High Seas Position report, via ssb, Bay Biscay
13 August 2013 | Biscay Day 2
Nichola / Dry, mostly clear sky
24 hour distance traveled from 5:30am 12/08 to 5:30am 13/08: 121Nm Position at time of blog post: 45 55.64'N 6 49.9'W Distance travelled so far: 278nm Distance to go: 145nm
It's Monday 12pm, at the moment the sky is clear and blue and the swell has settled down a bit with a longer period between waves, with an occasional bigger wave every few minutes to throw us around.
South of us is another yacht which has been in view since dawn heading out from the French coast. Two pair trawlers over to the east don't look like they'll be a problem to us.
To break the monotony of rolling south, a pod of dolphins keep coming and going to entertain us; playing around Emerald for a while, then disappearing off, before returning later. Only 1 bird seen today, possibly a fulmar.
We're both well and managed some sleep, although we now have that jet lag feeling where our bodies don't really know what time of day it is mixed in with a smattering of dazed and confusedness and a dry mouth thrown in as a bonus.
Its just gone 2pm, I'm sat in the cockpit whilst Colin gets some rest below when I hear an engine close behind us. How can something have snuck up on us when I've been looking round regularly? Turn to look to see a plane flying very low STRAIGHT AT US! Not a lot I can do so call Colin to come see. Just before it gets to us it veers slightly to go around behind us. Colin reckons coastguard plane but they didn't half scare me!
The sun is shining, the swell has eased further and the wind is quite light from the north-north-west. We're currently keeping to just above 5 kts but have some tide with us.
3pm We spent some time trying to get a bit more speed out of the boat by fiddling with the sails having read our 'Sail Trim for Cruisers' guidebook. First off was to reduce the rolly rolly by pulling down on the kicker and moving the genoa car forward. Worked a treat and Emerald's motion is now much smoother. We tried a run to put us directly on course but the genny kept collapsing. So we're now on a broad reach about 15 degrees off course to give us the best speed towards our destination. We could do with a couple more knots of wind to keep our speed up.
5pm We've now crossed the continental shelf with 2000m of water under us - eek! A few more sea birds but not much else going on. The yacht that crossed our path earlier has just passed back behind us so guess they were just out in the bay for a play.
5am As the evening went on, the wind went more northerly and we were now 30 degrees off our course. To jibe whilst it was still light would have made our course even worse so we stuck it out on port tack. Keeping the wind at 150 degrees worked out best, but every so often a bigger swell would come along knocking the wind out of the genny and throwing us about. But finally the winds went more north east and stayed there; we currently are 15 degrees off course so a bit more easterly would be tip top.
Colin had 'something bigger than dolphins' come visit in the night. Not as many shooting stars as yesterday - it didn't seem as dark which is odd as there was no moon, it's crescent having set not long after the sun.
We've managed to get pretty much back on our course now, the wind having settled from the NE.