Crossing the Bay of Biscay - from La Rochelle to A Coruña

In some ways being on Bisou with the sails up and the motor running (to begin with) was a surreal experience.  Particularly since we had waited so long for this moment, but also because we had only ever had the genoa raised during our short sea trial one afternoon a few weeks ago, and the main raised while moored to our pontoon!  You could just feel how happy Bisou was to be finally out in the open and able to strut her stuff!  You couldn’t wipe the smile off Tad’s face as he sat at the helm maneuvering us out of the channel to the open sea.

The day passed uneventfully, with each of us taking a turn at the helm, but mostly able to run the autopilot while keeping an eye on the screen and outside for other boats.  We had decent speed in the afternoon with a 7 knot average and made goo progress by our first sunset.  We also had our first dolphin visit – common dolphins swam up to our boat and played at the bows dodging back and forth across our stern narrowly missing being run over!  There were a few birds who swooped down to take a look at us but other than that, peace and quiet and the open ocean.

I took the first night watch but felt rather ill – I had taken some seasickness medication as the sea had some 2m swells running into us sideways – this made for a rather rocky ride.  Not uncomfortable but a challenge to my landlubber legs!  By the time it was Tad’s turn to take over, I sank exhausted into our bed.  Tad was kind to me for our first night and let me sleep until dawn.  Feeling much better on awakening, we enjoyed our first sunrise at sea – a flaming orange-red ball rose from the horizon to greet our second day on the passage to Spain.

We have found that eating simply and in small portions is best for sailing both from a preparation and clean-up perspective but also what sits best in the stomach.  Tad has not had any queasiness but I still felt a little shaky Thursday morning.  The wind had dropped overnight and although we tried several sail combinations we found that we would need to add the engines to our propulsion or we would never get to A Coruña. 

As we motor-sailed, the dolphins came back to visit throughout the day and we took advantage of their eagerness to entertain by sitting forward on the trampoline and the bow seats to watch them perform their antics!  What an amazing treat to be motor-sailing out in the deep blue sea (about 4000m in the middle of the Bay of Biscay), with a spectacularly sunny sky, and being entertained by a pod of cheeky dolphins!  We also put out a line with a tuna lure to see if we could catch something, but took it in again at sunset without a catch.

Some of you may be wondering what one does all day during an ocean passage – it’s hard to describe as the time really does pass amazingly quickly.  Setting and re-seting sails; plotting the course for the next waypoint; having a meal and cleaning up; sitting and reading a serveral-days-old newspaper and doing the crossword; having a nap; playing our guitars; just sitting and watching the ocean go by as well as watching dolphins play.  Having the engines running means lots of hot water so we luxuriate in long hot showers!

Thursday night the sunset is again spectacular and the almost-full moon rises bright and shining over the water.   There is another sailboat, a monohull, headed in the same direction as we are, but about 2 nautical miles to our starboard (right hand side).  They have a single main sail up as we do and are obviously motor-sailing as well.  Nightime is good for watch as you can see other boats because of their lights – we have a chart plotter up in our helm station as well as at the navigation desk so we can keep track of everything around us.  I have become quite adept at all things electronic – still a bit of a klutz with some things, but this morning I sent our first email at sea to my parents through our Iridium satellite phone as well as requesting a weather GRIB file.  It was so exciting to see it work!  The interesting thing is that none of this electronic equipment comes with manuals – you either have to download the instructions (pretty hard when you don’t have internet access at sea) OR it comes in the way of a DVD/CD but we don’t have a drive on either of our computers!  Give me a good old-fashioned instruction booklet any day!  Yes, I am a nerd – I read instructions for things.

Another easy night on Thursday with a beautiful sunrise again Friday morning.  The dolphins returned about 10pm on Thursday night (my watch) and played around the boat for at least 30 minutes.  Oh to have their energy!

Finally about noon on Friday we sighted the north coast of Spain for the first time – still a way to go, but at least we could see land!  Unfortunately unpredicted strong winds came up about 3pm and we had to take down all the sails and motor the rest of the way into A Coruña – it was scary and uncomfortable at the same time but Bisou took it all in her stride.  We entered the main harbor of  A Coruña about 7pm and were tied up at tiny marina right next to the old town by 7:30pm.  It was a bit of a challenge getting Bisou into her berth as it was very high tide and there was a strong cross-wind blowing us off the pontoon!  Pedro, the marina attendant, was very helpful in getting us tied up and we were most grateful for his presence.

After washing down Bisou with fresh water, and tidying her as well as ourselves up a bit, we headed into town for some dinner.  It’s so lovely to have the skies stay light until well after 10:30pm and A Coruña only really comes to life about then anyway.  The little streets with so many restaurants and bars were teeming with people (mostly watching the World Cup soccer as Spain was playing the Netherlands) and we had a hard time choosing where we would eat!  More on that in the next post.

Tad looking every inch the Skipper

                                                                            Robin enjoying the sun deck

The calm weather before the high winds