The Bay of Biscay Crossing

We are in Spain! Arrived in (L)A Coruna on May 2 at 9:10pm, safe and sound, relieved and happy, after about 58 hours and about 400 Nautical Miles. Being welcomed, what a great surprise!, by no other than Gonzalo and the Crew from Kazaio. But let’s start at the beginning.

April 30 promised an okay weather window with May 1 supposedly being really nice. We decided to leave on the Monday, April 30, after another boat having rafted up next to us and us getting a little scare when being told that nobody has the keys to move it so that we could get out. They found the key, though, and that started our Bay of Biscay Crossing. It was a little rough at first, especially for the cat (hint, hint!), but we didn’t think much of it. We are much wiser now. We also now know, that we should probably have returned right after our wind indicators started to fail, which was pretty much right when we got out of the harbor. But we didn’t. Oh my, that day – and especially the night – will always be remembered. We call it “The Night”. It was rough! We had the waves against us, mostly 2 m high and very steep, sometimes up to 3 or 4 m high (that’s 9-12 feet), so we pounded into the waves like crazy. The boat got slammed by the waves every few seconds, making it sound like it will break apart. Do I need to mention that neither one of us was feeling very well? We didn’t quite follow the example of the cat, but we certainly felt pretty uncomfortable. Imagine when you were a little child and let a little stick float in a creek, watching it bouncing between the rocks. That’s what I felt like (the stick, not the little child!). Or imagine going towards Tofino on the narrow, winding road, up and down, and going way too fast, almost “flying” down the tops of the road. The content of our cupboards sounded as if we were having a “Polterabend” (German tradition where people shatter china before a wedding for good luck). Well, I guess you get the picture. We did 1 hour watches, couldn’t take more, so we could sleep for 2 hours afterwards. Did I say “sleep”? Trying to, anyway. Rolf slept on the couch in the salon, and I under the table – voluntarily! Nothing would have made me go below into the cabin, where the feeling of seasickness got even worse. We lived off butter cookies, crackers and bananas – IF we felt like eating at all. The worst thing was, that we were only making about 2 knots while we had planned for 7 knots, so with all that, we were not even getting anywhere. That “state” lasted for about 26 hours before it got better. And it did get better! Now comes the good part, the sea got smoother, we changed to 2 hour watches, we did sleep, we did eat, and we were accompanied by dolphins most of the time. I even cooked – Spaghetti Bolognese, which we enjoyed immensely. Most of the second part of the trip was so smooth, we quickly forgot about the first part. That’s the great thing about the human brain. We really enjoyed this second part. And when we got close to (L)A Coruna, no other than Gonzalo called us on the radio. What a surprise! We had thought we would only see him again in Palma. But here he was, about 2 hrs ahead of us, also going for Marina Nautico that we had picked earlier on. The whole trip ended with a very happy reunion and an amazing dinner at Comarea’s. Great wine, great Tapas, great friends.

Enjoying great company and amazing food
(Erwin, Gonzalo, Sylvain, Tito, Rolf, Silke at Comarea's in (L)A Coruna, Spain
after crossing the Bay of Biscay April 30-May 2)