCOS CAMBIOS. DEPRESION DE
972 AL OESTE DE IRLANDA RELLENANDOSE Y DESPLAZANDOSE HACIA EL
NORDESTE. ANTICICLON DE 1020 AL OESTE DE CANARIAS REFORZANDOSE A
1024, CASI ESTACIONARIO.

3.-PREDICCION VALIDA HASTA LAS 24 UTC DEL DOMINGO 11:
AGUAS COSTERAS DE LUGO:
SW FUERZA 4 Y 5 ARRECIANDO EN BARES A FUERZA 6 Y 7 Y
OCASIONALMENTE FUERZA 8 Y ROLANDO Y AMAINANDO MAS TARDE EN BARES A
W-SW FUERZA 5 Y EN EL RESTO A FUERZA 4. FUERTE MAREJADA EN BARES Y
EN EL RESTO MAREJADA. MAR DE FONDO DEL NW DE 2,5 A 3 M.

AGUAS COSTERAS DE A CORUNA:
- NORTE DE FISTERRA: SW FUERZA 6 ARRECIANDO EN ORTEGAL-BARES A
FUERZA 7 Y OCASIONALMENTE FUERZA 8, AMAINANDO MAS TARDE A FUERZA 6
EN ORTEGAL-BARES Y A FUERZA 5 EN EL RESTO. FUERTE MAREJADA
DISMINUYENDO PRONTO DE FISTERRA A PRIOR A MAREJADA. MAR DE FONDO
DEL NW DE 3 M DISMINUYENDO AL FINAL A 2,5 M.

- SUR DE FISTERRA: SW FUERZA 4 A 5 AMAINANDO MAS TARDE A FUERZA 4.
MAREJADA DISMINUYENDO A MAREJADILLA. MAR DE FONDO DEL NW EN EL
ENTORNO DE 3 M DISMINUYENDO DESPUES A 2,5 M.

AGUAS COSTERAS DE PONTEVEDRA:
S-SW FUERZA 4 A 5 AMAINANDO MAS TARDE A FUERZA 4. MAREJADILLA A
MAREJADA DISMINUYENDO AL FINAL A MAREJADILLA. MAR DE FONDO DEL NW
DE 3 M EN DISMINUCION CON 2,5 M AL FINAL.

4.-INFORME DE LAS ESTACIONES A LAS 06 UTC DEL DIA 11 DE
SEPTIEMBRE: LUGO:
- SAN CIBRAO: S FUERZA 3-4. MAR DE FONDO DEL NW DE 1,5 M.
A CORUNA:
- BARES: SW FUERZA 8.
- FERROL: SW FUERZA 3.
- A CORUNA: SE FUERZA 4.
- VILAN: SW FUERZA 6.
- FISTERRA: SW FUERZA 6.

for those of you who don't read Spanish - Hurricane Katia is moving north east though it isn't really a hurricane now but is bringing strong winds. The Azores high has retreated well to the south and we can expect south or sw force 4-5 though we are seeing closer to 6 or 7 here. The direction is the critical thing as S-SW is exactly where we want to go. Grrr. :-(

Pontevedra Now

We have just arrived at Combarro near the top of the naviable part of Ria Pontevedra. It was a surprisingly long trip round here from A Pobra de Caramiñal being over 20 miles but it is really nice here and the batteries are now nearly completely charged up which is a good thing. Our intention was to run up to Pontevedra itself with a view to visiting the chart agent there. However, as it is now past three, we are going to spend the night here at anchor, go into the marina tomorrow and then finally head off to Bayona on Saturday before taking off for Portugal.

The relief of having the ability to charge our batteries is huge though it would have been nicer not to have had to spend three days in limbo at Vila Nova

Now we are in Combarro after a longer than expected motor. Usually I chafe badly at having to motor much – something we have done a lot of on this cruise – but this time it felt good to know that a good bit of charge was going into the batteries.

Combarro is a funny town. It had it's origins in an old fishing village that wound up being selected for preservation and so is the first genuinely touristy place we have visiteed complete with street hawkers. The old village is ruthlessly restored with tiny but immaculate granite houses complete with a huge number of stone grain stores known as horrários

We spent last night at anchor but today we are in the marina having the avowed plan of going to Pontevedra to find a chart agent. As it happens, we found a suitable commercially produced chart of Ria de Vigo in the little chandlery here. We then completely failed to find the bus stop so failed to get to Pontevedra. Still, we had a good lunch in a local cafe of which there are dozens.

Tomorrow we head round to Baiona (Bayona en Castellano) where we will take our departure from NW Spain and head south to Portugal. First stop is planned to be Leixoes just outside Porto. Then, on to Lisboa, possibly breaking the trip at Peniche or Figuera da Foz.

Engineer Arrived at Last

He sauntered down the pontoon with a shopping trolley with his toolkit in it. He then peered at the batteries, verified that they had no charge, looked at the alternator and then took it off for testing. So far we haven't seen him though all his tools are still here so we are hopeful that we may be back on the go this evening. Watch this space.

Update 18:50
He has come back with the news that our alternator is knackered. He had a "new" one with him which we tried and it works. We have agreed to buy it as it has a bigger capacity than the old one. We are going to stick with it as more capacity is a good thing anyway. The relief of having a functioning engine is fantastic. Now, we are going to go to Vilagarcia tomorrow to try and get more charts and then anchor over on the other side of the ria before heading further south.

Hoorah!

Reflection on the Rias Bajas (Baixas en Galego)

We are still stuck in Vilanova marina waiting for the engineer to look at our alternator so I am taking the opportunity to put something down here about where we have been recently. Word is that he has “noticed” us and will be down soon.

It was nice rounding Finisterre as it really is a corner and looks the part as well though Torinana is the most westerly point in mainland Europe. It is actually a good bit west of Cork and even west of the Fastnet rock in Ireland.



There is quite a lot of regional pride here and a lot of people speak Galego rather and Castellano so we have deemed it politic to purchase and fly a Galician courtessy flag under our Spanish one.





The Ria de Muros was particularly nice and we really liked Muros itself and have it down as somehwere to stay a bit longer if we make it back here. Although it is a lot bigger than the northern rias, it is still fairly small being only about three miles wide and perhaps five miles deep. We also had a very social time. On one side were a family cruising slowly to Vilagarcia here in the Ria de Arousa where they were planning on laying up. I gave them a bit of a hand changing a taxi booking as they were dropping their daughters at the airport at Santiago and hiring a car to visit the Picos de Europa. On our other side was a past local vice-president of the Ocean Cruising Club who knew this coast extremely well and was making his way to Vigo slowly.

Since rounding Finisterre we have noticed a subtle change in the landscape and feel of the area. Although it might be part of the improved weather, things feel much more southern down here. The trees are a good bit scrubbier and some of the hills are a lot barer. Of course, I am sure that we would feel quite differently if we the weather continued as it had last week with lots of rain and strong westerlies. The scenery is spectacular and this current ria – de Arousa – is very large and very picturesque though it is a lot more developed than the more northern area. Once again, I suspect that this is at least in part a function of the remoteness of places like Camarinas and Muxia.

The sail the day before yesterday was nice as we were able to see Cabo Sillero in the distance which marks the southern extremity of the rias and Baiona behind it will be our departure point for Portugal. We are also starting to get excited about heading into Portugal and where we might stop. The Atlantic coast is quite forbidding and it is unlikely we will stop at more than two or three stops. Cabo Sao Vincente will then be the next major turning point leading to the Algarve and the final stages of the voyage.

Meanwhile our enforced stop her at Vilanova has shown a very picturesque fishing harbour!

The fishing here is of a different kind where they cultivate shellfish on huge floating "viveiros". These are squares of timber with hundreds of lines hanging down where the mussels are grown and then harvested before being loaded into huge trucks to be shipped off to processing plants somewhere. There are also some smaller boats with a cage contraption that they drag across the seabed collecting bottom dwelling shellfish. There are, apparently, 1400 viveiros alone in the Ria de Arousa!

Next update will hopefully be full of praise for our engineer and the alternator!

Further south but a problem

Well, we have got down to the Ria de Arousa but have encountered our first real problem. The batteries are completely flat and we are waiting for an engineer to come from the office of hte marina that has been recommended to us by the RCCPPF guide. I think that we may have a problem with our alternator as we have been running the engine a lot so there should be no problem with battery charging but all three (two domestic deep cycle and one engine starting are all flat as pancakes.

Still, we had a pleasant time the day before and yesterday visiting Portosin and then coming round here.

Portosin turned out to be a very social place. We had a quick sail across from Muros and then a bit of a nightmare in the force 5 crosswind getting into a very tight marina berth. Next to us was an Irish registered Westerly while another Bavaria tied up on our other side. Both turned out to be very interesting aquaintances. Peter and Jane in the Bavaria had been coast hopping round Biscay and were planning on laying up somewhere along the Galician coast. The other peter was a past vice regional president for this area and had a huge fund of knowledge of the area.

We took a meal ashore in the yacht club restaurant which was typically good. One of the things we have noticed on this trip in particular is the abundance and quality of the food compared with that at home. In London, to get vegetables as good as we have been buying in common or garden supermarkets would require a visit to Borough Market.

Yesterday morning gave us the first intimation of a possible problem with our engine as it was a bit slow to turn over but started OK. we motored out and continued down the coast to Cabo Corrubedo where we were able to sail That was where the issue with the batteries/alternator showed itself as things like the VHF and AIS started to complain about their 12 volt supply. We just managed to get the engine turning over in idle and continued sailing past Isla Salvora.

As we motored up the Ria which is far larger than any other we have yet to visit we changed our plan to anchor and looked for where to go. The guide said that Vilagarcia to Arousa had a good boatyard and chandlery so here we are.

Things have been a bit frustrating as we have yet to get hold of a card to give us access to and from the pontoons though we do have a promise from the engineer to visit us later on today. I have a suspicion that it may turn into a manana but we shall have to see.

Been offline for a while

For various reasons we haven't been in a position to update this for a while. I have been writing stuff up on a date by date basis so, here it is.

23/08
Well, it is now two days since we arrived in Spain and we have recovered our sleep from the passage across The Bay though I still find myself waking up around midnight. We will be eating aboard tonight and I hope that will help to re-establish the shore based routine.

The weather yesterday was really not very nice which thoroughly discouraged any sightseeing so we concentrated on other things like the laundry- more of which shortly.



The marina here is a nice one and the staff are friendly as ever. It is also nice that it is significantly cheaper to stay here than it is in England. A night here for us is Euro 25 as opposed to £35 in Plymouth. It is however, just a marina and they tend to be pretty soulless places and uniform the world over. We are looking forward to getting away and visiting remoter places where you have to anchor. Matthew observed that we have the largest anchor on display of anyone on the marina.

The weather on Sunday slowly brightened though the visibility never really completely cleared. We took a walk out to El Torre de Hercules - the oldest working lighthouse by all accounts. It was certainly dramatic with the top in the mist and more rolling in from the west but with sun shining as well. It was particularly noticeable that there were only really Spanish tourists around. This is not an area on the regular tourist route in Spain except for yotties.

Anyway, onto the saga of the clothes washing. Superficially, the facilities here are quite good with three washing machines. The problem is when you want to dry your clothes. In the normal course of events we would wash in the washing machine and then festoon the boat in our underpants and t-shirts. The rain, however, put paid to this and this was when the fact that there was only one dryer. Everyone seemed to be doing their clothes and I started to develop a bit of paranoia about Scandinavians and the amount of clothes they needed. It took till today to finally get at the drying machine by which time the rain had stopped and some of it got air dried.

La Coruña itself is a nice enough city without being spectacular. It is typically well served by bars and is very like other Spanish cities I have visited – except for the weather. It rains here in a way it doesn't in other parts of Spain.




24/08
Finally, having got marina fever, we pushed off from Marina Coruña at about noon with a view to sailing off somewhere. Where we have got to is Ares in a Ria of it's own just to the east of La Coruña. It is a very nice spot and we are anchored with two other boats, one Dutch and the other an English AWB. We went ashore and found the small supermarket and got some bread as well as a couple of other basics. Now we are sitting in the cockpit watching the rain clouds build up to the south west but the wind is dying steadily and is almost nothing now.

This is what cruising is really about. We had a nice gentle sail round here, a nice meal with some good localish wine and now near complete peace and a nice bit of distance from the impending disco in the yacht club ashore.

On our way into the ria, another rival a 41 was heading out and we had a bit of a chat with them on the radio. I hope to be able to catch up with them later on further south.

While anchored in Ares, a traditional fishing boat design got underway.



26/08
Yesterday, we left Ares for Cedeira back round the the east. En route a Dutch catamaran, Miss Poes overtook us. We knew her name as they were also on AIS. They called us and passed on some very helpful advice about where to anchor in Cedeira. As we arrived we agreed that they should come over for a quick drink which became a longer drink and an invitation to dinner on their boat. Several bottles of wine, our whiskey and their excellent Spanish brandy later and we are now nursing some mild hangovers in a rather breezy Cedeira. Today isn't a day for going anywhere so I am sat here writing this at the moment.

The coast round this side of Cabo Prior which, to us at least, seems to form a corner where you are either on the north coast of Galicia or more on the south, is considerably more rugged than that around La Coruña.


A few miles short of Cedeira we were following a catamaran on the video game when a call came over the VHF from Miss Poes to ask us where we were going. They had been intending to go further east but the lack of wind had persuaded them to head for Cedeira as well – to our benefit.

We invited them aboard for a drink and some wine was drunk, snacks were consumed and it culminated in an invitation to dinner on their catamaran. As ever, too much wine was drunk and then, when it transpired that they liked whisky, Matthew went back to Sarah G and fetched his bottle of Talisker which was then finished along with some very superior Spanish brandy called Cardenal Mendoza – I shall have to get a bottle of it for myself. Jef and Marin, if you are reading this, thank you for a very enjoyable evening.

The next day brought strong westerlies and intermittent heavy showers so we stayed at anchor and had more time to admire Cedeira which really is a lovely spot. Matthew went ashore for a search and tobacco but I was feeling very lazy and stayed aboard.

The next day, being Saturday we motored out into a fairly large swell to get back to La Coruña in time to meet Audrey. As ever, the wind played silly buggers with us and never quite filled in enough to sail with. We did manage half an hour of beating but then it died on us though it did fill in on the approach to Coruña but by then we didn't feel inclined to fight with the sails and being downwind only really noticed once we realised there was a bit of a cross wind to contend with when tying up.



It was great meeting Audrey at the airport and we treated ourselves to a taxi back to the marina. A good meal of tapas was consumed in a restaurant behind the Plaza de Maria Pita before poor old Matthew had to make his way to the airport and back to blighty. I never saw anyone drag their heels so much about packing their bags!

30/08
Yesterday, we had a fantastic sail from La Coruña to Ria de Corme. Originally, we had planned on anchoring in Corme itself but after looking at it we decided to cross back over to Laxe where we spent a very comfortable night while Audrey cooked a splendid Tagine like dish in the pressure cooker. The sail was the first really good sail for us as there was a nice force 5 from the north east. It was marred a bit by getting a line round the prop ouside La Coruña and then the shackle holding the mainsheet to the traveller also gave way at an inopportune moment while closing the coast but we still had a good sail – the first on this coast.


We had another drama while motoring just past La Coruña when we picked up a bit of rope round the prop as this photo shows once I had managed to extract it - thankfully only needing the helpo of the boathook.


Today was quite different though we are happy to be in Camariñas and will likely spend tomorrow here as well. Talk is of walking out to Cabo Villano. It is five km according to the rough guide and as it took quite a lot of rounding as well as looking very dramatic it will be of worth to do so I think.



Camariñas is a pleasant little town and we are looking forward to exploring it a bit more. There is also, reputed to be a wifi network around where we should be able to update the blog a bit.

31/08
The wind is continuing to blow hard from the west so we decided to spend a day here and walked out to Cabo Villano which had taken us so long to get round. It was certainly dramatic and there is an interesting little museum in the old lighthouse keepers house which explains some of the history of the lights along the Costa do Morte as they describe this coast. The most amusing bit of the light at Villano was that the first one, completed in 1853, proved to be partially obscured from seaward. Their solution was first to try blasting the rock out of the way but after the “expenditure of much powder and money” this was abandoned and a new lighthouse tower was built on the partially blasted rock!

We had lunch in a cafe recommended by the rough guide and are now out on the boat being battered by wind and rain while hoping it eases enough for us to get round Finisterre tomorrow.

01/09
After getting a severe case of harbour fever, we left Camarinas in rather a hurry and headed out to round Finisterre. Like all major headlands, it has taken on a bit of a totemic and looms ever larger in our consiousness. Until it is passed that is. Today wasn't to be the day for getting round it though. We got out past Muxia and were thinking of getting the jib set and doing some sailing but the easterlies we hoped for hadn't materialised and we both – almost simultaneously – expressed doubts about continuing. We duly turned round in disappointment. I suggested going to Muxia rather than back to Camarinas which turned out to be an inspired decision.

Muxia is a much nicer place really. There is a new marina but money has run out and there is only the marina with no other offices. It is therefore free to tie up and so is inhabited by serious budget cruisers, particularly those in multihulls. There is even a Wharram cat here.

The town is really lovely with lots of much older houses and a good selection of shops. It has a nice laid back feeling as well as some fantastic views from the point where there is a church dedicated to “nostra senora del virgen del barca”. This was apparently a site of an old animist religion based around the granite boulders which are now reputed to be the remains of the ship that brought the body of St James from Jerusalem to Santiago de Compostela. It is a beautiful place nonetheless. I also climbed the conical hill right outside the town as the photos show.

The forecast is not promising so we are likely to be here for a day or so more.

02/09
Well, after assuming we would be stuck in Muxia for a couple of days we proved ourselves completely wrong. We got underway with the intention of pumping out the holding tank once a decent distance from land but the bright sun and lack of wind persuaded us to push on and a good idea that proved as well.

We quickly made it to Cabo Toriñana and comleted our western travel. I looked at the chart and Cabo Torinana is 9 degrees 17' west which is further west than Fastnet Rock is. Now, it is alll south till we reach Tarifa though Cabo Sao Vincente will mark a point where we make much more easting. I am enjoying marking these literal turning points in the cruise.

The coast around Torinana and Finisterre is very wild and you can see why it has got the name of Costa do Morte. We were very “lucky” in that it was nearly completely flat calm

Observations on the Biscay Crossing

In some respects the voyage from Plymouth to La Coruña was a bit of a disappointment. We were all geared up for Biscay to live up to its fearsome reputation but nothing of the sort happened and we were dogged by calms. One day was seriously sunny and warm to be followed by a windless night with increasing cloud and I found this entry from Matthew in the log book:

1100 45 06'N 7 28'W Going Mad. Writing limericks

and on the facing page:

The fabled storms of the Bay of Biscay
Are but tales of madmen driven that way
By winds of ten knots
And an incessant chop:
Flogging sails and too many whales affect
what sailors say
© Matthew Kynaston, 08/2011

Thirty six hours with the engine more or less on continually is not what we expected at all. Conversations I have had with others who have done the crossing recently suggest that we were lucky (or unlucky if you want). One Swedish guy had SW force 7 for a day which must have been no joke at all.

We weren't without our dramas which got missed out with the previous posting about the crossing though. Crossing the shipping lanes south of Ouessant was a serious headache. With hindsight, it was probably a bit of a mistake to go to the north of the TSS and then cross over inside them to the south. By then the shipping was quite spread out and we took quite a long time to get to the east of the ships as advised by the routing guide in the almanac. It would have been better to stay due south across the Channel till we were inside of them and then used the local traffic zone on the TSS. This would also have given us a sight of the island of Ouessant (Ushant for generations of British sailors). Still we did and took the best part of a day to skate round the outer edge of the purple lines on the chart.

We had one near incident which, thankfully was only a bit of a drama. I was on watch and heading west to get clear of the shipping lines after we had been scared off trying to get through at night when there was a thump and sliding noise from the coach roof and the life-raft ended up in the scuppers and almost over the side. I hastily woke Matthew and went forward to rescue it. For the rest of the trip it stayed in the after end of the cockpit. It is back in it's proper placed now and has an additional loop of webbing to prevent it from sliding sideways.

The other highlight was a hitch-hiker we acquired a couple of hundred miles short of Spain. A very exhausted little reddish bird suddenly flew in and down below. He then stayed with us intermittently till we were closing the Spanish coast. I am not sure what he was but he liked being with us though he scorned any bread or water we were able to offer. He would periodically fly off but would then reappear and rested in the shade of the anchor on the foredeck. He really got happen when a load of flies found us not that far from the Spanish coast where Matthew described him as happily hopping round the cockpit catching as many as he could. Sadly, he flew off in the wrong direction though we hope he either found another boat to rest on or did make it to Cabo Ortegal which was the stretch of coast we were heading for.

I am looking forward to trying sailing down the Portuguese coast where there are reputed to be the “Portuguese trades” which blow consistently from the north if not consistently in strength. I think that we will then be able to make a judgement about whether ocean cruising is to be the thing for us.

Finished Loads and Arrived in Spain

Finally the time had arrived to depart. Friday in the office was a mad rush to get all sorts of rubbish tied up but the time came and it was too late to do anything else. A very nice little send off in the Hammersmith Ram was very well attended by lots of colleagues and former ones as well. We got the train down to Plymouth down on Saturday and I brought the boat round to Sutton Harbour for some final work on the holding tank and icebox with Matthew's assistance. Time passed in a blur but after two days, Audrey had to depart back to work for two weeks and my Mother also took her leave to get back to her twinning association.

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.

Final Stretch

we really are on the final stretch with only four days left in the office. At least we had a productive weekend and feel like we might actually be on track though the target of being ready to go on Sunday will be missed - no surprises really but still a bit frustrating.

I always knew that fitting the holding tank would not be easy and it certainly wasn't. At least we are mostly there and the hard part has been done. Matthew did a sterling job of cutting up the interior and drilling lots of holes but the end of it is that we will have a permanently fitted holding tank and the means of emptying it!

This photos shows the messiest stage. The only bit so far is that I have done the impressive bit of painting the locker where it goes with bilge paint!


We also fitted the liferaft at last with more scary holes to drill in the coachroof. We look even more like a pukka blue water cruiser now.



We also got used Matthew's mast monkey skills to run the lazy jacks up to the spreaders, remove the left over support for the radar and have a look around the masthead to make sure things were healthy up there. We couldn't finish the lazyjacks as the boom fittings hadn't arrived from Atlantic Spars. I have them now and we will swiftly finish them off this coming weekend.

I still have to order a bunch of charts but that really is it. We will leave, probably on Monday but possibly Tuesday. Weather and progress on work will dictate that.

It was a nice weekend though the weather was windier and wetter than planned. Saturday night, in particular brought some dramatic skies:


We also felt rather skinny moored next to a catamaran!


Finally, we are really getting close to going and the excitement rather than apprehension is starting to take over. It will be nice to get going though, as ever.

What will it be like when I walk out of the door for two months and get on the train to Plymouth on Saturday morning? What will it be like when we finally cast off, sail past Plymouth Breakwater? If all goes to plan, we won't come back past the Breakwater for three years. This really is the great adventure - in a small way anyway.