Braving the Bay of Biscay

If I’m perfectly honest I really wasn’t looking forward to this passage. Three days and nights non-stop out at sea, at a time of year when the weather could make things pretty uncomfortable. Do we worry more as we age or get more risk averse in our older years? I seem to remember the 21 year old me was pretty adventurous! 

Anyway I survived our Biscay crossing and here’s a few highlights and observations from the 75 hour passage. 

Weather / Sailing

Our marine insurance renewed in August but our previous company wouldn’t cover us to cross Biscay after 15th September. Thankfully our broker managed to source another underwriter with a slightly later deadline of 1st October to be across the notorious bay. Not a great confidence filling start is it? 

On Tuesday morning we left St Mary’s Harbour in the same misty conditions as when we arrived. The weather forecast was being relayed on the VHF radio as we motored off the mooring and I remember hearing the word ‘variable’ mentioned a few times. And ‘variable’ it was, the wind and sea state was all over the place - sails up, sails down, fully reefed, part reefed. We tried everything to begin our journey by sailing, or at least motor-sailing, the almost 400 mile straight line from the Scilly Isles to A Coruna in North Western Spain. 

The winds on Wednesday however were perfect and we sailed along at an average of 6 knots. The sea was ‘confused’ shall we say - a long swell coming in from the west meeting short choppy waves picked up by the north easterly winds. I’m not sure which wave formation ‘won’ but it was quite a ride at times!

On Thursday morning we were still sailing with full sails up until, as predicted, the winds moved round more easterly and then died all together. If you’d told me we’d be motoring along with almost flat calm waters and clear blue skies wearing t-shirts in the Bay of Biscay I wouldn’t have believed you. 

Thursday night into early Friday morning saw another shift in wind direction. We were now slamming into an uncomfortable sea and headwinds from the south, and our speed was knocked back to 3 knots at times. Our final approach to A Coruna was flat calm again.

Dolphins

The disappointment of the lack of wind on Tuesday was more than made up for by the presence of dolphins swimming alongside us for most of the day. We had pods of small silvery ones bow-riding where Seascape’s prow carves through the water. They do it because it is an energy efficient way to travel and they enjoy the race with others in their pod. I’ll never tire of watching them swimming with such precision alongside our yacht, they’re such beautiful creatures.

Dave woke me when I was ‘off shift’ at 5am on Wednesday morning (risky business that) to watch a fish feeding frenzy. We were witnessing part of the marine food chain in action right beside our boat. Plankton were being attracted to our starboard side green navigation lights, the fish came after the plankton closely followed by the dolphins for a bountiful ready-meal. The sea was alive with jumping silvery fish, possibly sardines, being chased by a huge pod of dolphins - an amazing experience to watch. 

There were also the darker coloured dolphins who kept their distance but still made their presence known by jumping out of the water nearby. As we headed into much deeper waters we saw fewer dolphins - just the occasional pod in the distance. 

Watches

As we were a little short handed for this passage we had drawn up a rough watch pattern as follows:

20:00-23:00 Dave sleeping / Kath on watch

23:00-02:00 Kath sleeping / Dave on watch

02:00-04:30 Dave sleeping / Kath on watch

04:30-07:00 Kath sleeping / Dave on watch

07:00-09:00 Dave sleeping / Kath on watch

He also manages to fit in an afternoon nap somehow!! 

I know that’s not an even split but I can cope on a few hours sleep and, as the one with less experience, he knows I’ll be getting him up if I’m concerned about the course of a passing ship or changing wind conditions. 

We saw very little other shipping - if you look at the Marine Traffic App it looks like a motorway - in reality vessels are few and far between.

Autohelm

This is really our third crew member who sits, relatively quietly, at the stern and steers the course that Dave has set. It basically consists of a motor and a drive belt attached to the steering wheel and an electronic unit fitted to the instrument console. Other than taking the helm to enter and leave harbours the autohelm does all the steering for us. On cold nights when salty water from waves is coming over the quarter we can be cosily hiding inside the spray cover, periodically popping our heads out to check for any nearby vessels or headland lights. 

Skies

Out in the open sea you really get to appreciate beautiful big skies with clear horizons and no unnatural light pollution. We witnessed spectacular sunrises and sunsets, a large bright moon, myriads of stars and constellations and even shooting stars. 

We know we are so lucky to be able to experience this and I really hope you are enjoying the blog.