Viva Espana
Tillymint.fortescue
Sun 9 Aug 2009 10:37
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Sunday 9 August - Tilly Mint rocks!! We've
arrived in Spain, Still confused about the day of the week; we left Ile d'Yeu on
Friday morning, sailed all day, sailed all night, sailed all day, arrived in
Vivero in the evening, anchored, slept all night - so it's Sunday
morning!
Life is good, another challenge faced and conquered
- We have crossed the Bay of Biscay! The sea was
kind to us, the Atlantic rolled by gently and displayed none of the
attention seeking behaviour that it is reknowned for. The wind was mostly
favourable, absolutely perfect on Saturday and through to 1am on Sunday morning
, a force 5 from the North West which whizzed us long at 10 knots, then it
veered round to come from the north/north east, basically chasing our stern as
we headed south west toward the Spanish coast. The sails flopped and
then filled again, rustle bang, rustle bang. It was time for a change in
tactics, we could either tack and zig zag our course (but that would be extra
miles and hours at sea - not good), fly our parasailor, designed especially for
"downwind" moments like this (we haven't flown at all yet so doing it for the
first time in the dark - not good) or take in the main and genoa and motor
with Stanley (our low maintenance blade jib). We went for option 3 which kept us
on course and making progress but guaranteed that the night continued to be
noisy and difficult for those trying to catch a little shut-eye.
On the topic of shut - eye we had a cunning plan to
get us through the night. We all stayed up till around 9.30pm, again in the
company of Harry Potter, then Immy and Laurence went off to bed and Hugo stayed
up on watch with Alex. I pottered, made flasks of coffee and then tried to catch
a few hours of sleep tucked up with Immy and her teddies. Immy, the bears
and I wandered the boat in search of a peaceful cabin. The fo'castle
was noisy with the rustle bang of the genoa and the stern was noisy with the
chatterings of George, our autopilot. With a bear over each ear Immy managed to
fall asleep and I went back up on deck; it was much quieter up there, all the
noises diluted by the vast open space of sea and sky. It was a beautiful
evening, cloudless and bright with an almost full moon. Alex was busy tweaking
the rigging trying to make the best of the veering winds before we concluded
that they were getting the better of us. The motor went on and we went for the
expedient option to keep us on schedule. Maybe things would be better tomorrow,
the forecast was still saying northwesterly winds....Alex kept going til 4am
then went down below for some sleep leaving me, George and Stanley on deck to
while away the hours til dawn. Not a good night for sleep, glad we only have one
more day at sea.
During the night there wasn't much traffic and we
had good visibility as well as the radar for peace of mind. We crossed paths
with 2 vessels, both at a safe distance but Alex did take the precaution of
calling each to make sure they knew we were out there. We have a system
called AIS (Automated Identification System) onboard which tells us the name,
destination, length, type etc of vessels on the radar and beams the same
information about us to other ships. From this data we know that one of the
vessels was the Pride of Bilboa, they had confirmed to Alex that they had been
tracking our course for a while. It was only after the call that Alex did the
metaphorical putting together of 2 and 2 and remembered the tragic encounter
between a yacht and this ferry 2 years ago. A salient reminder as to the need
for a good watch.
Next day there was no improvement in the wind
direction but it was still a sunny, calm day so we could be sleepy in
pleasant surroundings and we were cheered up by regular visits from our
porpoise/dolphin friends. Alex plucked up the courage to give the parasailor an
airing. After 30 minutes of fiddling around with lines and shackles he was ready
to go - just needed to put out the spinnaker pole, all going well, too well as
it turned out. Not sure how or why but Alex managed to break one end of the
pole, the fittings at the end twisted and sheared off as he lifted from the
mast. We won't be flying our new kite today. Onward and upward with the motor
and the genoa going rustle bang. Still we kept up our pace and arrived in Vivero
at 8pm, dropped anchor, and gave ourselves a pat on the back; Bay of
Biscay; been there, done that!
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