Departed Camaret-Sur-Mer

 During our final night in Camaret, the wind picked up to near gale from the NE.

We were moored to the floating wave breaker and it got a bit lively at times. But having had mooring damages earlier on floating pontoons we brought good mooring ropes with strong shock absorbers.

This afternoon we cast off, motored accross to the Coop fuel dock and filled up our diesel tank. We have just over 200L in the maintank and 140L in jerry cans on deck.  We departed Camaret at 1430 Local time.

The weather is nice, sunny, and wind from the N about 10-15 knots. Sea state 1.5 - 2 meters. We are heading forCamarinas inthe west of Galicia/Spain. Distance is 370nm and we should be there Thursday afternoon.  The weatherforecast is for Northerly winds 10-15 knots dropping to 10 and later 5 knots as we get further south. We probably have to test out our spinnaker sail.  ;)

We are in a good spirit and look forward to getting south to warmer climate - although some say Sapin is in for a scorcher.... 

Grete & Geir

A short visit to France

Our trip from Dover has so far been uneventful. Wind in the nose and the green monster is performing very well.
We are running just 1500 RPM which gives us an average speed of 5 knots through the water.
At times the headwind strengethens and we lose a knot or two. Not to speak of the current agains and with us.
But we have been able to sleep and eat comfortably.

The weather is going to change to a very faverouble direction for crossing the Bay of Biscay.
But not until Monday. So we will have a couple of days stop in Camaret-Sur-Mer.
We hope to arrive there late Friday or early Saturday.

A bit of traffic and we are trying to shift position between the separation zones
in order to be in a better position to head due south into Brest area.

Will write more and post some pictures when in Camaret.

Grete & Geir

 PS few hours left beforre arriving Camaret. This is how track looks like. We have burned close to 150L diesel. Constant wind from the W-SW ment no sailing, as gybing in the English channel Time Saparation System is very difficult. In addition strong currents and it's always the current against that are the strongest one ;)

 

Time to continue

 Lazy and slow days in Dover. Did some shopping. Improved the solar panel installation. Made a tally, re-supplied our food-stores, some of what we bought on our previous Atlantic voyage 2 ears ago.

Our plan is to leave Dover Tuesday at noon and sail in the direction of LeHavre, then do another change to sail W/NW and finally past Brest. The weather for the coming week looks fine for a good crossing of the bay of Biscay. We will probably sail to Camarinas, west of A Coruna. 

Grete is doing her magic in the galley- very good sniff of Norwegian meatballs in brown gravy, potatoes and stewed cabbage

Grete & Geir

Relaxing while waiting on weather

We will be waiting on weather here in Dover. It’s a fine marina located in an old dock basin. They have built a completely new dock that will soon be opened. 

 

Sorry France, Boris opened up…

 We had originally wanted our first port of call to be Dover. But we were told they did not accept non UK boats and to contact them again for possible changes. As we sailed into the English Channel yesterday we sent another request by email. The reply was very good. Coming from an EU/Shengen country and being fully vaccinated we were very welcome. We arrived at 2200 and were given a good pontoon in Granville dock. Geir had made a previous visit here as crew of another boat and almost remembered the way into the marina. The view at low and high tide can be very deceptive. 

The weather forecast does not look very promising for the coming days. We might have to stay here for the weekend. 

Enroute from Farsund to Boulogne-sur-mer

We had a real jump start. Our departure had to be put forward 4 days as the only weather window was now.
Getting supplies etc loaded on the boat. We departed from Farsund just before midnight Friday 30th.

We had originally wanted to go to Dover, but they were closed to foreign arrivals. UK is experiencing
massive spreading of the Delta variant of Covid and we guess they are in a limbo on what to do
when it comes to visiting yachts.

We got a very polite and friendly reply from Boulogne Marina, who wished us very welcome.
We hope to arrive there late Tuesday or early Wednesday.

The weather has so far been great for sailing - NW 15-25 knots and we are averaging 6 knots.
The weather "after Boulogne" might be more difficult, as strong westerly winds are forecasted.
However, we hope to be able to advance to Cherbourgh and then Brest after a few days there.

Grete & Geir

We are sailing again !

 After more than a year at home, we have decided to start another trip towards the sunshine. We have too many places yet to visit - many of which we had to skip as Covid-19 made us sail back home to Norway in May-July in 2020.

 The departure will be in the first week of August. By then we have both had our 2 Covid-19  vaxinations.

Our sail plan is departing Farsund for the English channel, possibly have short stops at Boulogne-Sur-Mer, Cherbourgh and finally to Brest, where we will wait for a decent weather window to cross the Bay of Biscay.  We hope to make it to Viana Do Castelo, Portugal in one go. 

From Portugal we will sail to Porto Santo in the Madeiras where we will spend a few weeks.

Then onwards to the Canary islands where we will visit various places we haven't been before.

In December we will, covid permitting, set course for Barbados alternatively, Grenada.

We have done lots of replacements and improvements on the boat. New solar panels, new anchor winch/chain, bow thruster, cooling box. Electrics has had good TLC. Also fitted a new MF/HF radio with DSC and purchased a small Inreach tracking device, that will enable you to keep continous track of our position. Have a look at this link  Ocean Viking - position chart

More will follow when we get under way.  Love from Grete & Geir