Across the Bay of Bascay
Preparing for our first overnight crossing of 2025
Our departure from La Rochelle to Bilbao, or nearby Castro Urdiales, in Spain was planned in great detail. A series of low pressure systems were wandering across the Atlantic and were being bullied around by a couple of erratic high pressure systems. Given the Bay of Biscay’s reputation as an unpleasant bit of water in the wrong conditions, we were wanting to catch (i) two days of gentler winds and (ii) at a bit of a delay after the last storm to give us the best combination of sea state and wind conditions possible. So, there followed a great deal of attention to long range forecasts; wave and wind GRIBs were downloaded, different models assessed and alternative departure days and times were weighed up.
Ultimately Monday at 0900 gave us the best use of a 48 hr window; it would be a bit bouncy at first given the strong winds the day before, but hopefully we would not be leaving so late that we would end up stuck in the still conditions that were predicted before the next bout of strong winds came in along the Spanish coast. That was the theory, at any rate.
One of the last sunsets in La Rochelle.
Au revoir La Rochelle!
We motored out of Les Minimes harbour and once out in the bay hoisted sails and, with just a couple of tacks, headed out between île de Ré and île d’Oleron into a pleasant SW wind. The seas picked up a bit as we passed between the islands and then again as we cleared île d’Oleron; no surprise in the shallow coastal waters of this area.
We continued to head west until, about 5nm offshore, the wind gradually veered into the west giving us sufficient seaway to tack onto a southerly course along the coast. A couple of hours later, SW of île d’Oleron, the wind veered again and allowed us to set a direct course for Bilbao or Castro Urdiales. With the bouncy conditions in the shallow water, we were keen to get out into the deep where, we hoped, the seas would become a bit more orderly if not a bit calmer.
When the French Météo says ‘agitée’, it is ‘agitée’
This proved to be a vain hope, and once again, the French Météo provided a better prediction than the other models, with a ‘mer agitée’. For the next couple of hours, though the wind stayed comfortable and fairly steadily between 16 and 19kt, the sea state got worse. Steep 2-3m waves came at short intervals from several directions, making for a very rough and wet ride. Every now and again an even bigger wave would roll through towering above us and blocking out the view from the helm of the horizon and even the first cloud layer above it.
The Douglas sea scale. It describes the sea state, based on the height of the waves and the swell of the sea. In Yuma, we try to avoid No 5 and higher.
We repeatedly shipped white water across the foredeck with it occasionally washing up and over the dodger. We tried reducing speed to stop this but the waves were steep enough that it just meant that they pitched up further abaft and still washed over the deck, while Yuma pitched and rolled even more than before. So, we kept the sail on at a single reef in the main and a double reefed genoa and pushed on at about 6kt. It all felt a bit Vendee Globe or Ocean Race-ish but, despite the movement, it was good sailing – Yuma tracked well, hand steering was light and easy and we were making good headway.
Dolphins keep us company
While the conditions kept us pretty focused, it wasn’t all about the sailing – we were also treated to long visits by dolphins. On four occasions, small pods of four to six short-beaked common dolphins, Delphinus delphus for you lovers of Latin nomenclature, came eagerly zipping in from great distances away to ride on our modest bow wave and to play in the pressure fields around the hull. On one occasion they stayed with us for about an hour. These were very fine-looking animals, brightly coloured and delicate, and they were clearly having a great time together, rushing the bow and rudder and leaping clear of the water.
Small pods of short-beaked common dolphins kept us company, day and night.
Perhaps the best dolphin performance though came in the dark. I (D) was watching bright phosphorescence trails coming off Yuma’s rudder when suddenly two lightning bolts of phosphorescence came streaking in from the dark, whipped around the rudder and then sheered off along the side of the boat towards the bow. At the same time three more meteors came whipping in through the waves to join the other two at the bow. For the next 15 minutes we were treated to this performance of these comet-like dolphin apparitions streaking through the jet-black water around the boat, spinning and twisting, together and apart, and leaping out of waves to explode again in a fresh flash of light as they sped on. Eventually, they veered off and we watched as their trails of light disappeared through the waves and off into the distance. Wow!
The wind completely disappears
Sometime around 2200 conditions finally began to moderate and by 0200 conditions had become quite comfortable. By 0600 when Frederieke came on watch, we were slipping along at 4kt into just a few more knots of wind. By 1000 even that wind had just about disappeared and soon enough thereafter we had fallen into the hole in the wind that the forecast suggested would precede the next strong wind and wave warning. We pondered just dawdling along slowly but with still a good distance to go and the next bout of wind less than 24 hours away, we eventually opted to motor-sail.
As evening came on it became clear that we wouldn’t make Bilbao in daylight. Given that Bilbao is a big, busy, industrial port, navigating it at night seemed a bit daunting so we decided instead to make for the much smaller port of Castro Urdiales. There, it would be far easier to make a night-time entrance and it would probably be far more pleasant to be moored up in its small and quiet harbour, under the protective gaze of its medieval castle and cathedral. So, we altered course by a few degrees to the west and made for Castro Urdiales.
No sooner did we change course to Castro, and a swarm of fishing vessels showed up on our rhumb line.
Where did all the fish go?
As we approached Castro Urdiales, and about 10 miles off the port, the AIS revealed something new for us: a tight bunch of scores of boats milling around on the edge of the continental shelf. At first it wasn’t possible to see how many of them there were but they were bunched tightly together and were sitting right on top of our rhumb line, almost as if they were waiting to ambush us. It was, of course, a fishing fleet comprised of well over a hundred medium sized boats trawling for something pelagic along the edge of the shelf. They were all charging around towing their nets, then pausing to process the catch before charging off again in a different direction. How they avoided each other, and each other’s nets, is unclear but the Search and Rescue boat lingering just to the north of the pack made one wonder if they always managed to do so.
Fishing boats as far as the eye could see.
Rather than run the gauntlet of motoring through the middle of them, we altered course and gave them a wide berth.
A late night arrival
It was just before midnight when we made it safely into the harbour at Castro Urdiales. We weren’t sure what the arrangements there would be but we quickly found a mooring buoy and in no time flat were tidied up and settled in. Our first crossing had taken 38 hours and despite the uncomfortable first half, all up, things had gone well.
The comet like dolphin experience reminded me of your & my very similar viewing off the bow of the container ship heading down the coast of Chile 30 odd years ago…
That was fantastic in Chile, wasn’t it. I always remember them coming charging across the fjord from great distances. This time though we were a little closer to the action, like a metre away.