The Bay of Biscay and Northern Spain

Our landfall in Spain was a huge disappointment. Even taking out of the equation that we’d been hammered by a storm for 15hrs through our last night at sea, it was still an unexciting, grey, damp landfall. We left La Rochelle bathed in bright sunshine and expected our first sight of Spain to be one of brilliant blue skies intercepted by the great Picos Europas mountain range - in fact we were in Spain for 2 weeks before they finally emerged from the mist!

We did take a beating in The Bay of Biscay; we were just unlucky I guess. We left with a good forecast for 2 days, decreasing to no wind for the third, and thought we might have to motor the last leg. We left the marina at La Rochelle to the sound of trumpeting fog horns, being blown by fellow cruisers, saying ‘farewell’ or ‘see you on the other side’. Angie experienced a slight wobble in her nerves for a split second as we slipped our lines, almost saying aloud that she wasn’t sure if she was ready for Biscay - but it was a little late for that and she is definitely not a quitter! Once out to sea and clear of land and traffic we set ‘Wilson’ (our Monitor wind vane self-steering) in motion on the helm and sat back to enjoy the ride. It was quite surreal, we couldn’t really believe that we were actually about to sail across Biscay, after all those years of planning, reading and talking about it.

The first two days were almost idyllic. The swell could have been smaller and the wind a little stronger, but we couldn’t complain, we could hardly believe we were in the middle of this notorious stretch of water. It was early evening on our second day at sea that conditions changed quite rapidly. The wind began to decrease, it was very calm, we were surrounded by dolphins, we’d both showered on deck, Wayne had even shaved! This was as forecasted and thought it time we started the engine, expecting to motor in light winds the rest of the passage - we were about 80 miles from land. Suddenly, the sea surface changed. From it’s mirror finish, ‘cats paws’ (tiny wind ripples) started to appear all over the water surface. Angie distinctly remembers pointing them out, as she had never seen them before, just like a cats paw print on the waters surface - a sign of the wind picking up. Great, we first thought, and turned the engine off again, maybe we’ll sail the entire way after all. But very quickly, the wind got stronger and stronger and frustratingly swung round to the South West, just where we were heading. More disturbing was the sea state that grew around us, like nothing either of us had seen before, so confused and disorderly. We continued to sail for a while but were barely making 2knts, Wayne went forward to reef and it seemed as though the wind and waves were increasing with every minute that passed - while still up at the mast he decided to drop all canvas and motor the hell out of there.

It was a pitch black moonless night and we’d not had time to prepare properly for our night sail let alone a bouncy one. We’d not eaten, we had nothing to drink with us in the cockpit and it was by now, too uncomfortable to go below unnecessarily, waves were breaking over our heads. We experienced a very heavy night, Hitrapia took a pounding and took on a lot of sea water but she looked after us well and we learned a great deal about ourselves and our boat that night. It was very tough physically, we don’t have an autopilot under engine so we had to hand steer through the storm all night - a new addition on this winter’s job list! We also now realise that the boat was more stable under sail, it was a mistake to pound through a huge sea under engine, we should have either ‘hove-to’ (which we did consider at the time) or just sailed off our course, out to sea, on a more comfortable point of sail! But, at the time, we were tired, hungry, pissed off, scared, very wet, very salty and only 80 miles from land. Human instinct stupidly told us to get there as quickly as possible. At least the water was not too cold when it dumped over your head every 2 minutes! Hey, you live and learn all the time cruising and we lived through that one, thankfully!

The climate wasn’t the only surprise in Northern Spain, there were a few others. The language change came as a big shock. We guess our minds had been so focused on getting Biscay out of the way that we’d not really given much thought to arriving on the other side. After spending 7 weeks in France we’d become, not fluent, but comfortable with the language, so to suddenly not be able to communicate again - at all - was very tiresome. The Galician’s generally do not speak or understand a word of English (and why should they?), so we were really thrown in at the deep end with a language neither of us had ever spoken or learned before, but we did posses a phrase book with a small English to Spanish dictionary which was a godsend. The first few weeks were hard work; a trip to the supermarket takes some time when armed with a dictionary! But being totally immersed in the culture was a good thing and it wasn’t long before we found our feet again. Angie really enjoyed the language and she’s really looking forward to being back in Spain next year to improve. She quickly got her head around the grammar and was soon able to put together some useful sentences which were not in our phrase book, for example; ‘we arrived on the pontoons today’ and ‘we’d like to pay for one more night’, very useful when sitting out bad weather, which we seemed to do a lot of!

The sailing conditions were definitely a surprise, we now know why sailing hasn‘t taken off in Galicia and why there’s lots of empty berths in very affordable new marinas. We experienced strong winds and big seas 90% of the time, and no wind and big seas the other 10%, which made motoring tediously rolly! We were very shocked at how open and exposed the Rias were and used marinas much more than we’d intended, as the swell was either too dangerous or uncomfortable to anchor.

With the weather on your side in Galicia you could easily think you’ve died and gone to heaven, gorgeous people, dramatic scenery, little touched by tourism and very affordable. But, with the conditions against you, sadly, it’s just bloody hard work. The name of the area between La Coruna and Bayona should really have been a massive clue… ‘Costa del Morte’- The Coast of Death!
 

  Putting the weather and sailing conditions aside, our favourite Spanish ports were Gijon, La Coruna and Bayona. We made landfall in Gijon from our Biscay crossing and stayed for a week, making repairs, licking our wounds and finding our Spanish feet in this pretty little city. Here, we enjoyed the fiesta of St. John the Baptist. The whole city emptied down to the waterfront beach for midnight when the party began - all generations together, dancing around bonfires, drinking and throwing Galician cider (a Galician past time), live bands and firework displays until dawn - the Spanish really know how to party! We experienced similar fiestas almost every week; Galicia was not a quiet cruising experience. We did, kind of, get our own back in La Coruna - an impromptu party evolved on Hitrapia one evening due to three Warrior 35’s (Hitrapia, Tidos and The Fox) being berthed in a row, at the marina. One of our reasons for choosing the Warrior is her very sociable cockpit, but that night she surpassed all expectations by accommodating 3 guitars, 2 tambourines, an accordion and 12 people who were mostly tone deaf - a fabulous night was had by all except those near by and not participating! For many years, La Coruna has been the traditional place of landfall for yachts crossing the Bay of Biscay and therefore has a special significance to yachtsmen and women. It’s a wonderful city with an indescribable charm of its own. Dotted with modern sculpture, magnificent squares, historic architecture and of course, quaint old streets with moody tapas bars and bodegas.

Bayona on the other hand was just as charming but had a more relaxed ‘holiday’ feel to it. Not surprisingly, as there were eight different beaches within walking distance from the marina. We arrived at Bayona the first week of August and believe it or not, it was our first week of sunny hot weather! We certainly felt like we’d arrived at last - this was more like the climate we were running south for. We stayed for a whole fabulous week, walking the castle grounds and sandy beaches, enjoying the odd dip and could easily have stayed longer. We were quite taken with Bayona and struggled to leave at all, it did seriously take two attempts though, we turned back the first time due to hideously thick fog and a 25kt headwind! It’s not normal to experience fog AND strong wind in British Waters but it’s quite the norm on the Costa del Morte. But we had an invisible border to cross and another country calling us, next port of call was Viana Do Costelo, Portugal!

Next Page > Atlantic West Coast of Portugal.