We had to wait until 3pm for the lock gates to open before we could leave the port.  

We had so much time to prepare our departure.
At 2.45pm we decided to detach the electric from our moorings.
At 2.45pm we realized that the wire had become stuck between one of the joins in the pontoon!
No amount of wriggling, pulling, heaving would free it! Finally, John used the knife at the last minute to free it! John is very technical like that.
(Later that day he had to rewire the plug back on!)

The swing bridge was swung up and open and we had to wait for a boat to pass from the other side first. But as soon as the boat passed through they started to close the bridge again! I was waving and screaming to no avail! fortunately one of the tourists noticed me and gave the lift operator a BIG nudge! The bridge started to lift again.

What a difference in the weather between inside and outside a port! When we got outside the lock the 15 knot wind became more like 20 knots! The harbour was full of boats – many also making their exit too. Two ‘Hobbie’ cats flipped over and there was a flotilla of 8 school boats with little children intent on passing right in front of us.
The joys of sailing after the days work!

As we left the entrance the sails were raised and we turned to starboard on our way out of the bay. The waves were 2-3 meters and the wind was well over 18 knots. The current was with us.  We had to tack a few times to pass the headland and this made for a very uncomfortable ride. 

As darkness fell and watches started the only one interested in eating was John!
The watch system worked well with 3 hours on and 6 hours off.  We soon settled into the rhythm and it was so nice to have Bob aboard.  

The Bay of Biscay has an interesting geographic phenomenon.  It has an underwater  cliff that runs along the bottom of the sea floor across it - so the Atlantic comes in very deep and then suddenly hits this cliff causing angry seas and high waves.
Once we had passed this point the seas calmed down John was still eating everything - Bob and I were still fragile! 

The next day the wind came from behind.
John put up the pole on the Genoa and the preventer on the Main sail. We were ‘wing on wing’ for several hours and making excellent progress.
John had down loaded his GRIB files (he lives for these – it’s sad really!) so we new that the wind was shortly going to change to 25 and even 30 knots.  In anticipation we took the pole down when the wind had built back up to 15 knots.
It was a good decision because one hour later we were in 25+ winds again!

Although we were making good time but we knew we would not make A Coruna in the light. It’s not good practice to arrive at an unknown port in the dark.
But, in this case the entrance to the marina looked straight forward. We made the decision to do our first night entry rather than sit it out in the Bay of Biscay. 

The moon was shining and although there was a lot of light pollution from the town, the entrance to the Marina which seemed very small in the dark was actually very easy (aren’t pilot books wonderful!) and the visitors mooring was immediately ahead of us. 
At 1am we docked and breathed a little sigh of relief.