The festival ran on until early morning. So as sleep became available, the clock and tide demanded we press on. So we sliped anchor at 0600 with a much reduced swell in the bay. Picking our way through the rocky entrance we headed NW to the northern Spanish coast. As the sun broke over the…
Luarca Harbour- Navionics With steadily growing winds the trip West from Gijon was entertaining. We started under engine until the breeze started to lift and by early afternoon we had all sails up and a reef in the main. The sea breeze seems to build consistently every day and can be 25kts by 1800. This…
Gijon – Navionics The strong winds from the day before had abated and left us with some good sailing winds for our trip to Gijon. We’d planned an early start to get to Gijon at a reasonable time and so get some shopping and laundry completed. We were not the first up and away, several…
Up and away at a reasonable hour (0800) we refilled Eclipse in preparation for our move to make good our Santander port call before heading further West. The rest and diversion to Bilboa had delayed us a couple of days so we needed to press on. The boat was remarkably inscathed after her ordeal in…
Biscay Crossing Plan – Navionics The night before a long passage is never fully restful for me as a skipper. Add to that a more rolly anchorage and it could have been a better night. That said we were as prepared as we could be for another long passage. We’d learned several lessons from the…
Ile de Re – Navionics The weather was less favourable this morning and it became clear that the long push to Port Medoc would be difficult to complete. The exit to Les Sables was less eventful but it seemed as if everyone was heading south and we joined the parade of yachts heading downstream like…
Navionics After the early boat move, we settled our bill, refuelled and departed for the next leg to Les Sables. This is the starting point fo the Vendee Globe race and somewhere I was interested in visiting. Despite early damp and drizzly conditions the day’s sail was good with building winds and a steady run…
The early start gave us a leap forward as we pressed on towards Ile D’Yeu. This is also a very touristy French island but with a much larger marina and a possibility of replenishing our fuel, energy levels and stores as well as completing admin, such as laundry and banking. The sailing was a combination…
A quiet night at anchor brought a lovely morning with some wind to make our way further South. The plan was to depart after collecting our croissants and bread promised the night before and make good Ile de Groix and Port Tudy. The croissants and bread never arrived. Probably not enough trade in the bay…
Refreshed after a good night’s sleep, we had some checks and preparation to do before we left Ushant. This time we had more judiciously planned a slack water departure to avoid the overfalls.Engine checks should that the mounts just needed a little nipping up but all else was well.I took advantage of a mooring and relatively…