Bay of Biscay conquered

Whilst Neal was posting the last blog in Piriac Miggy was having her hair cut. She was extremely nervous at the thought of a foreign cut and at the thought of the grey growing through some more but it looked great.
Piriac marina has a sill at a certain level to retain the depth of water in the Marina to an acceptable level. We had great amusement at the French endeavouring to pass over the sill when there was insufficient depth and thus stopping abruptly with a resonant bang and startled faces – when will they learn?

We sailed to Pornic some thirty miles away across the River Loire estuary on the 27th of May. It should have been an interesting trip but we saw very little in the mist that prevailed. We had a fair breeze however and good sailing. Pornic is a fairly large holiday town with bustling streets made more boisterous with fairgrounds, clowns and other street performers as it is Ascension Day holiday. So another four days off work for the native population. How does anything ever get done in this Country?
Miggy has friends from UK, Ron and Fran, who have settled in Pornic and we got together with them on board for a drink and next day they kindly invited us to their house for the day. We had a superb day with them walking the countryside and smelling the agricultural smells that go with it, chatting about our respective changes in lifestyle and eating and drinking heartily. Thanks both for your company and hospitality and to Manny and Charlie for the fun you gave us with the water bombs.
L’Herbaudiere on the Ile Noirmutier was our next stop but we were not enamoured with the place so we had a wonderful sail for five hours next day to Port Joinville on the Ile d’Yeu. This is a delightful place and we would have liked to stay longer but the forecast for a crossing of the bay of Biscay seemed settled for a few days so we left after just a day’s stay on the 2nd of June. Our passage plan had changed to end up further west on the north coast of Spain than originally intended and thus in a better position to explore the Rias, which are reputed to be spectacular.
The distance from Ile d’Yeu to our new destination, Viveiro, is 287 miles or about 50 hours sailing. We left in virtually zero wind and had to motor for the first 10 hours. After that we sailed until nightfall on the first night out when the wind died.
Around lunchtime second day out the wind started to pick up and gradually rose to average force 6 with gusts to Force 7/8 overnight with steep and confused seas. It was most uncomfortable but fast – we were making 7.5 knots average with surfs of 9 knots+. The seas were particularly steep where we crossed the continental shelf where the seabed rises from 4000 meters+ to 100 meters in less than a mile! We were pleased to arrive in the Ria Viveiro at 0900 on the 4th of June.
We were privileged to be visited by Dolphins virtually continuously during the trip and we felt that they were our friends and we hoped that they felt similarly. We even played them Andreas Bocelli singing tenor and they seemed to stop their furious playing around the boat and calm down and just swim alongside us – perhaps we imagine things but we believe that these beautiful mammals have feelings and emotions that may be in tune with our own.

We are now meeting likeminded people who are cruising south with similar intentions as our own and we are getting to know some lovely folks – Paul and Pauline aboard ‘Shellseeker’ and John and Mo porter aboard ‘ Blue Eyes’. We hope to catch up with them as we all travel south down the Spanish and Portuguese Atlantic coasts.
Our first impression of the Spanish, or Galician, people and their outlook on life is encouraging. All those that we have met in the way of our business around the dock and in town have been so accommodating.
We have a Spanish SIM in our mobile now and the number including the international code for Spain is +34 636 587 556.
We will move on to Ria Cediera and then La Coruna in the next couple of days.