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Sailing over Bay of Biscay in October
October 14-18, 2020 Finally the day had arrived and on October 14th we started sailing over the bay of Biscay. Normally all books say that you should sail over Biscay as early as possible, as the further into autumn you go the likelihood of bad weather increases. As we departed late from Sweden (late August) we knew that finding a weather window for Biscay might be hard, but we hoped that we would make it across anyway. Today with the good and detailed weather forecast finding good weather info is easy, but still it might be unreliable. The weather system is complex and no forecast can be fully relied upon.…
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Our last days in France before the Biscay crossing
October 11-13, 2020 We ate a good, steady breakfast before starting our sail from Fecamp to Cherbourgh. We have learned that it is worth a lot to eat breakfast before leaving than leaving and then eat breakfast on the go. It takes time before you can settle to make breakfast and it is really nice to start the day with a proper meal even if it means leaving a bit later. Our sail to Cherbourgh was followed by more seasickness for Petra, and more throwing up. But apart from that it was a pretty okay sail. Still it has been cold and we have a lot of clothes on, which…
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Sailing in Normandy
October 3-10, 2020 It was stormy weather in the Atlantic and no good weather for us to leave Dieppe so we stayed there a week. During that week we got a lot of small jobs done on the boat, which was good. For example, more work on autopilot installation, fix our toilet (that started having some small issues on the way to Dieppe) and other small stuff. As we where closing in on Bay of Biscay we also spent a lot of time preparing for the crossing, by cooking a lot of food and put it in our freezer box. So when we where gonna do the crossing we would…
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A visit by the coastguards…
October 1-3, 2020 After two nights in Dunkirk we where ready to sail into the English Channel through Dover strait. We sailed along the coast and had the tide with us (about 3-4 knots through the strait) so it was pretty easy sail. We sailed to Boulogne-sur-Mer, which we reached short after lunch. We took a walk around town and up to the old town where we ate some waffles. After that we went to the boat stores around the marina to try and find some stuff we needed, but did not find that much. It is hard to find the right stuff when you’re in a foreign country and…
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Sailing past the shipping lanes to the English Channel
September 28 – October 1, 2020 Our next planned leg was sailing to France past the big shipping lanes around Rotterdam and Belgium and into the English Channel. So after our short visit in Amsterdam we woke up early to leave the canals and head back out to the sea. We first motored from Amsterdam towards IJmuiden, where we would pass through the last lock. Through the English Channel and North Sea the big ships travel along the TSS (Traffic Separation Scheme) which we didn’t need to cross (as we where just going along the coast). Where there are TSS zones there is usually an ITZ as well (Inshore Traffic…
