Bay of Biscay! Morgat - Ria de Cedeira

Tues 4th August - Morgat

We spent a nice couple of days in Morgat. We were tied up to an English boat inhabited by Neil and Sue and their three girls. They had just returned from the North Coast of Spain and Neil even wrote us out a Port and Marina guide for the area which was very good of him. The girls played non stop with the their two youngest daughters which was great. It is always a bit of a relief to be tied up to some one with kids as they understand how noisy it can be and even better as in this case if they enjoy a glass or two of the old vin rouge!
Morgat is quite a touristy town ,it was developed last century by the owner of the Peugeot car company as a resort for his workers. There are two beaches within two minutes of the Marina so Ali took all the girls to one for a while whilst the ‘Big Kids’ went for a dingy ride around the harbour. I think they all had fun but you should have seen Ali’s face when we spied the big kids motoring towards the boat with all three life jackets inflated - they had apparently capsized due to a ‘rogue wave’ that came out of nowhere…….
Ali and I went to get some weather report for the next few days and post the blog at an internet café. The weather was looking perfect nothing but 3-4-5 Northerlies for 4 days. You really couldn’t ask for better so we went on the very long hike to the supermarket in Crozon to get some supplies and to try and get replacement gas canisters for the life jackets as we had used up all our spares due to the earlier capsizing incident. We were unsuccessful so we told everyone to be really careful not to accidentally inflate the jackets.

Wed 5th August - Leaving Morgat

Ali, Daniel and I got up at half past six to set off to Spain. It was a beautiful if cold calm morning and the water in Douarnenez bay was like glass. I stayed up on first watch for a few hours whilst the men went back to sleep. Someone had decided instead of going south through the Raz de Sein we would carry on West for a few miles so that we would leave the continental shelf as early as we could. This turned out to be a bit of a mistake as the tide got us and it took HOURS before we could finally turn South and start making some actual Progress towards La Coruna.
We thought we would be able to sail when we turned South as the forecasts had all been Northerly but we found the wind to be coming from the West and there was not much of it- this meant the motor stayed on all of the first day. We had had images in our head of using the spinnaker the whole way across Biscay and getting there in record time but this was not to be. The forecasts were both wrong- we never did get any Northerly winds at all and in fact not any wind for the first two days!

Shannon had been so worried about crossing the Bay that she had nearly jumped ship in Morgat. Ali, Daniel and her boyfriend Matt persuaded her to stay and sail with us. By about lunch time on the first day I think Matt was wishing he and Shannon had flown across. The poor boy was suffering from ‘le mal de mer’ and didn’t really recover until day three. I felt very sorry for him as we were all bombarding him with advice on eating to feel better but every time he did he just got ill again. I really can’t imagine what was going through his head as every time I have bee ill at sea there has been a light at the end of the tunnel only a few hours away not two more days away!!

Shannon did very well and nursed Matt through the worst of it. Neither Shannon or Matt would venture inside except for essential visits to the loo for the whole three days, luckily the sun shone for almost the whole trip. At night we persuaded them into our sailing suits so that we didn’t have to worry about them getting hypothermia too! You should understand that although there was only light winds, there is still a big uncomfortable swell.

Daniel Ali and I decided on a shift pattern for the night watches. I would do from 8 to 11 then Daniel would get up to do the 11 to 3 shift and Ali got the graveyard shift from 3 - 7 then I got up and took over again. It all seemed to work out very well except the lasses wouldn’t go to sleep until I was down below and seemed to wake up as soon as I was on deck again.

The sunset (my watch!) the first night was amazing Shannon and I were both taking photos, poor Matt couldn’t even raise his head from the deck to look. Then the near full moon rose on the other side of the boat, it was a beautiful night. The rest of the night passed without a hitch and even less wind!


Thurs 6th August - Biscay Day Two

This day passed much the same as the first -we motor sailed the whole day again (thankfully we had two spare drums of diesel) It was another sunny day and so we persuaded some of the more beetroot coloured members of the crew to put on some factor 50 sun cream as we thought sea sickness and peeling skin would be the last straw!

The biggest event of this day was a pod of about twenty dolphins that swam along with the boat for a while. There had been just one dolphin that came for a look and then left. Kaylee said that he had gone to get all his friends, we all laughed but had to take it back when a few minutes later they all appeared. Even Matt managed to raise himself up enough to catch a glimpse.

One hazard we encountered for the first time on this trip was the electrical gadget hazard. Occasionally when you went to use a winch you would find an I pod wrapped around it and have to unwind the wires before being able to proceed. It was actually amazing that no i pods or cameras or dishes ended up in the sea as there always seemed to be two or three lying loose on deck no matter how may times they were put away or secured. It was a new one on us, usually it is cuddly toys that run the risk of going for a swim!

Matt began to recover slightly towards the end of this day. He managed to keep his tea down and actually moved from the windward deck to get a bit warmer at night time.



I managed to get us into what could be described as a ‘nearly close quarters’ situation with a very fast cargo boat at the end of my shift! I thought a boat was a fishing boat in the act of trawling so I went to starboard but then it was coming straight at us- eek! A quick lurch to port and it was all OK but it made me realise to think twice about what I presume a boat is doing especially when tired!

Friday 7th August Biscay Day 3 - Cedeira!

The day started out much like the two before being calm and sunny with the non existent wind in the West. It had been so calm over night that Ali had taken down all the sails and we were just rolling around in the ever present Biscay swell. By the end of the morning watch there was actually a breeze coming from the East which was strong enough to sail, this turned out to be very lucky as the fuel tank was running dry. We made much better progress at seven to eight knots the rest of the way to Spain. We had decided we would just go into Ria de Cedeira and anchor for at least one night as it was four or five hours closer than La Coruna and there were some of us who could certainly do with a large meal!




There were whoops of joy/relief when we could see the Spanish coast. It signalled the end and we were all glad, even Ali ,as he had been annoyed about the lack of sailing and the slow progress over the Bay.




We got into Ria De Cedeira in the late afternoon and got out the bottle of champagne (that had been chilling since we sighted land!) given to us by our next door neighbours Colin and Susan and toasted getting to Spain. The girls felt left out so we gave them some tonic water with grenadine in it too. Next was a relay of quick washes using no more than a basin of water each as we were running low then we took the dingy into town for dinner.

We had a lovely Italian - I know we were in Spain but it was the closest restaurant to the jetty and we were starving! At this point we all realised that speaking Spanish was going to be very difficult indeed. There were a few things that we ordered that were shall we say unexpected!

We went for a small walk into town and found a play park in the town square which was great as we hadn’t seen a single one in France. The girls were so delighted that they made us promise to stay for a few days. It was about eleven at night and the place was buzzing with kids everywhere and people all sitting out in the bars. We decided to call it a night as we were all rather tired. We went out in the dingy first and realised how dark it gets here and that a light left on at the boat would have been a good idea! I think we were all in bed within half an hour of getting back - a record.