1st of September, it’s 9 in the morning the boat is ready, it’s now time to go for this exploration, first step Gascogne, it is known for it’s rought weather by all the sailors so we don’t know what’s waiting for us. we looked at the weather we have a good weather window so let’s see if the weather forcast are good.
The first day was amazing the sun is out the wind is good, the boat is gilding trough the sea with an average speed of 6 knots and with a top speed of 8 knots we are making good progress all day long. at the end of the day we are gifted with our first dolphin show for more that an hour and a beautiful sunset after this.
It’s time for our first night we have a good meal and the darkness is here, Pierre doesn’t feel so well the swell is getting bigger and bigger, so we will do the shift between the 3 of us, Sophie Dani and I. The night starts with a fisherman boat is on our sight just in front of us but his AIS isn’t on so we have to change course, we stop the autopilot and take the helm for a little bit of side wind sailing, it’s good we go on his side, we took a rift in the main sail before sunset but the wind is picking up we have a bit to much sail out, the forcat wasn’t accurate only 20knots was planned and it went up to 30+ during the night, we have to take a second riff in then the third the decided to drop the whole mainsail and we were still racing at 7+knots speed with 3 riffs in and most of the genoa furled. The night went well but no one on the boat slept well the 2-3m swell and down wind sailing made the boat rolly.
The second day starts , everybody is feeling tired but the wind and swell drops so quite a chill day. No big issue on that day just a f*** towing boat towing a big platform with a 400m line behind him we didn’t realised it at first and the captain didn’t replied on the VHF until the last minute and tell us about the cable so we react fast turn on the engine to change course. this was a bit stressful but the crew reacted fast, good job everyone. At the end of the day the wind drops it a bit early based on the forcast but let’s look at the bright side at lest we can have a goos night of sleep. the night went well everybody took their shift we crossed path a few cargo ships, and the wind droped at midnight to start again at around 4AM.
The next morning 10 knots of wind almost no more swell the boat is slowly gliding in the water. this last day was nice a calm we arrived in Viveiro at midnight it was our first night anchorage.
Looking back we had a really good crossing, 2 days and 15h sailing, a part from the first night we had really good conditions. It’s time to enjoy our first anchorage for a few days of rest.
