Red sky at morning, sailors take warning
The last leg to Les Sables d’Olonne
The conditions for the second leg of our trip to Les Sables d’Olonne were meant to be a little bit nasty in the early morning. A storm had come rolling in from the Bay of Biscay overnight but was forecast to moderate to ‘good enough’ by midday. Our hope then was that much of the passage would be done in those good enough conditions, especially the last mile or two where we had to round the Les Sables d’Olonne’s seawall and, in the shallows, go beam-on to the waves to get into the harbour channel. This wasn’t something that we wanted to attempt in big, or even biggish, seas.
Leaving our anchorage near Port-Joinville.
The wind and waves are increasing…
The sky was surprisingly red when we left early the next morning. Putting our trust in the forecast and not this warning, we continued on with a brisk sail along the leeward side of Île d’Yeu. Once we cleared the protection of the island, however, those happy few miles were followed by steep seas and much stronger winds that produced a pretty wild, rodeo ride.
More, random, fish decorations from coastal towns.
Foolishly, we hadn’t rigged the staysail before we left our anchorage and so, even with the main and genoa both heavily reefed, the steep short seas meant that we were struggling to make 45˚ to the apparent wind. Add this to a contrary current, and we were barely making way towards Les Sables. This was all fine enough except for the fact that, in contrast to the forecast, the wind kept increasing and was pushing up much bigger waves the longer the day progressed. The prospects for OK conditions for our (first) entry into Les Sables were disappearing fast along with this worsening sea state.
Our figure-of-eight east of Île d’Yeu.
Doing a figure-of-eight
After four hours of pushing into it, and, having sailed about 20nm for perhaps 10nm made good, we decided that without any alternative anchorage near Les Sables, and a good chance that we wouldn’t want to risk a shallow water approach in the dark that required coming in beam-on to a potentially breaking sea, it was a bit silly to continue. So, we waited for a gap in the waves, gybed off the top of a wave, and enjoyed a fast downhill ride back to Île d’Yeu, where we gladly settled into the harbour to await better conditions.
The main harbour in Port-Joinville.
Next time, we should pay heed to the warning of a red sky in the morning.
