We are currently in Plymouth, in the Mayflower marina. A nice little marina on the outskirts of Plymouth. A bit of a walk to get into Plymouth, but the busses were easy to use.
We had spent a lot of time in France, waiting for Chloes build. We're now staying in Plymouth, UK, but we have only a few weeks left on our Schengen visa allocation. The visa time allocation rule for foreigners, visiting the Schengen zone of countries, is that you may stay for 90 days maximum, within a rolling window of the past 180 days. 3 months out of the last 6. Given our stay in the UK, the UK being a non-Schengen country, we had 'saved up' about a single month of Schengen visa left. Enough to 'get down past' the Schengen zone and down into a non-Schengen country.
Most counties in the world, allow us to visit for 3 months.
In the Mediterranean area most of the countries are within the Schengen zone. So we wanted to reset our 90 days visa allowance, back to a full allocation - this, so as to be all to visit a goodly sample of the Medi during a second Schengen zone visit.
As US citizens, cruising on a sailing boat, the Schengen zone's visa time restriction leads you to look for escape areas. Counties that allow us to reset our visa allocation. North of the Medi, these are: The UK, Ireland and the Channel Islands. Each of which we had been using to extend our stay in Northern Europe.
When down in the Medi there are a few more options; but they still needed to be well planned. Many countries are not part of the Schengen zone, but are safe, friendly and places we wanted to visit for sure. Morocco, Tunisia, Turkey, Egypt, Cyprus, Albania, Montenegro, Romania and Hungry are the more obvious countries on this non-Schengen list.
The second factor relating to our travel planning across the tempestuous Bay of Biscay was weather. We were advised by more than a couple of casual sailors that we should try to cross the Bay of Biscay, from the UK heading South, before August. The end of July had come and gone and so we concluded that we should Get out of Dodge ASAP.
Our near term target destination was Morocco. A Non-Schengen country on the other side of the Bay of Biscay.
As we were currently in Plymouth, UK. Morocco is about 1200 Km south. So once we set off, we didn't have a lot of time to hang about visiting the Schengen zone. We had to get South, past France, Spain and Portugal and again Spain. We did have a single, solid month of visa left to cover this distance - so we'd be able to sample a few Tapas and Vino Tinto Rioja's along the way.
We would have liked to have stopped in Brest, France to pick up a light wind, top down furling sail that we had ordered some weeks ago in France. But we were also feeling a little time pressure and didn't want that mid-course deviation, back into the Schengen zone.
By sailing straight from the UK to Spain, we were resetting our Schengen visa days backwards, for each day at sea. Stopping at Brest would have 'wasted' 4 days and we would have had to clear in and out of France; which we have found to be a rather time consuming affair even "if" you can find a French immigration office that is actually Open.
As we had to get out of Schengen within a reasonable time, plus as we wanted to be able to see Spain and Portugal for a few weeks, we decided to bight the bullet and shoot straight down from Falmouth on the South Westerly tip of the UK, to, A Coruna on the North West tip of Spain. This path led straight over the middle of the famous Bay of Biscay.
Before launching into the Blue, we decided to 'jog' to the West, to one last UK destination. Plymouth was not very appealing to us, from an architectural point of view. The down town area was full of 1970's English concrete buildings. which, all-be-it a matter of personal taste, just doesn't float our boat; so to speak.
Further West, Falmouth has a somewhat prettier reputation and would also offer us a clear line of sight South. It also meant that we would avoid a large TSS at Brest and take us instead further West, away from the Continental Shelf in the Bay of Biscay. Intuitively, this Bay of Biscay shelf, that suddenly drops from 300m to 3000m, is perhaps a contributor to some unsettled ocean swells. By setting out South from the westerly tip of the UK, we would be traveling in deep, more stable water for longer.
Reading about other peoples crossings of the Bay of Biscay in a Sailing yacht is a mixed bag of information, ranging from nightmare scenarios of massive storms, ship wrecks and sudden bad weather appearing out of no-where from the West Atlantic, to crossings with Dead Calms. Many boats have told of being hit with no warning - 'out of the blue'.
We decided to check out the near term weather as best we could. Sail in a great, solid boat and 'Damn the Torpedos'. What else were we going to do?
The Bay of Biscay has been written about so much, perhaps in part due to the fact that English and French sailors have sailed it so much, over the decades and centuries. It does seem that there is an overly high concentration of both sailors and writings, coming out of the English Channel area. Even today, the most detailed Sailing Pilots seem to be centered on this tiny little patch of the world. Plus, importantly, the abundance of free flowing Alcohol from both of these countries coasts, from Beer & Cider in Devon to Bordeaux wine & Cognac in France; has probably served over the years, to magnify the ferocity of storms and sailors experiences, perhaps to a uniquely enhanced level.
Weather forecasting has never been as good as it is today. We looked on Predict Wind and Windy, which both use the ECMWF Weather models and saw a goodly sized low pressure system, traveling in steadily at 500mB elevation (17000 ft) such that it would hit the UK's South-West within the week. As weather forecasting is not much good, after a week in the Western Atlantic/Bay of Biscay - we felt well equipped - or rather, as well equip as we could be....
To reposition from Plymouth, we set off sailing for Falmouth and had a very pleasant sail in 20+ knots or so before the wind just died as we neared the River Fal's entrance. We headed for Mylor Marina, it being set out from the larger Falmouth area. Still thinking of the Plymouth architecture, or the lack there-of, we were hoping to find a quieter, prettier spot. Mylor Church 'village' was certainly more isolated. A well run Marina in a pretty spot on the coast but it felt a little bit like a single business holiday camp from the 60's & 70's. There is no Grocery shop, a central pub and a chandlery run by a pair of women nattering loudly to each other about their mail order customer's lack of smarts. The guys on the doc were helpful and the surrounding area was pretty, with a quaint Church and some pleasant local hikes.
We hiked along the coast towards Falmouth and back to check it out, right before the storm hit. It looked like it was going to be a big one. Out in the immediate channel, winds were gusting to 40knots, leading to some chop and waves being driven up the river to where we were parked up. We clocked 30+ knots in the Marina. Chloe is a heavy boat at 16+ tonnes so she didn't care at all but we did enjoy watching smaller, lighter boats being tossed around on their moorings. Long, elastic mooring strops seem to be common place - they were used to this weather here.
Once calm had set in again, we dropped out lines and we were off. We had plenty of fuel, food and water and all our engine and systems check lists were all done and good. We made a start at day break. It would be interesting to see if the storm had left a lot of swell in it's wake.
Day #1 was a great sail. We started off fairly slowly, trying to punch into the wind at 40~45 degrees apparent, as much as we could. We managed to make 6 knots SOG in 45 degrees apparent until the wind naturally backed off and we found ourselves chooching along with wind at 60 degrees. Even as the wind died to 12 knots; with 60 degrees apparent wind angle, Chloe is very happy to deliver 6~7knots of boat speed.
Dolphins showed up several times and Dawn fell in love again and again, chattering with them as they played with us. Showing us up as lumbering, fat and ugly compared to their sleek, elegant selves. A bit like Peter vs Dawn...
By night fall we had crossed the English Channel and had arrived at the Brest TSS. This was to be or first night at sea. Our planned course avoided entering the TSS but the density of big ships increased so that we had to maintain a closer watch to avoid making their captains having to turn away from us.
Night time sailing turned out to be 'no big deal' - given Radar. Looking forward into the pitch black of night was a little odd - we could well have been outer space. We did however, learn about ships lights very quickly. And what they mean and how useful they are. 'Theory into practice..
As a Sailing Boat we have right of way in most situations. Power boats have to get out of our way. But not if a large powered ship is constrained in its ability to maneuver, or is fishing. Plus, we feel the it is just wrong for a 50ft sailing yacht to make a 1000ft+ super tanker have to move. So, way before any Rules of the Road would apply - we made early avoidance maneuvers. Man! these ships can more fast - you see them 4 or 5 miles away and 20 mins later they are right on you. We were doing 7knots SOG and they were doing over 20 in the opposite direction. Our closing speed was over 25knots.
Once past Brest and heading South into the Open Sea, ships thinned out and headed onwards towards the Abyss of the Bay of Biscay's Shelf - where the Celtic Sea Transitions to the Bay of Biscay proper.
We discovered that these big ships were, in large part, following each other in a line between the Brest TSS and the TSS at Fisterra. This made sense as a shipping line so we simply had to run inside of their course by a few miles, thereby naturally avoiding the majority of them.
After great sailing on day #1, the wind dropped and our crossing was essentially calm. The Calm after the storm. We were surrounded by a surreal, vast area of slow rolling, smooth waves. Actually the height of these waves was quite significant at over 3 meters at times, but their wavelength was 10s or even 100s of meters. Like smooth, dynamic rolling hills. We had never seen this sight before. What a fascinating planet we live on.
Days 2,3,4 offered up little wind over all. Occasionally we had an hour or two of good sailing, a half day of wind, but most of the time we were slowly motoring on a calm, glassy rolling sea.
So much for 50 knot storms and crazy stuff. Oh well, as they say, Happiness is having something to look forward to...
We spend most of our time in the cockpit. Night sailing was all about struggling to stay awake. We found that 3 hours on and 3 off was about the best for both of us. But it's tough...
Our Radar was very useful. While 'all' cargo and tanker ships have AIS, many fishing boats don't. So radar was the best way to monitor them. We discovered that once as radar blob is seen, most likely an intermittent blob; the best technige was to reduce the range of the radar to just allow it to 'see' the new blob. That is, Radar is clearest when the range is shortened to a minimum required range. Our radar is the very latest Simrad / B&G Halo radar. Which has two independent radar circuits, or channels, built in. Optimally then, one radar channel can be set at a longer range than the second one.
On smooth seas the short range radar can even pick up fishing pots. Good to avoid at night, although out in the Bay of Biscay we didn't see them. They did turn up at <20 miles off shore in about 100m of water. Who fishes for 100m Deep fish, 20 miles from the shore?!? We wondered...??
On the 4th day we pulled into Coruna. Sun-shine, Nice looking buildings, Spanish people and Tapas!! Happy Times!!
