21/08/2012 Half Way across the ‘dreaded’ Bay of Biscay

I can see now why any one would both fear and respect the Bay of Biscay. We left on Sunday the 19th (Happy Anniversary human owners) with the promise of fair winds to come. Surprise, surprise, surprise, they never materialized.

Instead we beat into a South Westerly wind on the nose with the main and foresail reefed (shorter sails). We were doing great speeds, but as we had to tack, a lot of it was to either side of our destination in Spain. But it was not all bad.

Groups of dolphins started joining us.

They were very friendly and played around the boat well into the night.

I did my best to bark them away, but I think my barking just attracted more of them.

My human’s had out fishing lines, but were unafraid of the dolphins biting them as they are very smart and their sonar tells them the lure is fake.

Early morning Saturday we left the continental self and entered deeper water. Their was a slight easing of the swell but my human’s still had to hove to (slow the boat down) to cook breakfast safely.

Finally in the afternoon the winds died down and we knew fair winds were on their way. The North Easterly winds slowly swung around and set in very lightly. We have been waddling at between 2-4 knots ever since.

The down wind sailing is lots more comfortable and, besides the Atlantic swell still coming in on the beam (from the side), you can get around nicely. We were so comfortable I slept happily all night in the cockpit and only barked once at the waves when I thought it was those silly dolphins again. The humans left their fishing rod out and were rewarded in the early morning with not one, but two beautiful iridescent tuna.

One was 6lbs and the other smaller at 4.5lbs (yes the humans were anal enough to weigh them, so there is no boasting here). I am to inform the Canadian end of the family that, although They were caught on the female’s lucky lure, it was the male that reeled both of them in. Our first tuna Yahh!

They best part of them catching fish is I get some raw meat. The tuna’s are now cleaned and cut up into 18 big steaks, most of which are vacuum packed into the freezer.

Grilled steaks for lunch and dinner and the left overs in sushi tomorrow. Who cares if we are only traveling at 3 knots……life is good.

Nothing has broken down, yet. The winds are meant to increase slightly, but remain fair for the next two days. The human’s have both had a shower and did not make me have one. So life at sea is GOOD. Just waiting for more scraps from lunch.