Alternative destinations

First I'd planned to visit Saba to dive there. Then the wind was consistently from the North East which made mooring in Saba pretty horrible so we changed plans and aimed for St. Barths instead. When we left on Saturday morning, the wind didn't do much, but later rose and changed to the North, and in the afternoon veered North East. But by then, our target was too far to windward, so we opted for Statia instead.

All of these are pretty close together, so no trouble getting from one to the next. Our next hop was meant to be Oyster Pond in St. Martin, but the North Easterly wind combined with the late hour made us go into Great Bay on St. Martin. Just six Miles closer, but 4 Miles more Westward. It took us 3 days of waiting until the wind had changed enough to finally make it into Oyster Pond.

The upshot of all this is of course the continuous changing of cruising plans and destinations as we go along. We're having a lot of fun exploring different options and I've long started putting in alternate routes into our navigational software so we're never without an alternative.

But tomorrow we're headed for Anguilla, and since we're picking up my brother in law, we'll make that. At least that's our aim and weather permitting, it doens't look impossible. But we have already had to put people on a ferry so as not to rush too much, so our cruising lifestyle remains leisurely. No point getting stressed with deadlines or having to beat to windward if the wind isn't favorable. There's always ferries, planes and cars to get others to come to us.

But we try. It's just a far cry from my trip to Portugal in 2006, when we ended up taking the rough route to meet folks. But I believed then, and do still, there is always an alternative destination on the horizon. It should be every cruiser's motto.

It's deep, over 4000 Metres. That's a lot of water!

We're in Spain. We are in Spain. It's 30 degrees outside and 34 inside, which is nice, and it's warm. We've been so cold getting here, both in France and crossing Biscay, but now all that's forgotten and it's warm.

Last blog post saw us in Brest, waiting for a weather window. We got that, and we left, first for Camaret to wait for the rain to pass. And it rained, it rained and it was cold and only Sven and Tony were brave enough to hop in the dinghy to get some fruit. By nightfall we got the fuel tank full on the diesel pontoon - at 1.33 Euro per litre, which is 10 cents more than the already elevated price in Brest. So much for gambling Camaret would be cheaper.

After we left, we got the promised North Westerly winds, but unfortunately it didn't quite get high enough to get us past Raz De Sein in one go, so we motor sailed once more until we passed the cape - another one. The good thing about the wind not being very strong was the wave action at Raz De Sein was not too bad. It's not a very pleasant place to be otherwise. Once we passed into the night, the wind turned West Southwest, instead of the Westerly winds we were promised. So we sailed South, confident that the forecast of North Westerly winds would make sure we got back on track. Our course was, after all, 214° for 354 Miles until Finisterre. After that, another 55 Miles saw us to Sanjenjo to wait out the storm anounced for Sunday evening.

After sailing South for 12 hours and getting 30 Miles off course, the navtex got a bit uncertain about the North Westerlies, especially in the area we were in (Iroise). So I decided to head back North West, to get more to the West where the wind would be more favourable. So we beat back to our track and just 5 Miles before getting to our track, the wind veered North just enough to start sailing South West again. In 24 hours, we gained just over 70 Miles. Now our speed was good as well as our heading. The only problem at that time was Sven who kept getting seasick. But after taking some drastic measures, that problem got sorted and and he remained free of sickness afterwards.

We were sailing fast and made good averages, reaching our half way point after 54 hours out of Camaret. After that, the wind started veering to the North and then North East. As it changed, it became much less, about Force 3. So after 66 hours of sailing, we had to switch on the engine for 12 hours. After that, the wind freshened and we sailed another 8 hours before rounding Finisterre, completing the crossing in 90 hours or just under 4 days.

We got into Sanjenjo late that night to be told that we couldn't stay as the marina was fully booked for an event with the Volvo Ocean boat Movistar. After some pleading ("We just crossed Biscay") we could stay until 10 a.m. so we went to the all night party to celebrate Ines' birthday - she was sick that day - and managed to get 3 hours sleep before the ferry arrived and we had to get off.

There were still no berths available and a force 7 or 8 was predicted later that day, so I decided to head for Vigo straight away. In the old Real Clube Nautico, it's nice to stay before leaving again, to Póvoa de Varzim in Portugal. There I'll repaint the antifouling and do some chores before Ingrid joins me later in August.