Vigo and the start of leg 2
22 September 2018 | Vigo
Offbeat has been safely tucked up in Vigo Marina for the last three weeks. Extremely safely in fact, as there was an unfortunate accident a couple of weeks before we arrived when the wooden decking surrounding the pontoons collapsed during a concert. As a result the dock has been condemned and there is current no pedestrian access to over half the pontoons. The marina parked us on one of these and ran us out on their RIB and they've also charged us a fraction of the normal price which was a great result.
We've just arrived back on board together with Mike and Sarah. We are looking forward to a two week sail down the Portuguese coast then hopefully to Gran Canaria via Madeira (subject to the slightly unstable weather forecast).
This week is looking very light (5kts or less on a couple of days) so unfortunately we might have to motor to maintain our progress with around 1100nm to cover on this leg.
I've had lots of questions about preparation for crossing the Atlantic so we'll cover a few of these in the blog. At the beginning of the year our "to do" list had over 100 items on it. Last Sunday Mike, Sarah, Anne-Laure and I ticked one of the last items off the list with our Sea Survival course, this gave great insight on how to think like a "survivor" not a "victim" if the worst happened but also reminded us that the best thing is to ensure that your preparations and seamanship help you avoid ever having to get in a liferaft for real!
Our preparation has included modifications to the boat and new equipment for safety, comfort, power, water, ease of sailing and communications; additional spares, tools and systems redundancy and of course our own planning and training. We have a great boat and crew so are looking forward to this leg, then the larger hop across the pond in a few short weeks time.
Anyway leg 2 has started, it's 1700 and we are sailing gently down the Ria away from Vigo. First stop Bayona.