The kick-off: sailing the Bay of Biscay (#4)

Hello everyone and thank you for coming back here and following our adventure.

This week you can read all about our first passage on the new boat, our very first passage in general actually. And it was challenging… if you would have asked me during the passage if I wanted to buy a boat and go live on it to travel the world, the answer would have been: NO WAY!! But we already bought the boat and we are living on it. Ah well, all beginnings are difficult, right?

The departure ...

The moment had finally arrived - Friday October 9, 8 a.m. – to leave Les Sables d’Olonne and start our big sailing adventure. We could see the first signs of the sunrise while we started the engines and threw off the lines. It was a thrilling moment, we were really doing this! My hands were literally shaking with excitement and my heart was beating pretty fast. Off we went, on to a hopefully quiet passage.

The wind was pretty good for our first day so we hoisted the sails, turned down the engines and sailed away from the coast. The waves became choppy as you can expect in the Bay of Biscay so I was happy that I took a pill against seasickness, better safe than sorry. The first day was quite relaxing, we spent a lot of time adjusting and figuring out all the settings on the B&G, checking the weather forecast, trimming the sails, watching out over the sea, having some quality time with the kids and getting some rest to prepare for the night.

The highlight of the first day was the pod of dolphins that joined us in the late afternoon. What a show they put on for us on our first day at sea, amazing!

After the dolphin show it was time to prepare everything for the night. To feel more secure for the night we put one reef in the mainsail in case the wind got stronger and that way we wouldn’t have to worry about doing it in the dark. We chose to all sleep together on the flybridge in our sleeping bags. Sven and I took turns sleeping but the night was pitch black and it was so boring to stare at the B&G monitor that I had a lot of trouble staying awake. I thought I would be able to watch some movies or series on my Ipad during my night watches, but it was impossible to do so without feeling nauseous. So Sven stayed awake almost the entire night and I slept in small periods because I kept waking up in fear that something was wrong. So you can imagine how happy I was to see the sky becoming a little less black, the first sign that morning was on it’s way, so I managed to take the last watch and Sven was happy to go to sleep.

The second day ...

The second day was pretty much the same as the first day, only even more waves and higher winds (20-25 knots). And since I did not take a pill against seasickness that day I felt miserable almost the entire day. Only lying on my back on the flybridge could bring some relief but every time I had to go down to get something or concentrate on something the miserable feeling came back. The plan to conquer the seasickness on my own without medication was not a success so far. The children seemed to handle the movement of the boat pretty well, especially Liam; he has been reading one book after the other. Sky only felt a little bad after reading but after a few minutes of lying down the feeling was gone. They were still happy on board even though there wasn't a lot for them to do at the moment. They just relaxed, read, rested and watched the sea and only played on their Ipad a little in the evening before they went to sleep. I was not very happy to go into the night again but there was no way back now. Luckily we got treated to a beautiful sunset before the night fell. The night was also pretty much the same as the first one.

The third day ...

Again, pretty much the same as the previous days, sounds boring? It is! Especially because the waves are very choppy and it’s almost impossible to do anything inside, if we didn’t hold ourselves very tightly we would just fall over. I have several bruises just from going to the toilet.

I decided to take a pill against seasickness again, and as the day passed by the waves became less high so it was all a bit more bearable that day. The kids played a lot on their Ipad’s and Sven managed to make pasta in the evening, which was a very welcome meal. In the evening we got greeted by another pod of dolphins and we were treated to another beautiful sunset.

Our only concern that day were the numerous reports we read the past weeks about the killer whale attacks on sailing boats near the coast of Spain. And even more so when we received a message from the coast guard during the night that a pod of killer whales was spotted near the NW coast, where we were. Even though we already kept the recommended distance from the coast we decided to sail even more into the ocean. It was an anxious night. After a day of little wind and a lot of motor sailing due to the opposite current, the wind unexpectedly started to pick up at night, which meant we had to reef in the dark. Everything went well but these things make me nervous. At night I’m always worried about worst-case scenarios, like Sven falling overboard. Which would be almost impossible because we take all the necessary safety measures, but my mind likes to drive me crazy with these things at night.

The fourth day ...

By morning we were well out of the Bay of Biscay and the difference was noticeable. The sea was very calm, it was like we were sailing on a pond. A pod of dolphins greeted us at sunrise.

A calm sea also meant there was little wind so we had to motor sail a lot but it was nice to be able to walk normal over the boat after three days of stumbling. The children could go inside and play with the Lego and I did not have to take a seasickness pill. Because there were no waves we spotted a lot of dolphins that day, it was amazing! Although every time I saw something move in the water I was a little bit scared that it were killer whales. Never saw them in the wild before but it’s probably a big difference with a pod of dolphins.

Thanks to the calm sea we could also spot items floating in the sea like fishing nets, mostly further away except for one that drifted right under our boat. We were very lucky that we had the port side engine running because the net got stuck in the prop of the starboard engine. Sven managed to get it out with the boat hook. It’s good that I spotted the piece of net before we turned on the engine and the net got tangled in the prop, disabling it.

In the evening the wind picked up again and we had to face another challenge: fog. This made our last night of this passage extremely hard. We planned to arrive in Porto the next morning so we had to start heading back closer to the coast. Because we sailed far into the ocean to avoid a killer whale encounter we now had to cross the sea-lane where all the cargo ships pass. Pretty nerve-wrecking in this dense fog. But even worse were the fishing boats near the coast. The big cargo ships have a lot of advanced technology on board to avoid collision, but the fishing boats don’t. We came pretty close to a lot of boats this night but one of them was almost too close. Sven did an amazing job navigating through the fog and avoiding all the boats around us.

The arrival ...

We were sooooo happy to arrive at Douro Marina in Porto in the morning of day 5. It was time to clean the boat and then have a lot of rest.

More about our arrival and stay in Porto next week…

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