Heading West

Our plan is to sail about 30 miles west to a little anchorage called Laxe later today, after a dash round the local supermarket for provisions. We're trying to avoid the temptation of eating out as that's soon get pretty expensive but we're eating well on board - we even made our own bread yesterday (yes, we found space for the breadmaker!).

The wind is forecast to be from the south west today then goes round to the north east tomorrow which should be perfect for blowing us round Cape Finisterre and then south. Finisterre has a bit of a reputation for big waves and strong winds so we'll pick our moment with care.

We will update the blog with photos next time we get decent wifi connections; in the meantime it's been great to get emails and comments. A couple of people have said they've tried to add comments to the blog unsuccessfully; please let us know if you're having difficulties via email. 

Graham & Di xx

The Yeo Valley Organic Big Pot is unveiled

As the wind eased as we approached the Spanish mainland there was a VHF radio conference between Maunie and Stormvogel: "shall we try the light wind sails?"

Stormvogel hoisted her 'Winakker' first:

We then launched our Parasailor (the two designs are very similar and both feature an inflated wing, which adds stability to the sail, and a vent which allows the sail to absorb sudden wind gusts). Our sail proudly flies the Yeo Valley Organic logo:

The sail is 125 square metres, roughly 4 times the size of the mainsail so it's quite a beast! Happily it has a launching system which uses a 'sock' which allows it to be hoisted and lowered relatively easily. The following photos show it in action:

Many thanks to Peter Wiedekamm for these photos.

Back to the present and we've had a busy day in La Coruna - lots of chores such as cleaning the boat and doing two loads of washing in the launderette but we've also had a good walk round the city. It's a really interesting place, straddling a promontory. On the east side, where we are, there's a big commercial dock but just half a mile away on the west side there's a long sandy beach facing out towards the Atlantic where, on a Saturday afternoon, the locals lie out to absorb the sun.

There's no wind forecast tomorrow so we'll stay here and do the sights and practice our Spanish (we're on Module 3 of 'Spanish for Beginners'!). We need to watch the forecast carefully to get round Cape Finisterre to the west before we head south down the coast; there are local wind acceleration zones which can make it a bit of a challenge.

Safely into La Coruna - and dolphin photos

After a really excellent two and a half day passage, we arrived safely into La Coruna at 15.30 after 330 miles, tired but elated. Amazingly, after all that distance we were less than a mile from Stormvogel for most of the voyage so had the comfort of seeing each others' masthead navigation lights in an otherwise empty sea.

Last night saw the wind increase to Force 6, again a broad reach, so we carried full sail and fairly romped along, pretty much at hull speed (around 8 knots). In these higher winds, Stormvogel's extra length meant she began to leave us but Peter and Heidi were finding that their autopilot was struggling to keep control of their huge rig so they reefed down their foresail and stayed with us. We are really please with how Maunie performed, though; to stay with a boat 10 ft longer is no mean feat. Peter commented "I'm glad that your boat is in a different division to ours in the ARC!"

This morning we suddenly had some big ships and erratic fishing boats to deal with as we approached the Spanish coast and then the wind began to ease so we had another play with spinnakers. Photos of these to follow, but in the meantime, here are a few of our friendly dolphins from the first night:

Thanks to Simon Raine for his appearance here (read his comment on the last update for details!)

One final wildlife photo for you. When we launched the spinnaker this afternoon, out of nowhere arrived a large bat which flew at it and around it for ten minutes or so:

When we finally dropped the spinnaker, Graham was stuffing it into its sailbag when the bat emerged from it (must have been clinging on grimly!) and flew off towards the shore.

More news and photos to follow tomorrow when we've hopefully had a full night's sleep without boat noises! The marina at La Coruna is very new, smart, half empty and fairly pricey but we'll be here for a couple of nights at least whilst we plan and check the weather. The Rias (long inlets, a bit light Scottish sea lochs) of this part of Galicia are said to be beautiful so ideally we'll spend a few days exploring before we head further south.

A surreal world in the middle of Biscay

Current position: 45deg 37.3min North, 6deg 27.2min West. In other words right in the middle of Biscay, about to cross into Spanish waters, 156nm from Coruna.

 

We left at 11.00 yesterday (Wednesday) and have covered 164 miles so we're over half way there. We'd send you a picture but there's just lots of waves and sunshine so it'd be pretty dull. We've seen a few fishing boats and that's all. We still have Heidi and Peter in Stormvogel for company, though, and they are only two miles away so our boats are pretty well matched for speed; it's good to be able to chat on the VHF radio every now and then to compare notes.

 

Our world is slightly surreal at the moment. Our 38ft, 14 tonne home is surging down the waves at around 6.5 knots, the autopilot in control whilst we go about a few jobs after lunch. The wind finally arrived at about 8.00pm so we were relieved to turn the engine off and, as darkness fell, the navigation light at the top of the mast described large arc across a very starry sky as we rolled and pitched our way towards Spain. Down below the boat creaks a little and the water is noisy as it surges past the hull so off watch sleeping is still more like lying still and trying to sleep.

 

I think tonight we'll be so tired, and accustomed to the strange noises, that we'll sleep very well in our 4-hour off-watches. At least the bloody shallow water alarm won't keep going off! I should explain that were currently in water that's 4700 metres deep so our echosounder has no chance of spotting the seabed. Instead it chooses a random number to display, between 2.5m and 4m. Unfortunately we had it set with a shallow water alarm at 2.5m for when we're cruising in coastal waters so it kept going off in the night until Graham eventually found the right sequence of button-pushing to disable it.

 

The other wonderfully surreal moment yesterday evening was the Arrival of the Dolphins. We counted over 30, circling Maunie and charging under the bow, and could hear their squeaks through the hull. They obviously enjoy the interaction with a boat and I watched one perform a perfect underwater barrel roll beneath my feet at the bow. They stayed for about 30 minutes (and some returned in the night) so we'll have some photos to share with you (and evidence for Laura) when we get into port (which should be early Friday evening all being well.

 

Anyway, must go, sails need trimming and that sort of thing.

 

 

About to leave France, but we have a yogurt crisis!

After a brilliantly relaxing few days on the Brittany coast it'll be hard to leave France.

However we need to get south across the Bay and the forecast looks as good as it's going to get over the next few days. We're promised F4 NE to E winds so that should give us a chance to fly the spinnaker but we'll see; at the moment it's pretty calm.

We've used the day's stopover in Loctudy pretty well: visited the market for some local cheese and meats; restocked on general food and wine (of course - 5 litre boxes of very acceptable Merlot are 10 euros!); continued to reorganise stowage on the boat (Graham has a mild fixation about fore and aft trim so has been moving heavy objects into the forward lockers) and did a bit of admin.

Thanks to the wonders of wifi (and a wifi antenna which is currently clipped to the end of the boom) we can get high speed internet on the boat in the marina so did a Skype conversation with Graham's parents in Scotland last night. We also have all the kit to print and encapsulate important documents so now have a complete list of our medical supplies, organised by key symptoms.

So all's pretty good aboard Maunie except for one thing: we have a yogurt crisis! The last pot of Yeo Valley Organic was consumed this morning at breakfast.

We'll have to contact Yeo Valley HQ to see if an parachute drop can be arranged for the middle of Biscay. If not, the thought of inferior French yogurt is almost too much to bear!

Memories of ships that pass in the night

We had a wonderful day of R&R on the Ile d’Ouessant after the night passage – sunshine, scenery and local crepes and cidre. Since then the wind has continued to be conspicuous by its absence so yesterday we motored through the infamous Raz de Sein (where tides run at up to 6 knots) to overnight at Ste Evette near Audierne and then today we've consumed more diesel on a 30 miles passage of rock-hopping round to Loctudy.

The rocking and rolling of the sail from Falmouth already seems like a distant memory but here are a couple of photos from it.

If you’ve never experienced huge ship sailing just half a mile away from you in an otherwise empty and dark sea, we can tell you it’s something you never get comfortable with. However the AIS system that we have on board decodes their automatic transmissions to tell us the ship’s name, size, callsign, speed, heading and final destination. More importantly it does a quick bit of maths, having consulted our on-board GPS, to tell us our CPA (closest point of approach) so that we can focus on any worryingly close vessels.

These photos show a tanker and a passenger ferry from last night and they illustrate the difficulty of doing hand-held long exposure photos on a rolling yacht!

This evening we'll study the weather forecasts again and decide what to do. We need to make the break for Spain before the weather goes all wrong and gives us gales and headwinds but, on the other hand, we don't want to motor for 50 hours!!

A no-wind stop in Ushant

The decision outlined in the previous blog was made for us at about 10.00am on Friday morning. The wind fell away, leaving us rolling in a big sloppy sea; not comfortable at all so we fired up the engine. The tidal gate at Ushant was closing fast – that's to say the favourable south-going tide was going to be replaced by a fast-moving north going flood in only a couple of hours- so we studied the chart and decided that the settled conditions made the rocky 'harbour' in the Ile d'Ouessant a possibility. We had to fight the beginning of the adverse tide as we reached the entrance (guarded by La Jument lighthouse that you may have seen in a brilliant photo where the keeper stands nonchalantly o his 'doorstep' whilst whit water froths around him) so had some interesting white water to negotiate (tides run at 3 knot here) but came into a lovely sheltered anchorage. it would be completely exposed in a south westerly but in a slight northerly it's brilliant.

 

Peter and Heidi in Stormvogal were an hour behind us as we approached the island but, such is the cruelty of tidal gates, they got stuck in the tide race (at one stage going backwards!) and arrived at the harbour 4 hours after us, picking up a mooring buoy alongside.

 

The 3-day forecast shows practically no wind in Biscay so we'll probably stay here Saturday and explore the island before heading south. I have to climb the mast as well to find our why our VHF radio is sometimes giving poor transmissions; we're using the emergency back-up aerial in the meantime.