And we're off !

The weather and our nerves have stabilized (somewhat in both cases, anyway) and we’re making final preparations to head across the Bay of Biscay to Spain for 3-4 months of cruising.  We’ll be buddy boating with a Sun Odyssey 40, much bigger and certainly faster than us in most conditions, but we’ve agreed to stay in radio contact (about 25 miles), which is a huge comfort for our first multi-night crossing.  The skipper of the SO 40 has 30 years of experience including transatlantic solo races, so we’re in good hands.

The plan is to head down to the new port of Laredo on the northern Spanish coast.  This is one of the rare ports in the area that can be entered at any time and all conditions, with easy and safe anchoring just outside the port if needed.  The big hop should take us about 48 hours.  We’ll float around roughly in a westerly direction with our buddy until we reach Gijon, where they will head back east and home and we will head west and south down to Bayona close to the Portuguese border, then work our way back north and east through the rias of Galice.  We’ll head back to the French coast (somewhere around the Bordeaux region) by mid-August to avoid the unsettled weather that develops in Biscay, and island hop our way back home in no particular hurry.

Next update from the road ! (er..um… Spanish port somewhere).