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1st landfall made!
By Duncan | October 18, 2008
Firstly apologies for the delayed update - we made it into Spain 2 days ago, and have been a mixture of drunk and hectically working on the boat since. We are about to set sail again and head out round to Portugal and then to Madeira in an hours, so just a quick update here (and rather hastily written and hence quite dry - more witty and multimedia based updates to follow), and no photos, but fear not, we shall do a proper update with videos and pictures soon…
After a last minute panic trying to get everything done, and with great help from ever dutiful parents doing the provisioning and stocking up on diesel and water (many thanks to Alex’s and Duncan’s folks), we were finally ready(ish). The moment of casting off from the mooring in Poole was one of trepidation with a few deep breaths and a certain amount of prevarication.
The first crossing started beautifully under blue skies and 10 knots of wind with the intrepid crew of Duncan, Ewan, Alex, Sean and Jane. Reaching down the south coast of the UK at 8 knots was ideal. However on rounding the North West corner of France we hauled in the sails and started beating into the wind - something that we ended up continuing to do all the way across the Bay of Biscay. Life at 45 degrees proved to be rather uncomfortable and wet, although the ever popular 1am-4am night watch shift kept the crew sufficiently motivated to crack on fueled by litres of tea and Alex’s culinary delights of curry and chili.
Playing dodge the ship and what must have been the entire Spanish fishing fleet we noticed we were getting through fresh water rather quickly. We soon noticed that when heeling the fresh water tanks were above the taps and were siphoning out. At the rate of water use, we decided to pull in to Spain rather than continue to Portugal, though the wind shortly died, the boat leveled out and we arrived in Spain, tired, damp, but with embarrassingly 200 litres of fresh water on board. With new bungs in the water taps, we are now confident we can actually keep water in the tanks until we actually want it out…
After tying up in La Coruna, quick showers, we headed into town to sample the local tapas and revel in the fact that 6 days tough sailing got us to a place a couple of hours flight from the UK…Though general fatigue and appreciation for the more relaxed approach to night life indulgence kept us from trouble and any particularly amusing stories, something that won’t last for long…
Having spent yesterday unpacking and then repacking all the boat kit, making a few running repairs we are now ready to press onto Portugal - and from the forecast enjoy some reaching and playing with our 4 spinnakers.
Also, we occasionally update out position at sea, so you can see where we are at our map page here.
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