Med Bound Blog 9 (Biscay crossing; Veronica's account thereof))
Well finally the morning of the long-anticipated adventure arrived! We cast off in a light breeze with a full tank of water, brimming fridge and freezer, the net strung below the coach roof full of sinners’ food (bread sticks, baguettes, crisps, chocolate) in case we got desperate from either boredom or the inability to make food because of rough conditions. Neither ensued but somehow we found excuses to ravage it. Our able, experienced, crew member, Aidan, and the two of us were ready, rested and excited. Bring it on!
We left La Rochelle through the 8.15 bridge and after stopping at the fuel jetty to take on more fuel we headed west … 360M to go. Light 40 degrees to the bow winds and slow progress of 3.5 knots per hour characterised the morning as we settled into the voyage…slowly …. as Martyn refused to motor… “we should be patient real sailors don’t motor!”, he announced. Ha, he has really chilled since the days of work, as he was the last in the queue when patience was handed out! We rounded the spit of Île de Rè on a port tack, and then set our course to about 245 degrees, our heading for the crossing. For a few hours, the course steered was a long narrow set of tacked zig-zags, as we decided to go slightly off course to create a better angle to the wind as we were lolling around a bit.
We did motor for a few hours in the afternoon and so we all then felt like we were making progress…..5 knots now. Dolphins playing in the distance was our entertainment for the afternoon. We also spent considerable time discussing and calculating our night watch schedule. Aidan finally perfected this and we produced a printed excel version…. the wonders of technology at sea! By 17.24 the logbook tells me, we were only 25NM from the French coast! As France slowly disappeared to our eastern horizon, the seas calmed, becoming a smooth, glassy surface as depth increased. We settled and rested in anticipation of the long evening watches and I got busy with a dinner of sweet potato soup and bolognaise mince with zoodles (courgette peeled into strips). We employed a strict one celebratory drink a day regime, so no wine with our dinner!
During the night the wind played yo-yo …up to 12 knots, slowly moving sternwards, enabling us to enjoy the wonderful quiet night with just the sound of the sea, and two distant yachts, for company ….and …..down again….motoring again! But the stars were out, a ¾ moon rose brightly at 00h22 and the Biscay was blissfully benign.
Our watches, with just three of us were organised so that we always had two on during the hours of darkness. This we achieved by four-hour watches followed by 2 hours sleep, with the second person changing after 2 hours. We rolled along like this until you came off shift in daylight, at which point you slept for 4 hours as watches dropped to one person. In this way we coped although it would become very difficult on a longer voyage. Four people is a better number for long passages, we decided!!
At 8.00 on Day 2, we dropped off the continental shelf into deep water of some 4000 m although our depth sounder only records up to 200m. With that the sea swell becomes noticeably smoother with a longer wave period. We managed to sail most of our second day, with the wind on our stern, so we goose-winged the main and Solent sail, which was poled-out to keep it stable. Slightly tired and jaded after our first night watch, and the weather rainy, muggy, slightly chilly, but we felt like we were getting there as we noted mid afternoon that we’d reached halfway! In the early evening the spinnaker also played yo-yo as we decided to put it up for a grand total of 45 minutes as the winds were initially light enough to fly it before increasing to 14 knots….down it came and back to the white sails for the night, and Juluka, the Hydrovane helming for us. A dark one it was with the moon and stars hiding behind the cloud.
The excitement for the night, just as Martyn went to bed at 3.00 was the wind increasing to 18 knots so we woke him to help us take a reef in inky blackness and a bigger following sea! {Editor’s comment; there is a slight economy of the truth here, as two people could easily have dealt with a reef but things got a little exciting when the person on the helm got a bit disorientated and gybed the boat. The editor was slightly annoyed as 2 hours is not a big sleep window}. Just as we settled back on course I noted shockingly that there was another vessel literally almost on top of us! Aidan couldn’t see his navigation lights easily in the choppy seas as we were both see-sawing from side to side, but the AIS told us that he was a solo sailor, way to close and doing 10 knots to our 6 and only a 0.25NM away! Shit! Onto the radio to call him up…on the second call he answered….relief…he’d seen us and started bearing away.
We couldn’t understand that although we’d needed to go into wind to take a reef, thus with the wind on our stern, we were stopped in his track with him closing in on us, we should have seen him on AIS earlier. {Editor’s comment; he was probably practicing for the Vendee Globe and was probably asleep and only awoke on the second radio call; there was a distinctly gruff groggy French accent response, simply “I see you”}. On passage, our AIS dangerous vessels alarm is set at 2NM but not everyone has AIS.
Day 3 produced a good day’s sailing with moderate winds and a biggish following sea that was seemingly shunting us along. The sun came out during the morning and we managed 4.8 knots average speed by the evening. After sailing for a day in depths of 4000+m we gradually started climbing up the continental shelf again and depths gradually decreased. Spirits were high in anticipation for our last (hopefully) night at sea. Highlight of the early evening was a fantastic breach of a very big tuna (we think) after an earlier dolphin feeding frenzy. Hot showers revived us for the night ahead and flasks of filter coffee were prepared together with some (bad) snacks to help us through the night.
At last our last morning dawned agonisingly slowly as thick cloud hid the sunrise. Eventually it did become light and not a moment too soon as we were closing the coast and so the fishing pot watch started in earnest. I had bleated on about staying well offshore until it was light enough for this reason. Just after my two hour rest, I got up to relieve Martyn, and had to dodge around my nemesis…..damn fishermen! (until we eat their yummy produce, of course)
Just after being treated to a graceful display of dolphins playing on our bow, we eventually sailed exhilaratingly on a beam reach into La Coruña harbour and after dropping sails, glided happily into a nice modern marina, that being the Real Club Nautica Marina.
357M actual distance 372.5M water distance averaging 4.9 knots 74 hrs
We left La Rochelle through the 8.15 bridge and after stopping at the fuel jetty to take on more fuel we headed west … 360M to go. Light 40 degrees to the bow winds and slow progress of 3.5 knots per hour characterised the morning as we settled into the voyage…slowly …. as Martyn refused to motor… “we should be patient real sailors don’t motor!”, he announced. Ha, he has really chilled since the days of work, as he was the last in the queue when patience was handed out! We rounded the spit of Île de Rè on a port tack, and then set our course to about 245 degrees, our heading for the crossing. For a few hours, the course steered was a long narrow set of tacked zig-zags, as we decided to go slightly off course to create a better angle to the wind as we were lolling around a bit.
We did motor for a few hours in the afternoon and so we all then felt like we were making progress…..5 knots now. Dolphins playing in the distance was our entertainment for the afternoon. We also spent considerable time discussing and calculating our night watch schedule. Aidan finally perfected this and we produced a printed excel version…. the wonders of technology at sea! By 17.24 the logbook tells me, we were only 25NM from the French coast! As France slowly disappeared to our eastern horizon, the seas calmed, becoming a smooth, glassy surface as depth increased. We settled and rested in anticipation of the long evening watches and I got busy with a dinner of sweet potato soup and bolognaise mince with zoodles (courgette peeled into strips). We employed a strict one celebratory drink a day regime, so no wine with our dinner!
During the night the wind played yo-yo …up to 12 knots, slowly moving sternwards, enabling us to enjoy the wonderful quiet night with just the sound of the sea, and two distant yachts, for company ….and …..down again….motoring again! But the stars were out, a ¾ moon rose brightly at 00h22 and the Biscay was blissfully benign.
Our watches, with just three of us were organised so that we always had two on during the hours of darkness. This we achieved by four-hour watches followed by 2 hours sleep, with the second person changing after 2 hours. We rolled along like this until you came off shift in daylight, at which point you slept for 4 hours as watches dropped to one person. In this way we coped although it would become very difficult on a longer voyage. Four people is a better number for long passages, we decided!!
At 8.00 on Day 2, we dropped off the continental shelf into deep water of some 4000 m although our depth sounder only records up to 200m. With that the sea swell becomes noticeably smoother with a longer wave period. We managed to sail most of our second day, with the wind on our stern, so we goose-winged the main and Solent sail, which was poled-out to keep it stable. Slightly tired and jaded after our first night watch, and the weather rainy, muggy, slightly chilly, but we felt like we were getting there as we noted mid afternoon that we’d reached halfway! In the early evening the spinnaker also played yo-yo as we decided to put it up for a grand total of 45 minutes as the winds were initially light enough to fly it before increasing to 14 knots….down it came and back to the white sails for the night, and Juluka, the Hydrovane helming for us. A dark one it was with the moon and stars hiding behind the cloud.
The excitement for the night, just as Martyn went to bed at 3.00 was the wind increasing to 18 knots so we woke him to help us take a reef in inky blackness and a bigger following sea! {Editor’s comment; there is a slight economy of the truth here, as two people could easily have dealt with a reef but things got a little exciting when the person on the helm got a bit disorientated and gybed the boat. The editor was slightly annoyed as 2 hours is not a big sleep window}. Just as we settled back on course I noted shockingly that there was another vessel literally almost on top of us! Aidan couldn’t see his navigation lights easily in the choppy seas as we were both see-sawing from side to side, but the AIS told us that he was a solo sailor, way to close and doing 10 knots to our 6 and only a 0.25NM away! Shit! Onto the radio to call him up…on the second call he answered….relief…he’d seen us and started bearing away.
We couldn’t understand that although we’d needed to go into wind to take a reef, thus with the wind on our stern, we were stopped in his track with him closing in on us, we should have seen him on AIS earlier. {Editor’s comment; he was probably practicing for the Vendee Globe and was probably asleep and only awoke on the second radio call; there was a distinctly gruff groggy French accent response, simply “I see you”}. On passage, our AIS dangerous vessels alarm is set at 2NM but not everyone has AIS.
Day 3 produced a good day’s sailing with moderate winds and a biggish following sea that was seemingly shunting us along. The sun came out during the morning and we managed 4.8 knots average speed by the evening. After sailing for a day in depths of 4000+m we gradually started climbing up the continental shelf again and depths gradually decreased. Spirits were high in anticipation for our last (hopefully) night at sea. Highlight of the early evening was a fantastic breach of a very big tuna (we think) after an earlier dolphin feeding frenzy. Hot showers revived us for the night ahead and flasks of filter coffee were prepared together with some (bad) snacks to help us through the night.
At last our last morning dawned agonisingly slowly as thick cloud hid the sunrise. Eventually it did become light and not a moment too soon as we were closing the coast and so the fishing pot watch started in earnest. I had bleated on about staying well offshore until it was light enough for this reason. Just after my two hour rest, I got up to relieve Martyn, and had to dodge around my nemesis…..damn fishermen! (until we eat their yummy produce, of course)
Just after being treated to a graceful display of dolphins playing on our bow, we eventually sailed exhilaratingly on a beam reach into La Coruña harbour and after dropping sails, glided happily into a nice modern marina, that being the Real Club Nautica Marina.
357M actual distance 372.5M water distance averaging 4.9 knots 74 hrs
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