Biscay

We made it!

What an amazing experience we had a great mix of conditions but luckily our 3 day forecast was spot on and we didn’t get plastered by any gales.    

Day 1 - Light NW winds and sunshine. Close hauled but not unpleasantly heeled, we made good progress at about 6 kts. the sea was flat calm but with a long swell. The 1st night continued much the same.

Just as night was falling we had a stow away join us. A small migratory bird (swallow or swift?) was knackered and landed on the fore deck to rest. He took off and disappeared for an hour and then returned, he did this a couple of times and then eventually returned flew into the saloon and perched on the book shelf where he stayed until sun up. He was a polite and pretty guest and was kind enough not to shit on Amanda who was sleeping 2ft away.

Our first guest !

Day 2 - Windless and sunny we motored for hours to make progress, we played with the spinnaker, but swell kept knocking the wind out. Did a bit of sunbathing, but the highlight of day was a whale that surfaced about 25 meters away and was then kind enough to do it again on queue once I had roused Amanda to share my excitement.

Day 3 – The NE wind started to build and we soon ended up with just half the foresail unfurled and braced with a pole, doing 7\8 knts. We had pods and pods of dolphins visit us all day and all night, they were amazing, leaping out of the waves and playing in our bow wave. When we were below decks trying to sleep you could hear them talking to each other through Magnums hull.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4f3cAEyd7Ko

We flew downwind for hour after hour but the sea built bigger and bigger so we were rolling dramatically from side to side making it very difficult to sleep, cook and eat.

The wind built to a F6 so we decided not to round Cape Finsterre, as this area has a reputation of having even stronger winds so diverted to La Coruna. We had a few horrendous hours getting here as the wind grew and it was the darkest coldest night we had yet experienced. It was so dark at one point I had to ask Amanda if she was still in the cockpit despite her sitting only 2 ft away ! Luckily she was still there. Then we crossed from the deep abyssal plain (4000m+) back onto the continental shelf (100m) and the waves became huge and a little on the unpleasant side.

Finally docked at La Coruna at 5am after some challenging night pilotage to enter the port and avoid the fishing fleets heading out to sea.

Long, long night !

We are showered and rested now and we are predicted light winds and 27deg for the next few days. . . . . our reward .