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Blue Monde - Log 1 - In Baiona



Sunday in the sunshine in beautiful Baiona, Galicia, north west Spain.
After such an anticipated departure, and floundering about in Falmouth's foul wind and rain, crossing the western end of the English Channel and Bay of Biscay was wonderful. Day 1 and most of day 2 meant a little mal de mer for moi (had to resort to Stugeron. Neither acupressure bands nor 'the glasses' could help) but luckily Nigel and our 'boy' racers, Hugh and Jon, enjoyed the sailing and changing conditions immensely. Using the cruising chute in lighter airs and then poled out genoa and main sail on a preventer, apparently known as 'goose-winged', helped give good speed and a more stable ride.
A fantastic part of the journey for me was approaching Cape Finisterre, seeing land and the prospect of the end of our first leg. As promised, the wind around the cape increased to about 28/30 knots and the seas where quite big and showed their power. At this point, after a grey day, the sun came out! Hugh and Jon took it in turn to surf the big waves to record the fastest speed - 13.3 kts or so. Absolutely wonderful.
Approaching Baiona in the dark was very challenging with so many lights to interpret but 00.30 local time on Thursday 15 June saw us, very happily, greeting Andrew and Thomas from World Cruising Club. Charlie, the other member of the WCC rally staff arrived on 'Blonde Moment' HR48 (having sailed the leg with Paul and Dee) at the same time as us after a few days of tactically watching each other's progress on AIS!
We were very upset to lose our new sailing friends Sally, Jane and Andrew from 'Raggy Doll' to food poisoning at the start of leg 1. After the careful sourcing of Scopaderm for the sea sickness, a dodgy pizza seems so unfair! We have heard they may possibly catch up at some point which would be great. If not we hope to see them in Cartagena in September.
Nigel and I set off for Portugal with the rest of the rally tomorrow - leg 2 Baiona to Povoa de Varzim and will meet up again with Hugh and also Hugh's wife Ann and friends Pete and Laura.
The adventure continues.
Jill Robinson

Sent from my iPad

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