Bound for Biscay

On Saturday afternoon I made a decision, Either to go North back to base on the Villaine or to go South to Spain, I flipped a coin - I would head south towards Spain.

I had a few days to fill before the frequently reviewed weather forecast would improve for long enough to give me a comfortable sail with wind in the right direction. I don’t believe I have every looked so intently at the long term prognosis and from as many sources as I did to prepare for this voyage. I was really getting heavily invested into analysis paralysis!

Playing in the Gironde

To use up the days before my selected weather window. I decided to spend a day or so on the Gironde River, first I crossed from Royan to Port Medoc to explore the marina there and had a look around the town, to be honest not much to see there. In truth, having taken the decision to cross Biscay, I was getting bored kicking around waiting for the clock to tick around till Tuesday when the weather would free me to finally depart for the voyage across Biscay. It was oh so tempting to just to cast off there and then.

Prep for Sea Royan

Departure Time

1st August 2018

Engine Hours 2068 Log 29809

Back in Royan departure was scheduled for 10 am. Having paid the Capitainerie and had a long shower, we slipped at 09:55 first stop the fuel pontoon to top up the tanks and fill a jerry can with diesel. It was strange tucking away the fenders with a mindset that I did not know exactly they would be brought out again and tidying the boat up somehow meant a lot more important with a long voyage ahead. The sails were hoisted, the lines tidied away with great care and after an hour and settling in, I was making good progress westward.

The forecast for the next few days had been for Northerly winds of about 4 to 5 for the first 30 hours and then a gradual veer towards Easterlies. I therefore set my strategy to keep reaching offshore with a Northerly wind until later the next day when the wind was forecast to back towards the East when I would gybe south and rach on port tack towards the Northern Spanish coast.

Leaving the shore the wind was still light and I hoped that heading offshore it would build through the day and at 11:54 Sails were hoisted and the engine turned off.

The wind soon developed into a moderate force 4 with smooth waves providing very comfortable sailing. Seascape behaved admirably and together we carried full white rig - Genoa staysail and mainsail and managed to keep a consistent 6 to 7 kn for the whole day with little effort, this was glorious ocean sailing at its best.

Wind Pilot the Reliable Crew Member

I watched and logged the barometer which remained nice and steady at 1023

Although the weather was fine I admit I did struggle to eat very much that first day with a special combination of excitement and anxiety and my anticipation building towards the singlehander's watch system for the evening time.

At 1900 I recorded in the log that I had just seen a tuna leaping from the sea followed by a pod of dolphins which I took to be a good omen. I tried to get a weather forecast on the SSB, however there was too much electrical background and I struggled to get a readable image on the laptop.

At 2000 the log was reading 90 miles down and I decided that I would have some dinner and prepare for the night watch. I checked the boat over and walked around the deck with my harness on and a completed the check of all the electronics and the lights to make sure everything was safe for a night passage.

There had been little traffic all day in fact it was fair to say that I had only seen one other boat in the distance and my concern through the night with the avoidance of fishing boats and other vessels likely to be in the way and so I set up all the electronic help I had, configuring the radar and the AIS to warn me in case of any impending collisions.

I called home on the sat phone and asked if there was any change to the weather forecast from this morning, after a number of calls on the base phone network including to other experienced yachtsmen it was agreed that the forecast was holding, which was excellent news. I have to say the quality of voice reception on the sat phone leaves a lot to be desired but the text system works great.

As the Sun went down I made myself a bed in the saloon and decided that I would get an hours sleep and get a bit of rest before the night's darkness fell properly again.

It was difficult to get any kind of rest that night and my stomach was still turning and my subconscious warning me that at some point I would doze off and crash into an unlit fishing vessel. As the sunset faded into the sky and the stars came out I was able to see the Milky Way shining and it's incredible beauty with no light pollution in the sky, as the darkness became more and more dark blue the shooting stars became brighter and more frequent.

There are a few places now in the world where the sky is properly dark enough to ensure that the landscape of the sky is seen from horizon to horizon. The faintest stars become visible, the brightest stars become so bright that it's almost possible to read by them it truly is majestic to be at sea and I felt very privileged indeed if this is ocean sailing, I am in love.

The Spectacular Sky

Of course as always, good things come to an end, two or three hours later the moon rose and gradually painted the sky black covering most of the stars as it lifted higher and higher and we sailed together towards the west playing in the moonbeams.

That first night I was becoming acclimatised to the experience of being almost entirely on my own in the ocean with the occasional loom of lights from distant fishing boats. Until midnight, none of them came close enough to worry my AIS or my RADAR despite my concerns about keeping watch. My wind pilot conscientiously managing the boat on a steady course through the night. Every time I looked out through the companionway I saw my buddy playing close attention to the course of the boat with absolute diligence. I was free to update the charts on the chart table check the instruments and the only thing that gave me any anxious moments was the depth alarm which started to make me jump soundly telling me we were in less than a metre of water. How could that be when we are out in the middle of Biscay with a minimum depth of water in excess of 5 kilometres under the keel. Eventually I checked the chart one more time and turned the damned shallow alarm off. Obviously the depth sounder did not have enough power to send a ping all the way to the bottom of the ocean and was guessing where it was showing a depth under the shallow alarm limit and jerking me awake each time.

At midnight I noted some lights on the horizon and I altered course to sail around a small cluster of fishing boats. (45’18.9N 3’54.73W)

At 0530 I furled the genoa as the wind was moving more to our stern and the genoa was collapsing more frequently and a couple of hours later I started the engine to charge the batteries at 1500 RPM. Log reading was 144 miles under our belt.

The morning kept me busy as with the wind behind and a preventer rigged on the mainsail, the genoa was not happy hiding in the wind shadow of the main and for a couple of hours I tried goosewinging and failed after an hour or so of motoring I decided that it was time to hoist the spinnaker at 17:30.

At 2110 I decided that the spinnaker had to be doused and so the engine came on at 1500 RPM again with 232 miles under our belt I felt that we had achieved a pretty reasonable run and could afford a more relaxing night. Either way I did not want to be single handedly playing with spinnakers at night.

The log then has entries through the night at hourly intervals. I managed to create a rhythm of sleeping for 50 minutes between look out and log entry which seemed to suit me and so long as I slept in the same position on the starboard saloon bunk with my head back on the pillow in the same place I seemed to be able to suspend and resume my sleep without ill effects. In fact I recorded that as I woke up in the morning I felt that I had had a really good sleep.

At 0400 I recorded that we were again approaching shallower water as expected and the depth was reducing to less than 150m. The log entry reads “Had a couple of good cat naps much improved on last night, approaching shallower water.”

At 0830 the log entry showed a gybe onto starboard broad reach wind 12K NE log reading 309 Miles run.

At 1100 the log reads shook out lazy jack that was stuck on batten pocket 245 degrees compass at 6.4K 43’50.79N 007’53.76W motoring again offshore from Ortiguiera Spain. Mobile signal has returned on phone. What was even more exciting was that I could get some music on the stereo radio. Later I sent a text to Adam and Lynne on Charisma to see exactly where they were and to give them an ETA of 17:30 all things being equal.


At 1200 the curse of landfall manifested itself in the form of …… FOG so again the Radar and AIS were configured for a guard zone, the grab bag was checked one more time and a continuous watch was established as best as I could. Barometer 1020 which was good news and the fog seemed to be hanging around the coast line which was disappointing as my first sight of land would have to wait!

Fog on the Spanish shore lifts

By 1300 I had dodged one yacht, one fishing vessel and one cargo ship quite a game of Nintendo for one hour.

At 1500 fog was now cleared and I was approaching my selected waypoint at Cabo Prior 353 miles under our belt and only18 miles to run to the anchorage off A Corunna.

By 1600 log reads “At next WP into Bay de Ensenada where Adam and Lynne are moored”

Target ETA Party Invitation

1740 Arrived at Bay de Ensenada de Mara met up with Charisma and Debs and John on Shiraz. As I passed them seeking an anchorage, I apologised for being 15 minutes later than my forecasted ETA provided by text in the early morning!

Log entry

Found anchor pin was bent like a banana and could not let go anchor so borrowed a convenient small sledge hammer from Adam and thumped it straight. Let anchor go in 5m of water

Trip 373 Miles
Engine Hours 18
Total Time 56 Hours

Average Speed 6.6K






Off to Charisma for drinks and supper

Party Time

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