Spain - finally!

After 9 days of waiting in Cork we finally saw what we thought was a decent weather window and made the dash for La Coruna in Spain. The forecast looked good but showed a few hours of poor weather on Friday.

Well, as it turned out the forecast was optimistic! We had a great sail on Thursday (we left Cork at noon after tidying the boat up) and had a good over-night sail. However, Friday dawned to strong winds and we had to tack out west to avoid being pushed into the English Channel! We saw our first gale of the crossing kick in on Friday morning and last around 20 hours during which time we had a sustained force 7-8 with force 9 gusts,as we were just crossing the biscay shelf we also had awful seas! Saturday was better and we had winds from the North and made nice progress, trying to dry out after the gales where we found a couple of leaks! However, Sunday saw the winds return. We were now in the Atlantic in over 5000 metres of water so the waves weren't short and steep, but long and big - 9 to 10 metres (we are only 11 metres long!) we had a solid force 8 for over 24 hours before the winds dropped.
We arrived at midnight on Monday but held station about 15 miles offshore for 6 hours to await daylight and arrived on Tuesday morning.

We were wet, tired and miserable - and beginning to think this offshore stuff wasn't for us! However, we were soon being congratulated by astonished locals for sailing through the worst low pressure system in Biscay this season - made us feel a little better!

We spent Tuesday drying and washing and have spent today just messing and socialising with other cruisers.

Learnt a lot crossing Biscay - and now have some repairs to make!

1) The autopilot sheared a bolt in the first gale and had to be lashed with rope
2) We found 2 leaks in the deck we need to fix (hadn't shown themselves in the last 2 years!)
3) We ripped the staysail (Small headsail) slightly
4) We broke the engine bay door

Lots to do - but the weather here is great so will re-group, repair and move on later in the week!

J

Made it out of Wales!!

Two weeks after we left Fleetwood we finally got the weather we needed (well, better weather) to leave Abersoch.

We attempted to leave on Saturday morning, but after several days of gales the sea was very rough and the wind was too tight for any of the 4 destinations we had set ourselves (Arklow, Milford Haven, Kilmore Quay, Cork). So back we came - a little embarrassing after a full send off from Abersoch including flags and hooters - but better to be safe!

Sunday was nice and we went out to watch the practice race of the GP14 World Championships (Jonny's old class) and also met up with PJ (the eldest of Kate's younger brothers) who had just come back from doing the charter season in the Caribbean with his girlfriend. A good night on Sunday with a family meal to welcome PJ home, and some beers with the GP sailors.

We awoke on Monday and had a lazy morning. J helped Alan sort the enterprise out for his forthcoming national championships (Good luck Alan and Matt!), and we packed away the dinghy which we had repaired after it suffered a puncture whilst behind the boat in gale force winds.

We finally got out to the boat and cast off the mooring at 2pm, sailed past the yacht club with much waiving and tears (from family ashore and on Newt!)and out of the bay.

The wind was tight so we motor sailed for a couple of hours before putting a tack in and heading for southwest Ireland. The wind remained tight all night between force 4 and 5 and we sailed well averaging 6 knots. Around 3am the rain came and visibility dropped to a few feet as we crossed the shipping lanes off Carnsore Point. We pressed on and caught the favourable tide to make over 10knots at one point (still close hauled) past the south east corner of Ireland.

The rest of the day was wet and misty with a large Atlantic swell which had been building during the low pressure systems of the last couple of weeks. We pounded on, not very comfortable with head winds and large seas - neither of us felt 100%, but Newt was coping very well and ploughing her way through as only a heavy boat can.

We rounded Roche's Point to enter Cork harbour at 6pm yesterday - 28 hours after leaving Abersoch. We are moored at the Royal Cork Yacht Club (the oldest yacht club in the world, established in 1720), and are having a couple of nights in the marina to wash the boat off etc before getting a mooring in the river (half the price of the marina!)whilst we wait for the weather which is looking like this weekend at the earliest.

Nice to be out of the UK and feel like we're on the way properly now (especially as we're on Euro's!)

Weather waits for no-one

After a week of fabulous weather and socialising it was back down to getting the boat sorted, so off to Pwhelli we went for a haul out to fix the rope cutter and prop shaft, scrub the bottom and get some alterations made to the sail cover.

We got back to Abersoch on Tuesday and found a forecasted force 8 on the way, so we stayed put (the new Rocna anchor didn't budge an inch after 3 days of force 7 and 8's!). We are still 'put'! We had a look round the peninsular yesterday, but heavy seas and 25 knot winds on the nose made us decide that Abersoch still held appeal. We are in the bay at present anchored off the sailing club waiting for the weather to improve to allow us over to Ireland.