Highlights – the overview
We feel good about our decision to skip La Rochelle and make a 2 day/night passage directly from Saint Martin de Ré to the border of Spain at the southeastern corner of the Bay of Biscay. And as soon as the sluice/lock at Saint Martin de Ré opens at 1500h, we depart.
We pass La Rochelle and turn west, around the Ile d’Oléron. Sunset at 2000h.
The next day we have a visitor! This little fluffy bird is probably tired and sits in the cockpit for an hour or so.
By the end of the afternoon, more visitors! A big group of dolphins see us and they approach us enthusiastically, jumping for joy!
They play in our bow wave for about 20 minutes. Then they move on, showing us some nice jumps!
Spectacular sunrise the second day… but the photo is from inside, as the water on the window is not rain, it’s spraying sea water.
We see the Spanish mountains from 30 miles away… yay, almost there! Of course, we hoist the Spanish courtesy flag.
We originally had planned to go to the marina on the French side, but after reading about the lovely town of Hondarribia, we are happy to be moored there. We have lunch outside in summer weather on the cockpit table.
The temperature is 27 degrees Celsius. Lovely!
We look at the forecasts and there is one good day before the weather turns, and we decide to make the short (12 miles) hop to San Sebastian. In the marina the winds were 5 knots. We expected to be motoring. But just outside the harbor we had 16 knots, then 20, 25, and more! By the time we were 3 miles out, the winds were over 30 and when we saw 35+, we decided to turn around and head back to safe harbor! We had a hard gibe and broke a sail car (where the sail is attached to the track of the mast to hoist and lower) of the mizzen mast. When we get close to the harbor, the winds back off and by the time we are in the marina we are seeing only 5 knots again! Read about the details in the Captain’s Log below. There are local phenomena to be considered in the weather.
We are happy to be back at the marina and snug for the next few days of weather. We see a Dutch boat coming in… the “Watertuin”. It’s a Koopmans design, too: a Victoire 1044. They are Harm and Ilona and we have a nice chat with them. They have approximately the same plans as we do, so we’ll probably meet again along the way to Med!
That evening we have a lovely cheese & salad dinner with a glass of Madeira wine.
And after that, we watch a beautiful sunset.
The high winds predicted arrive the next day. We have the strongest wind (from the south) right on our bow and when the wind shifts to the west in the afternoon, we have shelter from the passenger vessel next to us!
It’s a nice day to stay inside and finish sewing the last cockpit cushion! There’s still some Sunbrella fabric left over, so we are thinking about what else Sher can sew with that! The big throw pillows are great in the cockpit, so maybe one or two more of them?
Finally, the storm has passed and the sun is shining again. We still have some light rain showers, however. After lunch, we take the little ferry across the bay to Hendaye on the French side. 1. because we want to have visited that last place in the French cruising guide and, 2. because we were invited by Harm and Ilona to meet them for a drink in a little local bar they like. They moved to Hendaye after one night in Hondarribia, because they are surfers and Hendaye is great place for wave surfing. Tomorrow, the weather looks nice to sail further west. Onward to San Sebastian! Hopefully this time we won’t need to turn back again!
The Captain’s Log (T+97,98…104) – the complete story
October 3 – leaving Ile de Ré
As soon as the sluice/lock at Saint Martin de Ré opens at 1500h, we depart.
In the morning it was cloudy but around noon it clears and we have a beautiful sunny day. There’s a nice 10 knots breeze from the North-East and we sail along Ile de Ré towards the bridge that connects the island to the mainland.
It always looks like the mast is going to hit the bridge but this bridge is 3 times higher than our masts 🙂
We pass La Rochelle and turn west, around the Ile d’Oléron. Sunset at 2000h.
Once we round the cape on the north side of Ile d’Oléron on a bit of a choppy sea, we gibe and turn south. We sail into the first night. It’s a long night, from 8 to 8. There’s a new moon so it’s pitch black all night. The wind behaves as promised: a 8-13 knots breeze from the north-east. A lovely broad reach for Dione IV. We have our yankee sail and mizzen sail up and the mainsail down. Depending on the wind and current, we do 3-6 knots. There are some big vessels coming out of the Gironde (from Bordeaux) but they pass without us altering our course. There are lots of fishing vessels. Many of them have no AIS so that keeps us busy… looking at their lights, determining which way they are going, and how fast. But, we pass ‘m without the need for evasive actions. We do our 3-hour watches and have a little trouble of getting asleep when off watch. It takes time to find a rhythm but we stay well and fit.
October 4 – making good progress, and dolphins!!!!
Sunrise at 0800h. We’re making good progress.
We sail along the French coast at a distance of 20-30 sea miles. Sometimes we have a poor internet connection but again, our great Peplink antenna is performing great, considering the fact that the land is sparsely populated here and there will be fewer GSM towers/masts.
But still, we’re able to get our weather forecasts on a regular basis. And communicate with family and friends, of course.
It is a lovely sailing day!
A visitor! This little fluffy bird is probably tired and sits in the cockpit for an hour or so.
By the end of the afternoon, more visitors! A big group of dolphins see us and they approach us enthusiastically, jumping for joy!
They play in our bow wave for about 20 minutes. Then they move on, showing us some nice jumps!
The sun goes down again and we settle into our second night of the passage.
We make good progress. This night, we see hardly any other ships. No fishing vessels without AIS, that’s a lot more relaxed.
The wind picks up to 15-20knots and turns to the East. The waves get higher and the current makes the sea choppy. Because the waves are short and steep and hit us on the beam, we roll pretty nasty and spray a lot. Sher sleeps like a baby in these movements but Wim can’t sleep. No problem, we can sleep when we arrive in Hendaye around noon.
We decide to go to the marina on the Spanish side, Hondarribia, rather than the French side. Just for the sake of having the feeling to have arrived in Spain 🙂 But also because the marina is smaller and the scenic old town is just a few minutes walk away.
October 5 – second night on passage
Sunrise. The water on the window is not rain, it’s spraying sea water.
From a distance of 30 sea miles, we see the Spanish mountains. Beautiful!
When we get closer to land, the sea calms and the wind eases down to 10 knots. Very relaxed we sail the last miles.
Of course, we hoist the Spanish courtesy flag.
We enter the bay Du Figuier and we enjoy the wonderful sight of the green mountains.
At 1300h we moor in the marina of Hondarribia! We are very happy to be here! This was a perfect passage.
We have lunch outside in summer weather on the cockpit table.
The temperature is 27 degrees Celsius. Lovely!
Needless to say, after a passage, we sleep well and long this night…
October 6 – coffee in the cockpit, yay, then a walk around town!
We start the day with coffee in the cockpit. Yay!
We take a walk into town. Hondarribia is a lovely town with an ancient center on the hill.
We are so happy to be here for many reasons, but the lovely weather is certainly one of them! It was getting really cool and damp while we were still in France.
October 7 – out and back in again
The weather forecast (Grib file) says today it will be sunny in the morning with a light breeze from the south. The days after that don’t look good so we decide to make a small hop to San Sebastian. It’s only 12 sea miles. We call the port to ask if they have place. The places for visitors are very limited there. But after calling several phone numbers it remains unclear whether we can have a berth there. We decide to try it and if there’s no place we’ll continue to a next place with a big marina. We are not going to anchor because there’s a severe storm coming the day after tomorrow.
After breakfast, we leave the marina of Hondarribia. Almost no wind, as forecasted. So, this will be a motor trip. No problem, it’s only 2-3 hours.
Once at open sea, there comes some wind. So we set sail. Carefully, only a reefed yankee and mizzen sails. Because there’s 15 knots now and the forecast is only 5 knots, the wind might be funneling from the mountains? After 1 sea mile, the wind has increased to 20 knots. Hm. Big difference from the forecast… After another half sea mile we have 25 knots and increasing. We furl the yankee and set the jib. Another half a sea mile: 30 knots! And from the South-West instead of South-East. That’s right on our bow, heading to San Sebastian. We get very steep short waves and a lot of spray. And the wind is still increasing. This is crazy. This is not fun. The wind increases to 35 knots (8 Bf). Let’s turn around and go back. Wim starts the engine to have some propulsion for the turn and we gibe. Oops, in 35 knots of wind, the mizzen gibes a bit too vigorously. A sail car breaks. No real problem, we’ll fix that later. As we sail back, after 2 miles the wind has decreased to 20 knots and when we reach the bay to Hondarribia it’s 5 knots again… What the heck?
The engine control panel shuts down while the engine is still running! Oh-oh…we’ve had this before… Wim checks the preheat relay and burns his fingers on it! Bloody H! Same problem. Relay burnt. Short circuited, engine control panel fuse blown. Well, we enter the marina and moor. Shut down the engine manually. Disconnect the preheat relay, replace the fuse, everything okay. Did that all before… Now we have to find out what caused this. After replacement of the relay we tested everything and it was okay. This is going to require more research. No problem for now, we don’t preheat to start the engine.
In the afternoon, we try to figure out what the reason for this crazy wind was:
This is the Grib file. It shows 5 knots of wind from the south.
This is the Spanish meteo forecast. 13-15km/h = 6-7 knots from the south.
But this what the French radar app shows: strong winds over land but not at sea! Dark orange = 40 knots.
And we were right there, in that transition zone.
So, this is a lesson in Spanish weather…
We will look at our French radar app next time before we leave!
In the afternoon, we remove the broken sail car and take it to the marine chandler nearby. They don’t have it in stock, but they are going to try to order it for us.
A good thing is that they have the big rubber snubbers we were looking for. We buy 2 of them for our new anchor chain hook (the one we broke at Plage de Pen Guen in France).
We see a Dutch boat coming in. The “Watertuin”. It’s a Koopmans design, too: a Victoire 1044. They are Harm & Ilona and we have a chat. They have approximately the same plans as we do, so we’ll probably meet again along the way to Med!
That evening we have a lovely cheese & salad dinner with a glass of Madeira wine.
And after that, we watch a beautiful sunset.
October 8
Sunrise!
In the morning, Sher goes back to chandlery and buys a Basque region flag. We fly it as a second courtesy flag on starboard mizzen mast.
The red ground symbolizes the Biscay population, the green saltire represents the Oak of Guernica, a symbol of the old laws of Biscay, or Fueros; and over them, the white cross, God’s symbol of Basque Catholic devotion.
Yes, we’re Biscay people for a while already 🙂 Although, we’ll still would have a lot of work to do on our Catholic devotion 😉
In the afternoon, we take the bus to the city of Irun. We want to buy a new local (Spanish) SIM card + data bundle for our router and we are going to visit a Vodafone store for that. Hmm, we didn’t realize or check the siesta times… the store opens at 1630h so we have to wander around the city of Irun for one and a half hour… But after the store opens, we get the SIM. 100Gb/month for 15 euro. Great!
October 9 – stormy, but not as bad as expected
Today, a storm will pass. The forecast is 60 knots of wind!
We fix some extra lines although we think we’ve pretty good shelter here.
Around noon, we have some gusts of 40 knots but that’s all. We’ve picked an excellent place. Our friends in the Ria de Vigo send us some pictures and it’s a lot worse there, with a lot of damages.
We have the strongest wind (from the south) right on our bow and when the wind shifts to the west in the afternoon, we have shelter from the passenger vessel next to us!
A nice day to stay inside and finish the last cockpit cushion! There’s still some Sunbrella fabric, so we are thinking about what else Sher can sew with it!
In the late afternoon we have a huge amount of rain.
October 10 – a water taxi ride back across to France (Hendaye)
The storm has passed and the sun is shining again. We have some small rain showers, however. After lunch, we take the little ferry across the river to Hendaye. 1. because we want to have visited that last place in the French cruising guide and 2. because we were invited by Harm & Ilona to have a drink in a little bar. They moved after one night in Hondarribia because they are surfers and Hendaye is great place for wave surfing.
Indeed, there’s a huge beach and the swell from the west creates a big surf.
We explore town of Hendaye and have a very nice meeting with the Dutch couple.
After that, at 1800h, we take the little ferry back to Hondarribia and do some provisioning. Tomorrow, the weather looks nice to sail further west. Onward to San Sebastian!
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