So we made it out of England to Spain!!! Yay us! However we must digress a little as we had a few other events, sails, moments worth commenting on before we arrived in Spain. On our last post we had just arrived in Salcombe. It really did live up to everything we had hoped and I would argue to say that it is the most beautiful place we have visited and most relaxing part of our journey so far. We stayed 2 nights at anchor in the bay which was absolutely lovely. One slightly worrying moment (as the fear of anchoring was clearly placed at the forefront of our minds on our last catamaran charter in Croatia!). As we enjoyed our absolutely lovely beer and lunch at the Salcombe yacht club watching the boat as both the tide and wind kicked in to full force it looked as if the boat was starting to drift.... oh dear....!!! Rolfy jumped up quite spritely leaving us behind, ran all the way down the hill through the town, onto the tender and razzed it back to the boat. We certainly didn't want to have our trip ended so soon, as we joked after about the headlines of young family on round the world voyage, ending their trip tragically in Salcombe, 2 weeks in, as there boat crashes onto the rocks!! HA. We still do not know if we were dragging or the boat in front of us, but we decided to lift the anchor and reposition and all was fine for the following night. It was unfortunate that our lunch at the yacht club was cut short as it is a fantastic place to watch the goings of the bay and have a nice pint and bite. We were also extremely welcomed by the Commodore and her husband who wanted to know all about our trip, sat down and had lunch with us, and even parted with a rather large burgee, much to Rolfs happiness in his quest to get a burgee from every yacht club we visit along the way.
The only other slightly worrying moment in Salcombe was when the RNLI (ironic I know) sped so fast up to Maya only missing us by what seemed like a couple of meters. Being slightly put off by it, Rolf found the RNLI crew the next day and they explained that they were performing a blind navigation exercise and as our yacht happened to be the first in a line of yachts it did not show up on the radar and so the captain performing the exercise did not know we were there. Lucky the crew on top took over and diverted the rather large rescue boat from our path! Apart from these two small moments, we really enjoyed Salcombe. Pretty little beaches to swim from, lots of sand to play and roll in, dips off the back of the boat (although this was kinda cold!!), super cute little high street. Highly recommended as a place to visit for a Uk holiday - obviously better if the sun is shining!
We left Salcombe on a scorcher of day, and had a rather flat sunny crossing onto Falmouth, although with no wind, so it was a motor crossing. Passing Eddystone light house on such a calm day was stunning. Rolf put the fishing reel out for the first time but we didn't catch anything. Arriving in Falmouth late afternoon we rafted up along side a raft of boats at the yacht haven. A couple of days here to get ready for our crossing of Biscay to Spain. We met a super lovely dutch family here who are at the end of the circumnavigation of 3 years with there 2 kids, now 6 & 8. They sailed from Holland to NZ and Aus and back again, even going around the Horn of Africa. Was so nice to take all their advice and stories. Shame our sailing paths were heading in different directions but hopefully we may cross paths again.
Alex met us Sunday afternoon, for our early morning departure from Falmouth. The weather looked perfect for a crossing of Biscay, however, a low and not so nice weather over Northern Spain meant our intended port of Vigo did not look possible so instead we landed further North at La Coruna. We left Falmouth with good winds and had a great sail for the first part. With a windy west leg out to just south of the Isle of Scilly the sailing was fast and bumpy, especially for all those down below, but as soon as we turned south the conditions improved all round. Maya seems to handle all points of sail beautifully, although we did find a few leaks we didn't know we had. And so it was, all down wind, until the wind disappeared half way across Biscay. The most taxing thing was probably the amount of traffic in the form of very large, fast super tankers, and fishing boats and their lack of navigation lights. A bumpy last night as the wind picked up to 30 knts just before La Coruna, but all in all a great passage across the dreaded bay...
It was a long sail with the kids without any stops. When the sea is rolley it makes life aboard with the kids somewhat more challenging both at daytime and night. Our first long passage (4 days) and we couldn't have done it with out the invaluable help of Alex. The kids are too small and need too much attention for us to be able to happily and easily do long passages on our own at this stage. While some good moments have been had on the whole trip, the trip so far has also brought about a lot of hard moments and feelings of whether it is going to work and how to make it better and easier. We have found so far that doing this kind of thing with the kids as young as they are can be quite hard, as it can mean that basically Rolf is sailing the boat on his own most of the time and I am stuck down below in what is sometimes a floating washing machine looking after the kids! Kids under 3 need constant attention and with 2 of them it requires even more! The boat also requires a lot of attention both when sailing and also so far little repairs in each place... not quite what we had in mind. We are all having to make adjustments and work out how it will work, what is the best options and how do we enjoy it all as a family. Hopefully it should get easier now that we least reach warmer climes with beaches and swimming fun at each stop. However we have a lot of distance to cover this Summer and engagements to get to, which means a lot of longish sails..... however it will mean next Summer we are were we want to be to cruise in a relaxing style the Adriatic and Greece. Lots to figure out but for the moment we all want to stick at it, make it work, and have FUN!
The only other slightly worrying moment in Salcombe was when the RNLI (ironic I know) sped so fast up to Maya only missing us by what seemed like a couple of meters. Being slightly put off by it, Rolf found the RNLI crew the next day and they explained that they were performing a blind navigation exercise and as our yacht happened to be the first in a line of yachts it did not show up on the radar and so the captain performing the exercise did not know we were there. Lucky the crew on top took over and diverted the rather large rescue boat from our path! Apart from these two small moments, we really enjoyed Salcombe. Pretty little beaches to swim from, lots of sand to play and roll in, dips off the back of the boat (although this was kinda cold!!), super cute little high street. Highly recommended as a place to visit for a Uk holiday - obviously better if the sun is shining!
We left Salcombe on a scorcher of day, and had a rather flat sunny crossing onto Falmouth, although with no wind, so it was a motor crossing. Passing Eddystone light house on such a calm day was stunning. Rolf put the fishing reel out for the first time but we didn't catch anything. Arriving in Falmouth late afternoon we rafted up along side a raft of boats at the yacht haven. A couple of days here to get ready for our crossing of Biscay to Spain. We met a super lovely dutch family here who are at the end of the circumnavigation of 3 years with there 2 kids, now 6 & 8. They sailed from Holland to NZ and Aus and back again, even going around the Horn of Africa. Was so nice to take all their advice and stories. Shame our sailing paths were heading in different directions but hopefully we may cross paths again.
Alex met us Sunday afternoon, for our early morning departure from Falmouth. The weather looked perfect for a crossing of Biscay, however, a low and not so nice weather over Northern Spain meant our intended port of Vigo did not look possible so instead we landed further North at La Coruna. We left Falmouth with good winds and had a great sail for the first part. With a windy west leg out to just south of the Isle of Scilly the sailing was fast and bumpy, especially for all those down below, but as soon as we turned south the conditions improved all round. Maya seems to handle all points of sail beautifully, although we did find a few leaks we didn't know we had. And so it was, all down wind, until the wind disappeared half way across Biscay. The most taxing thing was probably the amount of traffic in the form of very large, fast super tankers, and fishing boats and their lack of navigation lights. A bumpy last night as the wind picked up to 30 knts just before La Coruna, but all in all a great passage across the dreaded bay...
It was a long sail with the kids without any stops. When the sea is rolley it makes life aboard with the kids somewhat more challenging both at daytime and night. Our first long passage (4 days) and we couldn't have done it with out the invaluable help of Alex. The kids are too small and need too much attention for us to be able to happily and easily do long passages on our own at this stage. While some good moments have been had on the whole trip, the trip so far has also brought about a lot of hard moments and feelings of whether it is going to work and how to make it better and easier. We have found so far that doing this kind of thing with the kids as young as they are can be quite hard, as it can mean that basically Rolf is sailing the boat on his own most of the time and I am stuck down below in what is sometimes a floating washing machine looking after the kids! Kids under 3 need constant attention and with 2 of them it requires even more! The boat also requires a lot of attention both when sailing and also so far little repairs in each place... not quite what we had in mind. We are all having to make adjustments and work out how it will work, what is the best options and how do we enjoy it all as a family. Hopefully it should get easier now that we least reach warmer climes with beaches and swimming fun at each stop. However we have a lot of distance to cover this Summer and engagements to get to, which means a lot of longish sails..... however it will mean next Summer we are were we want to be to cruise in a relaxing style the Adriatic and Greece. Lots to figure out but for the moment we all want to stick at it, make it work, and have FUN!
RSS Feed
