Biscay

Friday 27 July 12 noon.

We have now been at sea for 16 hours. Heading towards the heart of Biscay. My earliest memories aboard a ship are of a storm in the Bay of Biscay in 1968 travelling from Southampton to Cape Town.

The sea state is starting to pick up a little. We have 1 reef in the main sail and are seeing gusts up to 23 knots. We are currently heading a little north of our desired course due to a fishing fleet approx 10 mile a little ahead. We want to skirt around them.

Those of you watching the blog will start seeing the spot signals. I will send off a couple a day. This will allow you to track our progress.

Yesterday was CRAZY!!!. A mad rush non stop from 8.00 am till 8.00pm when we set sail.

3 trips to Carrefour. All of them totally filling our hire car, Ford Mondeo from Avis. The first was dry goods (non food), The second was food. The last was liquids.

Additionally there were 2 trips to the Chandlers for essential safety and boat equipment.

Once aboard and with everything packed away, we set out. Our first night aboard was straight into eating dinner and then watches.

The temperature has dropped considerable. Midday and I am in a base layer long pants hardshell outer, woolie hat and socks and shoes. When I spoke to Erika last night as we were leaving she said it was cooking hot in Larnaca.

Our Captain Christophe joined us yesterday. Welcome aboard!

Finally before I sign off we are taking pictures, but will only post these once we have a wireless link.

14.30

We now have 2 reefs in the main APS is 28kts. Lots of white caps.  Sea is about 45 deg and about 1m. Saga IV is sailing flat with minimal movement.  Very comfy. Very impressive. I have a short video to upload when we get a decent connection.

Afternoon and evening:-

Saturday 28^th 09.30am. A cold evening and night. Base layer, mid layer and waterproof/wind proof top layers. We broke the night into shifts. The roster worked well with each of us taking a 2 hour shift. This is the first time I have taken solo watch on a vessel this size and in stormy weather too. Wow, I saw 10 knots in fairly big seas. That beats any Disney theme experience.

We can see the coast of Spain now but no signal yet. I will hunt the signal and clear email and post this.