The journey so far…

… has not been as expected. Having left on Saturday 27th February, the first few hours were certainly plain sailing. But from that evening until Monday night it was a gruelling passage south. With two reefs in the mainsail and only half of the foresail out, at times I was still doing 8 knots while being buffeted by waves coming side-on. It made for an uncomfortable ride, pitching and rolling continuously.
(One thing that I am very fortunate with – and it’s just a case of luck – I don’t get seasick. It’s a mysterious thing. I have sailed with people who’ve sailed for years and still get sick under rough conditions. Lucky me – I can sit below and eat chocolate biscuits, no queasiness at all).

After such horrible conditions, imagine my surprise when on Tuesday morning I found myself totally becalmed on the outer reaches of the Bay of Biscay – an area notorious for its winter storms. Absolutely no wind at all, so I took the sails down and spent 12 hours happily bobbing around in one-metre waves. It was sunny and warm – about 14C – making a relaxing day. This was great, because the one feature of a boat in winter is that everything tends to be damp – you get humidity readings of 90%-plus (and not helped by bad weather: every time you go up on deck you get soaked, and then bring that back inside with you!). With some sun, the humidity fell to 70%, which was welcome relief…

When the wind did return, it was unhelpful: south westerly. This made progress slow because I had to tack significantly east to make headway. But finally rounded the top corner of Spain, the wind switched to north easterly and all seemed good. I was going to fly down the Portuguese coast. But then the wind really picked up, producing large waves coming across my path, every now and then one breaking over the boat with a crash. Manuka handled the conditions well, but of course it wasn’t fun. I had used more fuel than expected – the auto pilot is energy-hungry, especially in heavy seas – so I decided to head into Porto for fuel. As well as a rest.