Ok, quick update as I’ll probably be sailing for the next three or four days and although I have now tested the satellite phone for sending emails, I can’t guarantee that I’ll be able to keep the blog updated. The next leg will be a coastal sail across the Biscay coast of Spain, around Cape Finisterre and south to just before Portugal. I’m not planning to stop at all in northern Spain so trying to coordinate sleeping is going to be a problem. Anyway, I’ll see how it goes but there are loads of places to dive into if it becomes dangerous.

All the damage from the last leg is now fixed. I had bent the pushpit by using the electric winch to furl the genoa not realising that it had become snagged on the redundant spinnaker halyard. I won’t go into detail as it’s all my own fault and I’m a bit embarrassed at making such a textbook error. Anyway, it’s all back in place now with the help of a couple of big guys with big lumps of wood and some persuasive tools. One of them was an electrician who also quickly found the problem with the forward navigation lights. I think a connection behind the anchor locker had become temperamental but when I was taking so much water over the deck, it had become wet and failed completely. There were a few other minor things as well although nothing so serious. Just a bit of water coming in through the forward hatch – again, not surprising considering the conditions. I’d also left the inner stay rigged thinking I’d hank-on the staysail but actually never got around to it and instead used a reefed genoa. Nothing wrong with that except that when I rounded up into the wind, the genoa was flailing violently against the inner stay and it’s started to fray the blue sacrificial strip. I’ll sew it up in the morning and will put it down to experience.

So I’m learning all the time – not just about the logistics of single-handed cruising but every day I learn something about Canasta. Several times I’ve come back on my bicycle to find a group of locals standing on the quayside looking at her and every time, she makes me so proud.

I’m hoping for slightly better conditions for the next leg although it’s bucketing down outside as I’m writing. I’ll try to get away tomorrow after breakfast but will be sad to leave Bayonne.

So, I hear you ask…“Where to Next?”

A Three… Ria de Vigo – Spain

Bye for now,

Bee

Rob Clark

W2N Global Ltd.

+44 (0)7967 661157

www.w2n.co.uk