Spain, baby!!

Hello dear friends, yesterday we arrived in Spain, Viveiro. It surely was the tuffest challenge so far and we hope that nothing like that awaits us in the near future. Monday (22.08.) very early in the morning we left France. The weatherforecast for the following 3 days was forspelling north western wind, not too strong. Well actually the wind turned out to blow from the south and also decidet to be be strong. In the evening of the first day after non stop rain showers the wind increased and wouldnt stop before he reached the strength of 8 kn and even more in gusts. We were lucky to get an early warning from the french coastguard, so we could prepare for a very rough night. We have never seen such high and agressive waves which constantly tried to break the barracuda and our will to keep on moving. We werent sailing threw the biscay but swimming. This night we also lost our dingi, after it turned around it just ripped off. With the sun there came peace the wind decreased and blew north westerly. We saw lots of dolphins and even wales. With the following night there came the wind again, and again it came right against our plans from the south. This time it lasted longer, the bay of biscay showed us nearly two more days how mercyless it can be. Never the less we made it, of course. We are in Spain. Yesterday we enjoyed tapas and red wine. It is warm. The people are frindly and and what a luck for our spanish speaking no one here knows a wor of any other language. We really are happy to be here and well just enjoy this beautiful place and the ones that still await us. the comments... for crew barracuda.....over and out

Brest

Salut les amis!
hier, on est arrivé à brest; france pour attendre la passage d'une dépression causant des vents de sud-ouest.
on attend mieux vents pour la passage en espagne au fin de la semaine.
c'est une très belle paysage ici mais on a marre des mots: je ne suis pas raciste, mais...
c'est la meme chose en allemagne, aux pays-bas, en angleterre et maintenant: en france. terribolo

aujourd'hui on va découvrir la ville et essayer la peche plus tard.
c'est dommage qu'il faut attendre mais c'est aussi une bonne occasion to regain energy.

merci pour vos commentaires!

Plymouth

Hello back there,

we just arrived in the gigantic yacht world of Plymouth. After another long trip from Brighton ( 2days and nights) we can really use a little rest. Every thing went fine so far, we left in a heavy rain shower and arrived with bright sunshine.

In times of no wind, as we learned once more, it is important to keep a cool head and keep on thinking the positive way. Try fishing or go to sleep or in case it is not raining get your shoes and clothes dry.
Wie der Deutsche sagen wuerde: HINNEHMEN

Now we are focusing on the great passage to la Coruna, Spain. Hopefully the current weather situation and the forcast for the following week will allow us to go for it tomorrow.

Thanks for your comments!

greetings over and out

Brighton

right now we're in brighton, a lovely city with lots of young people ( many students said the taxi driver).

it was quite a nice passage from dover although we had the wind against us most of the time again.

the lighthouse at beachy head in front of the white cliffs there was a very pretty sight. but more spectacular was an airshow performed by several jetplanes performed right over our heads.

luckily we're getting used to the life on the water, we didn't get seasick for a long time now.

as the weather- forecast is good for the following days we will be heading fo plymouth this afternoon and, if it stays fair, we'll try to get to spain as quick as possible.

harwich-dover

hello friends out there!
the trip from harwich to dover was a lot smoother than the passage, after a short period of no wind it increased to bft 5 from behind and with the current from behind as well sailing butterfly we came there quite fast.
we only had to discover that there are windparks now which did not exist when our charts were printed...

the following day we left dover and headed for an anchoring place in the bay between folkestone and dungeness for some fishing. the fishing was successful anchoring wasn't. in a mixture of bad luck and stupidity we lost our anchor: during the night the wind increased from bft 5 to 7 and the waves became quite high as well. the place was less sheltered than we thought...
with the boat banging in the chain with every wave a shackle between chain and anchor broke in the early morning. we found ourselves drifting and decided to go back to dover on the jib.

there we learned that with strong winds from the south/ south-west entering this harbour is not funny. these were the biggest waves i've ever seen.

Harwich project accomplished

after three days and two nights on the north sea, we arrived in harwich, england.
everything went good though we had the wind right against us. the waves were quite high but the boat took them very well. we didn't. at the beginning there was a time with more waves than wind and being inside navigating was quite a challenge.

cooking was impossible most of the time, the one who made food didn't have much hunger anymore...
but we better get used to it, don't we?

the big cargo ships were very impressing and they go very fast! luckily they're lit very well and you can't look around them, even at night.

friday in the afternoon we arrived in harwich and we're getting a first impression of england. it's rather downtown here or maybe we didn't find uptown yet...

but there won't be much time left, we only stayed for one night and will be heading for dover this afternoon.

we took a lot of pictures, they'll be posted from dover.

on we go, you'll hear from us!

ps: dank je wel joost voor de headlamps, they're in use every night most of the time!
en joop voor de zeilen en de reparatie-spullen, hadden we ook al nodig.
en heine voor de twee emers plamuur! en ook voor de andere dingen.
en dolf en jessica en ferry voor de boormachine en de boortjes,
en zo verder...