Date:15/10/07

Location: Bayona

Lat/Lon: 42:07.13N 008:50.80W

BEVERLY:

We left Crosshaven at 7 am on October 10^th with a south-westerly breeze of about 15 knots, managing to sail for about the first 3 hours with Bootlegger and the American boat: ‘Event Horizon’. ‘Options’ had left the day before. There was an uncomfortable swell running from the Southerly 6 the day before. We did bi-hourly watches on our own which meant we had 6 hours off watch, a good nights sleep…in theory. We motored for the next 40 hours but at 8am the next day we had enough wind to sail. We put up the full mainsail, headsail and mizzen. Before dark at 6 pm, we put one reef in the main and took down the mizzen. There then followed a very fast sail through the night.

At 6 am the following day the boat was travelling at up to 9 knots and at first light we put two more reefs in the main and rolled the headsail down to a scrap of canvass. By 7 am it was a full gale, accompanied by bright sunshine. Swiftwing handled well, standing up to her canvass but still travelling at 7 to 8 knots. The gale lasted for about 6 hours as predicted by the weather routing service then it went light. We had been crossing the main shipping lanes all day, being passed by at least a dozen leviathans heading on their watery way. We saw the coast of Spain (Finisterre) just before sunset and then watched as it went dark and all the shore lights appeared and the stars came out. The sea by this stage was just like glass. We doubled up the watches as we were near land but we still had 60 miles to go to our chosen first port of call, Bayona. It was nice to be on watch with Duggie as it felt as though we hadn’t seen each other for days. We entered Bayona at first light. The chart plotter had stopped working the night before so it was back to the trusty old Toughbook laptop, a very large scale paper chart and waypoints. Great fun looking for all the lights and navigating in but lots of really small boats coming out of the harbour; I was worried in case I would run one down.

Made it! Bayona looked beautiful in the early morning sun and we moored at the Monte Real Yacht club pontoons, just under the castle. It was a relief that we had made it to Spain before the weather had turned in the UK. I think we had been lucky as it was by now early October. It had taken us four days and nights to travel from Cork to Bayona, a fairly fast crossing. The last time Dougie did the same crossing it took five nights and six days at sea.

Dougie getting work done in Bayona.