I think we might need a goat.....

Biscuit Bashing

The Bay of Biscay (or as my autocorrect keeps insisting, Bay of Biscuit!) has a formidable reputation. Crossing it is worn like a bizarre badge of honour by sailors with comments ranging anywhere between - “oh yeah, I’ve crossed Biscay dozens of times, you’ve just got to be up to it” to “only crossed Biscay once, the waves were the size of a tenement block and I heard the sirens calling to me…….took a Brittany Ferry home”. 

In fairness, it has earned its right to be regarded as a somewhat tough offshore passage due to its unique geo-topography. The prevailing westerlie winds push up waves all the way across the Atlantic with nothing in the way to attenuate them. Then they suddenly hit an incredibly steep costal shelf. The force they have gathered across thousands of ocean miles suddenly has to be dissipated and there’s now just an enclosed bowl to bounce around in unless you escape towards Ireland or the English Channel! Tough choice and they don’t all have the same holiday plans. This results in waves going in all different directions AKA a ‘confused’ sea state. Chuck in anything other than the most benign winds and the result for a sailor can be akin to being in a washing machine. The presence of the French and Spanish coastlines also gives it a rather inister lee shore* which is littered with wrecks going back to Roman times and beyond, so it’s rather appropriate to treat it with a decent amount of respect. Sensible sailors, who don’t want to share their cookies with Poseidon,  are very cautious when crossing the bouncing biscuit. 

When we skulked out of Falmouth for the third time, PredictWind promised us a relatively easy crossing. It lied. We started beautifully, confident in the knowledge we were just skirting the very edge of Biscay not actually 'crossing' it so all should be fine. The winds were slowly building to a steady 16 knots on a lovely broad reach, Azores here we come. Obviously Zephyr’s subscription to PredictWind has lapsed because that’s where he should have stopped, but no, the knots kept building up on the wind vane (anemometer for those nautically inclined), the waves increased and the sea state rapidly became more confused than Nigel Farage glaring at a comedian with a bucket on his head. 

To cut a very long story short, two thirds of the way across we found ourselves in an unpredicted force 6-7 washing machine. I must admit I was somewhat surprised to be deploying our 4th reef (storm main sail) this early in the adventure but we hunkered down and coped with a heavily soiled spin cycle. 

I have to admit though, there were a couple of moments where if we’d had the internet I may have googled the Brittany Ferry timetable. 

*Lee shore: land inconveniently situated straight in the direction the wind is pushing you - usually decorated with lots of sharp, unwelcoming rocks. 

How low can you go?

Having escaped the clutches of the dreaded custard cream we turned our nose towards the Azores but strangely the wind seemed to be keener to take us more easterly towards Madeira. That should have been the first clue but we were tired and still rather damp (physically & emotionally) from the previous night's shenanigans so didn’t pay it the due attention it deserved.  Yet again Zephyr had thrown us a curved ball. On next opening PredictWind (you get a new forecast every 12 hours) a rather sinister area of low pressure had appeared on the northern coast of Portugal, hmmm so that why the wind was backing,* bother. 

Sailors don’t like low pressure areas hence why many a seafaring tome has been written on the joys of barometer watching and probably why meteorologically they are called 'depressions' (this certainly was the effect it had on us!). Low pressure areas, come with nasty wind, heavy rain and most importantly, thunderstorms. When you’re the only thing for miles around and you’re sitting under a giant lightning conductor, AKA a mast, you don’t want to be anywhere near a thunderstorm. Cue turning abruptly away and heading hard straight towards America whilst yelling down the companionway “Dave have you put the sat. phone in the oven yet?”  

Gentle reader you’ll be pleased to know that despite taking way too much time to spot it coming, Doris picked up her skirts and fled like a milk maid who’d spotted the randy squire. As we raced away we were treated to a glorious display of sheet lightning across the sky behind us while the sat. phone snuggled down in its Ocean Chef faraday cage. 

* backing: dancing around you in a counter clockwise direction.