On our way from Plymouth to the Canaries

Sy-tucanon
Philip Fearnhead
Tue 9 Oct 2012 08:25

Tuesday 9th October 2012: Position 48:04.86N 005:39.4W

We have rounded Ushant at the west of Brittany and are heading south across the Bay of Biscay. We (Kevin Mottram and I) left Plymouth Yacht Haven yesterday at 10.05 and sailed, motor-sailed and eventually motored across the English Channel. There was no wind when we left Plymouth and we have rarely seen as much as 10 knots of wind along the way. Since Monday afternoon we have had thick mist and fog with visibility down to 100m, and almost zero overnight. Fortunately, the AIS and radar have kept us from harm even if Kevin did have to do some zig-zagging across one of the shipping lanes.

The fog is wet and clingy, so we kept watch all night from the saloon with forays on deck just to check that all was well with the main sail, which is doing very little; the genoa is furled to improve visibility, but the instruments can see more than we can! A few breaks appeared in the mist overhead today to raise our hopes of better weather to come, but it is closing in again as the day ends.

During the day a vast school of dolphins surrounded us which appeared to extend to every horizon and was comprised of small groups of 6-12 animals distinctly together amidst the amorphous shoal. The groups took turns to visit the boat – apparently looking for any signs of intelligent life!

This weather gave us little incentive to visit Camaret-sur-Mer, near Brest, which is approached along a rock strewn channel with strong currents, so we decided to carry on direct to La Coruna at the NW corner of Spain. The weather outlook is for little wind tonight or tomorrow, but there should be sailable conditions thereafter. We currently expect to reach La Coruna on Friday morning.