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Day 39: Camarinas to Louro

Day 39: Camarinas to Louro

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It was a slow start this morning, we tried to leave our anchorage early to make use of the morning sea breeze as there was very little wind forecast, a sea breeze is when the land and the sea are different temperatures, in the mornings the sea is warmer than the land so the cold air is drawn off the land and over the warm sea as that air rises.. well that’s the idea anyway.

The sea breeze sailing didn’t really go to plan so we very slowly sailed down the coast till we lost the wind completely, sadly having to motor for a little while.

Eventually, we got the wind back and were able to pole out the Genoa with the reaching strut to sail directly downwind

Poled-out Genoa using the reaching strut

We had had the fishing rods out for the whole day again not getting a nibble.. till we had the awkward poled-out sail and then we got a bite! Just our luck!

Adam grabbed the rod whilst I (Kathryn) furled the sail got the engine going and turned so we could bring the fish alongside, ready with the landing net and bucket we brought it closer, excited to see what we had caught!

It came into view but was not the sort of fish we were expecting, we debated letting it go for a moment but decided to give it go and bring it aboard. It turned out to be a 1.3lb Needlefish otherwise called a Garfish which has a greeny blue tint to its flesh.

Our first ‘big’ fish, a Needlefish

So with the fish excitement over we were approaching our chosen anchorage, just in time for the wind to pick up and we had a quick beam reach into the bay just as the sun was setting.

Sunset with the Porpoises

But the day wasn’t over yet when I heard a big breath of air right next to the boat, of course, it was dolphins escorting us in! They stayed with us for over 45mins! The pod was quite large with what looked like a number of generations, mum and baby and a very large older-looking one with a white speckled fin and tail. I actually think these were porpoises, not dolphins as they have a much stubbier nose.

Definitely the best end to a very long day of sailing.

As I’m finishing typing up this Adam is filleting the fish… I’m sure you’ll find out tomorrow how we cook it and how good it was when we eat it for lunch tomorrow 😛

Day 36-37: A Coruna to Camariñas

Day 36-37: A Coruna to Camariñas

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The plan, drawn up on a whiteboard

We are still planning on getting to Porto, Portugal for the 2nd August, so we need to work our way down the Spanish and Portuguese coast, while also finding time to relax, and enjoy some of the coastline, as well as break up the sailing.

We came up with a very detailed plan, as can be seen on the whiteboard to the right.

This plan started off with some more time near A Coruna after the Biscay crossing to relax. Followed by a 60 nautical mile dash around the corner of Spain to get away from some 1.7 to 1.9 meter swell that was meant to be coming in.

So the 26th of July or Day 36 was the day to set off!

We set off around just before noon as the morning was showing very light wind. The sails went up straight out of the anchorage, and we set course on our heading for the first half of the hop.

Fishing

Fishing jumped to the top of our minds again, and we set up both rods, one looking for mackerel and one looking for bigger fish.

We were quickly successful for mackerel catching one rather swiftly.

Mackeral from the crossing
Catching some rope

The other rod wasn’t having so much fun, there was lots of seaweed and other stuff in the water.

At least we were doing our little bit to clean up the oceans…

We were trying a whole range of different lures on the main line, as we are both fairly new to catching anything other than Mackerel and wanted to work out what was best for fihsing while underway.

We settled on a 10cm jerk bait lure (Read about jerk baits here) which seemed to work quite well at 3-6 knots, not putting to much strain on the line, but also managing to stay at the right depth.

After 5 hours of having the line of having the line out with this lure for the first time something bit! We quickly got to the rod, which was in a rod holder, and started trying to reel whatever was at the end in. We generally prepared for landing our biggest fish yet (not a mackerel), with our landing net etc.

Braided fishing line with half a knot in the end

A few minutes passed as we were fighting the fish, occasionally seeing it pop out of the water. It was getting closer and closer to the boat. Unfortunately, when it was about 20 meters back the line became slack, and reeling it in we discovered that the knot attaching the main line to the leader line had either pulled through or snapped.

You can see the reel, with half of the knot still in tack in the image to the right.

Not only did we not land our first big fish, but unfortunateely this fish is probably now stuck with this lure and line.

Another late anchor

The wind was lighter than we would have liked, so we lost some time during our sailing compared with our plan. It also dropped off sooner than expected and we had to motor for the last part of this hop.

All of this led to us once again anchoring in the dark, this time around 2am.

Day 17: Helford River to Housel Cove

Day 17: Helford River to Housel Cove

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We wanted to break out the larger journey around to Penzance. We found an anchorage (Housel Cove) on Navionics that looked like it should give us pretty good protection from the swell and wind for the night and headed off!

This was an easy sail again only on a reefed genoa as we were trying to sail at 2-3 knots so we could fish with the paravane as we went.

Although we were ready for the fish, the fish were not there. Even while trying to sail slowly, you can see the bend in the rod as we occasionally hit 4+ knots.

The journey took only 4.5 hours and we found ourselves in Housel Cove which is overlooked by Housel Hotel and Lizard Lighthouse.

We were in the bay all by ourselves, and also had a beach that seemed to be mostly inaccessible from the land, so private for us!

We both got a little artistic on this day.

Kathryn took this very nice looking picture of the deck while we were sailing

Adam took this rather blurry, but perhaps nice to look at picture of Lizard Lighthouse at night from the bay.

Day 3: Dartmouth to Salcombe

Day 3: Dartmouth to Salcombe

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We spent day 2 in Dartmouth on the DC visitor pontoon generally getting ready for a sail (mostly stowing the many things we brought onto the boat on the last day on land).

We also fitted the blades to the wind turbine so that we could start generating a bit more power!

Kathryn up the mast fitting wind turbine blades

On day 3 it was quite light wind, but we wanted to get moving so we set off in the morning motoring but managed to sail for parts of the journey.

We also started fishing with the new paravane along the way and caught 2 mackerel just before approaching Salcombe.

We didn’t want to think about anchoring with the brand new anchor just yet so we headed to a visitor bouy and rafted up next to 2 other yachts.

Fresh mackerel for dinner, it was delicious! And a lovely night’s sleep.

We woke up in the morning and it was very flat.

Instagram Post (June 24)