Cape Finisterre in the mist

Skylark is tucked away for the night at the marina at Portosin, after a wild ride from Camarinas.  Winds were variable at first, then picked up to around 20 to 25 knots in the after noon.  When we changed our initial westerly course to south, some good sailing winds were encountered.  Boat speeds of over 9 knots were achieved.  Skylark crashed through the swells causing some crew anxiety at the thought of having to wash encrusted salt of the deck. Cape Finisterre appeared in the mist and rain.  It was a celebratory moment but we mostly agreed its reputation was perhaps not as well deserved as the Bay of Biscay's, both of which are now behind us.  Pictures will follow in the next blog post. 

Portosin is a nice, scenic fishing town, typical along the coast of Galicia. Quaint, friendly and good for the soul after the tempestuous sea.

It is the morning of Friday, July 31.  We are leaving Camarinas today, headed south with fresh produce from the supermercado.  The boat smells of the leek soup Francois prepared last night.  

The harbour here is teeming with mullet who kept banging on the hull all night long in some kind of reproductive ritual -- there were even more of them when morning came. 

I am seated by the sea wall using the free wi-fi provided courtesy of "Turismo" , presumably a service by the local government.  The food and wine is good and exceptional value.  Coffee for 90 Euro cents, dinner for four and bottle of wine at the grilled sardine place for 11 Euro!  Richard ruined the plain looking waitress for good by leaving a 1 Euro tip. Must go now, the sea beckons.

Heading South

After the slog from La Rochelle to La Coruna, the skipper has a small drink. No need to notify the AA -- bottles were placed there by crew as props...

Off at last!

We left La Rochelle on Saturday, July 25 at around 4:30 pm after filling diesel at the Capitainerie. Weather was fair with light winds on the nose and the apparently normal Atlantic swells on the continental shelf. We motored sailed mostly but experimenting with the cruising chute or gennaker left us with little over 2 knots of boat speed. We stopped for an hour or so, with Ed and Richard diving off the boat for a swim. They declared the 10 degree Celcius water temperature to be "invigorating". Too bad there was no truth serum on board. Once away from the shelf, we thought things would get better but no such luck. Wind continued to be shifty around the nose and the swells which got worse were annoying as they made simple activity on board harder to accomplish, like not spraying yellow stuff around the toilet bowls. We were sailing in 4000 metres of water at some spots.
Francois trailed a line from our brand new fishing rod mounted on the stern. Nothing happened for most of Sunday, then suddenly a bite! And it was a big one, at least 20 kg! This is no fish story but the pristine truth corroborated by four usually reliable witnesses. Francois fought the creature for almost half an hour. It was the most beautiful tuna imaginable and thoughts of shashimi ran through our minds. Richard was assigned to hook it with the gaff we'd bought. As he hooked it right in the belly, the extendable gaff came apart in two pieces and our beautful tuna sank from sight taking the hook half of the gaff with it. Lesson learned -- do not buy cheap fishing equipment. There are already sceptics around the world, shaking heads in disbelief at this alleged fish. All of the Skylark's crew will swear to the veracity of this account, once we get back to land and a suitable religious site.
Enough on the fish -- the winds began to build late Sunday, with gusts reaching almost 30 knots at night. The seas got higher and waves towered over the boat at 3 to 5 metres making it not only uncomfortable but hard to see other ships in the area. Our AIS transponder was able to identify ships by name, their heading and speed. Unfortunately, some large fishing craft (Spanish of course, alleges Francois) carried no AIS and unconventional lights that made it impossible to tell if they were coming or going. The squid fishing boats were easier to tell with all the lights they carried to attract the squid. All in all, the weather and sea conditions we experienced merely established for a fact that the Bay of Biscay's reputation is well deserved.
Later on Monday, we spotted the Spanish coast as our route took us towards La Coruna or A' Coruna as the Spanish call it. It's quite rugged coastline with high cliffs. Towards evening, the Torre De Hercules (Tower of Hercules -- the oldest functioning lighthouse in the world) came into view, marking the entrance to the harbour at La Coruna. A call on VHF channel 9 establised contact with the marina who confirmed availability of a berth. We arrived at 7:30 pm Monday, July 27 and tied up at a large berth. The marina is a spanking new facility that is more than half empty and they were apparently glad to have our business with an offer of three nights stay for the price of two. On seeing the boat's documents, the young lady who checked us in immediately told us she had been to KL, Tioman and Langkawi. What a small world this is. Our Malaysian ensign has also generated quite a number of enquiries at the marina. We have had the pleasure of telling them about Malaysia and that our crew is Malaysian, Texan, English and French.
We had dinner at the old town in a quaint street off the Praza De Maria Pita. La Coruna is a small city, not too crowded with tourists. Tuesday morning was spent washing encrusted salt from the Skylark that resulted from two days bashing through the seas. Pictures will be posted in the next blog.

The Wi-Fi connection at Port Des Minimes has been broken for the past few days.  Calls to the Capitanerie have not helped, despite threats to sue for the return of the daily charge of one Euro.  So here we are, the crew, at an internet cafe at Vieux Port in La Rochelle, tapping away on our keyboards like starving animals... Last Saturday was a particularly good one with a trip to the nearby Cognac region to visit with Olivier and Liz Blanc, friends of Francois and Magda and owners of the boutique Cognac maker, Leopold Gourmel.  Olivier conducted a tour of his cellars and facilities, complete with tastings of his various Cognacs.  A first for the captain of Skylark who has never been into the spirits.  We also enjoyed the Blancs' hospitality over a 4 hour lunch at their beautiful 300 year old house.  Robby, the Scottish Terrier was on hand to welcome the visitors. 

We have been waiting for the winds to change for our departure for La Coruna, Spain.  The forecast suggests that we may get favorable winds for a Sunday departure.  It is an involved process with the meteorological service. First, we have to file an application for the 5-day forecast with the service and then Francois has to show up for an "interview" in the afternoon for a briefing and to receive the relevant weather maps.  Meanwhile, we continue to take in our daily dose of fine food and wine both on board and onshore.   

The systems have been worked over and we believe we may have finally succeeded in connecting via single side band radio for email and weather forecasts.  It is slow but apparently works, though not for regular emails, as we are limited to 90 minutes transmission time per week. 

Will post photos once we get back on track with the internet connection.

Time to provision the boat for the trip to La Coruna on the north west Spanish coast. Ed, Francois and Richard scoured La Rochelle and filled Francois' car mostly with wine and spirits while captain waited for deliveries at Skylark. Richard appears to have found it taxing.. here's a photo of him shopping at Carrefour.

Yesterday was eventful to say the least. The met report indicated a low pressure system with wind speed between 5 and 50 knots! Left the marina at mid-day after fixes for a few small items on the boat and taking on engine and other mechanical spares, for a sail off La Rochelle. Seas flat, hardly any wind, so we sailed off the wind and tried out our new 100 square metre gennaker. The sail was terrfic for downwind and Skylark moved at a smart clip on just gennaker and mizzen. Late afternoon, winds rose almost without our noticing as we were going happily downwind. At 20 knots, we decided to take the gennaker down (the windspeed limit suggested by Amel for the sail) which was no problem with the handy furling system. Sailing just on the main and reduced genoa, we made our way back rather more quickly than we had intended but within the limits of the tide for entering the harbour. We wondered a bit as we came in why we were the only boat out.... At the marina, the wind had risen to around 25 knots at a difficult angle to the boat slips. The boat came in a little too slowly and was turned inside the slip by the wind only to catch the bow anchor of the boat next door with a stanchion. Fortunately, no damage to the other boat and just a ittle wounded pride on Skylark and a couple of bent stanchions. The Amel people will be inspecting the stanchion this afternoon. Lesson learned -- do not be afraid of applying power in such situations. The boat has amazing stopping power under engine.

Another great sailing day today, July 14, blue skies and nice winds. After watching the Bastille Day parade in town, sailed to the north shore of Ile de Re just off La Rochelle, anchored in about 5 metres of water near St Martin de Re. A light lunch comprising salad, leftover pate and the ever present baguettes. To celebrate the auspicious day, Magda and Miew Ling prepared another memorable dinner -- quiche and chicken with morilles and champignon de paris, a half bottle of white wine thrown in for good measure. Richard, Ed and Francois have been busy attending to the boat's liquid needs. Yesterday, they loaded 18 litres of wine, 30 litres of beer and 6 bottles of Pineau into the ship's holds. And yes, 2 bottles of water were included in the inventory. Skylark is sitting a little low in the water at the moment but that will soon be resolved as liquids are rapidly consumed. The Bastille Day fireworks display over La Rochelle harbour was spectacular and the best view was from the seawall at the marina. The crew have retired but the captain is still up installing a new printer, essential for printing weather faxes. Tomorrow, preparations continue for the sail south across the Bay of Biscay which is likely to start some time next week.

Yesterday was a fine day -- blue skies and winds 12 to 15 knots. We sailed Skylark to Ile D'Aix which is south of Port Des Minimes. Abeam Ile D'Aix is Fort Boyard, an abandoned prison built on the water, a kind of French Alcatraz. Anchored off a beach and lunched on nicoise salad and pate campagne preceded by the now mandatory glass of Pineaux Des Charente. The sail back to Port Des Minimes was quite spectacular -- many sailboats out and a national sailing championship at the same time. Nice winds. Skylark whizzed along reaching 8.5 knots in 12 mph winds, overtaking some fast looking boats. Back at the marina at 6 pm, just in time to meet with friends from Paris, Thierry, Claudine and son Mathieu who brought a wonderful bottle of Ruinart champagne.
The weather turned ulgly today -- rain and dark skies, not much wind. We stayed in port and studied various pieces of equipment. Ed enjoyed a visit to the engine room, Francois solved an issue with the Furuno chartplotter's tide data which the dealer's rep couldn't explain (plotter came with US Eastern Standard Time set as the default. Richard filled the water tank...not sure how he got 1000 litres into a 900 litre tank. That's all for now but we shall return.....

Well, here we are at the marina at Port Des Minimes, La Rochelle. The Skylark is at the pontoon reserved for Amel boats. She is easy to tell from the other boats -- the only one flying the Malaysian civil ensign from her stern. We are of course flying the French flag on starboard as required. The first three days have been soent on learning the boat's mechanical and electrical systems as well as the array of electronic navigation and communications gear. The electronic charts for the French, Portuguese and Spanish Atlantic coasts, the western Med, Canary Islands and the Caribbean islands have been loaded in the GPS chart plotter and gear is being tested daily. Some minor issues but these are being addressed by the builder. The weather has been cold and wet but tomorrow, we venture out of the harbour for the first time. Meanwhile, gastronomical adventures have been extensive, not only at restaurants in La Rochelle but also the fine onboard cuisine produced by our friends Francois and Magda. Wifi connection was only just obtained from the Captainerie of the port, so new posts will be forthcoming. Some new photos should be loaded tomorrow, if the wire for connecting the camera to the laptop can be found.