Sailing
season 2016 is officially over for us, we are back home in Brittany, and Mareda
has been tucked in for the winter at Marina Alcaidesa, La Linea de la
Conception, Spain, otherwise referred to by us as “Gibraltar” for lack of a more
prominent landmark.
The rock, viewed from La Linea, Alcaidesa Marina. |
La Linea, Alcaidesa Marina viewed from the Rock. |
We’re disappointed
that we couldn’t extend the season out to the end of October as initially hoped,
but given the circumstances, we’re both very happy to be home a little early. A mere 24-hours after landing, Patrick
developed an abscess in one of his front teeth and his face swelled up like a
balloon. He was in agony for 48 hours despite
maximum doses of Tylenol with codeine.
The antibiotics finally took effect and he’s back to normal but the
prognosis doesn’t look good. We’ll know
more next week, but he could be looking at 2-3 surgeries with 4-5 month
recovery times in between. That could
put a crinkle in our cruise plans for next year.
As for me, I
have an appointment with the rheumatologist to see about my newly blossomed arthritis,
which could put a crinkle in more than our cruise plans. We’re both looking at a lot of doctor’s visits
over the next few months and we’d rather be home to cope with it all.
Patrick "Woo Hoo! We're in Gibraltar!" Ape: "if I had a banana for every stupid tourist photo I pose for..." |
Here are
some statistics for 2016:
Miles
covered = 1140
Days on
boat = 114
Days
sailing = 33
Longest
sail = 78 hours
Hours
motoring = 141
Different
ports and moorings = 30 in 3 countries
Number of
nights at anchor = 20
Average port
cost for 2016 season = 17 euros / night (calculation based on port fees, free nights
at anchor and an exchange program between our home port and ports in Galicia,
Spain that gave us some free ports in June.)
Highlights
The thrill
of sailing new territory in new countries
Visiting La
Coruna, Porto, Coimbra, Lisbon, Sintra, Faro, Cadiz, and Gibraltar
Playing
Robinson Crusoe anchored behind Culatra island for two weeks
Beautiful
hot sunny weather from June to October !
(neither of us wore shoes for 3.5 months)
Meeting
other cruisers and sharing the journey
Lowlights
Health problems;
ours and visiting friends’
Stress
(Patrick wishes to emphasize that the stress was mine, not his). Sailing in new territory with new weather
patterns and in a foreign language can be tough on the nerves. We sailed around some mythic headlands this
season: Cape Finisterre in Spain, Cape St Vincent in Portugal, and Cape
Trafalgar / Tarifa / Gibraltar. All went
well, but the anxiety of anticipation was heavy. Even though we didn’t really have a fixed
calendar to respect, I often had the feeling that we were on a boat-delivery
job and we didn’t always have time to enjoy a place because the weather forced
us to either move on the next day or risk getting trapped for a week. I had a small breakdown (yes, yes, tears and
all) around Mazagon, which was just after our horrible experience in Lagos and
just before I went to the clinic to find out why my hands weren’t doing what I
was telling them to. I have hopes that
these issues will be resolved before we head out again next year and we’ve
already agreed to take it much slower next year.
Unbelievably
poor internet services. I think most
ports have just given up trying to keep up with the demand and they now expect
every cruiser to be autonomous (mobile telephone with 4G connections, sat
phones, etc.) Even the bars and cafes
around the marinas have limited services.
When internet is your only means of getting good weather information,
this becomes a critical issue. We’re
studying options for next year, but they all look expensive.
What
worked
Riding sail:
we only put this to the test a couple of times, but we noticed a big difference
in our motion compared to that of our neighbors.
Heat management: I was worried about this and my Breton
husband, unaccustomed to heat. Despite 37°C / 99°F heat in Portugal, we stayed comfortable thanks to the bimini, the
dodger and its opening front and side panels, our wind chute to capture even
the slightest puff of air (when you hook it up even in light winds, you have
the impression that you’ve turned on a fan down below), and good engineering by
Jeanneau with lots of ventilation. All
the hatches have mosquito screens built in and we use a mosquito net across the
door of our cabin at night so we can keep maximum ventilation. The only thing missing is side panels for the
bimini.
Electricity
management: Our solar panels kept us
charged with no worries even after 2 weeks at anchor and despite a refrigerator
working overtime. Our electric wok and
toaster, which we can use when we are hooked up to shore power, cut our cooking
gas consumption by a factor of 3!
Diesel
management: When we fire up the motor, we rarely ask it to give us more than 5
knots, usually in combination with sails, so our gas consumption was much lower
than we anticipated. We averaged 1.3 liters
/ hour.
What
didn’t work
Internet. We wonder why we even invested in an
expensive wifi antenna. Useless, given
the circumstances.
Spinnaker
pole: we’re selling it! We always
thought it was important to have one to pole out the genoa or the gennaker, but
the reality is that we are never sufficiently motivated to actually hook it
up. In addition, I discovered a new way
to maximize the opening of the genoa when sailing with a tailwind or
wing-on-wing, which is to use the gennaker sheets and the barber hauler to pass
the sheets outside the boat (rather than through the sheet travelers), thus
turning the genoa into a small gennaker.
By keeping the genoa sheets attached to the sail at the same time, I can
bring the genoa back to normal (for quick hauling in / rolling up) without the
hassle involved in dealing with a spinnaker pole.
Pocket hose: I loved my little pocket hose but it didn’t
withstand its second season. The problem
is the textile casing, which gets fragile when too exposed to UV. Once there is a rip in the casing, the inner
tubing blows up like a goiter and explodes.
We’re back to a regular garden-hose type now, which is certainly more
robust but also takes up much more space and is much heavier.
Lessons
learned
You CAN
sail in the Med, but you have to have time and be motivated.
You often hear that in the Med there is either too much wind or not
enough. This all depends on what “too
much” and “not enough” mean to you. We
managed to keep our motor hours down thanks to the gennaker and accepting to
drift along at 3 knots at times, but we did crack and fire up the motor more
often than was really necessary and there were quite a few occasions where we
SHOULD have put up the gennaker but didn’t.
The typical day is calm in the mornings with good sailing winds for a
few hours in the late morning / early afternoon, then up to 20-25 knots in the
afternoon, all of which can come from just about any direction, especially
around headlands and cliffs. You have to
be willing to make lots of sail changes and to make them fast if you want to
sail here. Often what happens is that
you opt for a “ready for anything” approach, which means 2 reefs in the main
with the motor. You motor-sail in the
mornings, sail with 2 reefs and full genoa in the early afternoon, then sail with
only the reefed mainsail and maybe a tiny handkerchief-sized genoa in the
afternoon (or fall back to motor-sailing if the wind is too much in the nose). It’s not ideal but it is the best lazy approach! We tell ourselves we WILL make more use of the
gennaker and try to just leave it out as much as possible so that we can’t
whine and gripe about who has to go below and haul it up from the lazarette,
hook up the furler, etc. Eliminate the
excuses as much as possible!
We’re more
bourgeois than we imagined. We like to think of ourselves as
intrepid adventurers, but we’re much happier when we have good internet, good
food, and beautiful or interesting surroundings to visit while we’re out. On several occasions we were ready to head
out in unsuitable weather conditions because of dissatisfaction with a
port: nothing interesting to visit, no
internet, no good food markets nearby, ugly industrial settings, etc. We may adopt the strategy of a few cruisers
we met this year and make some long overnight sails to jump over the boring or
ugly bits.
Clouds over Gibraltar, |
Mareda, nestled down for winter behind the rock. |
7 comments:
Hi, good luck with all your doctor appointments, sounds terrible (compared to cruising life). Looking forward to your new posts next year! Take care & have a fine and successful winter season, Hubert
Congrats on the successful season, and good luck with your health issues. I sail a 379 on the Chesapeake Bay and would be interested to hear a bit more about your barber hauler arrangement for downwind sailing (gear/attachment points/etc). I have been debating a pole for the genoa, but too have doubts about motivation to set it up consisently. You could email me at tigidal@gmail.com, if you like. Would be happy to trade any other 379 topics. Thanks!
Congrats on the successful season, and good luck with your health issues. I sail a 379 on the Chesapeake Bay and would be interested to hear a bit more about your barber hauler arrangement for downwind sailing (gear/attachment points/etc). I have been debating a pole for the genoa, but too have doubts about motivation to set it up consisently. You could email me at tigidal@gmail.com, if you like. Would be happy to trade any other 379 topics. Thanks!
Thanks Tigidal, and I will email you more details about the downwind arrangement with the genoa when I get a chance... I am still kicking myself in disbelief that I didn't take any photos ! I need to do a follow-up on the gennaker rigging, too, so that may answer some questions as well.
Get well soon you guys! A great post, good to hear what did and didnt work. I'll miss your regular updates while you are packed up for winter. We are just getting started here. My boat is in the haulout yard now getting all beautiful for the upcoming season.
:)
Thanks Astrolabe ! I think we'll have a follow-up post of what worked and didn't since we forgot a lot of things while writing the last post. It's great to have southern hemisphere blogging friends so that we can now live vicariously through you in your sailing season !
Sorry to hear about your health issues :-( Your average port fee seems to be quite reasonable. I didn't know that they did port exchange programs - that's pretty cool.
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