For the first time there were 4 of us aboard for the morning breakfast routine. Everything is different with more people, new spaces need to be found, more seats needed and extra beds created.
We got a taxi to see some of the city, aiming for some sort of festival, but we were a bit early for the party with the stage and fair still being set up. The views at the top of the hill were great, however.
The only sensible thing to do after being up high is to head back down low, so we walked to the closest beach which was in some sort of old military area where we saw the acronym ETEA everywhere.
A few ice creams and drinks later it was time to head back to the marina to prepare for our final guest arrival, Andrew.
As with Daisy and Warren, Andrew was flying to Porto, getting a coach to Vigo, followed by a taxi to the marina, arriving at 8:45pm ish.
We had prepared a grand paella feast for Andrews arrival and the completion of the crew for the next week.
Image of paella, courtesy of Daisy
Wanting to not spend a second night in a marina we also hopped across the river to an anchorage not too far away for the night.
We woke up especially early today with the plan of getting to Vigo and a new marina early to prepare for our guests.
But looking out of the windows, we were met with walls of fog.
We waited a while, but set off in fog anyway with the fog horn at the ready, lights on and a lookout on the bow.
The fog continued to be patchy until we reached Vigo.
There are many ports in and around Vigo, and we went for the cheapest, that we could also book through the Navily app, to make things easy.
Guests
Warren and Daisy arrived in Porto last night, stayed in an AirBnb for the night and will be in Vigo after a little coach ride for noon and a short taxi trip.
The coach was €30 for both, and the taxi ride was only €12 + tip. Not bad considering the change of country due to our plans changing.
Soon after they arrived we headed to stock up with provisions for the coming week or so.
This trolly picture was either taken by Warren or Daisy, you pick, they both look the same
Relaxing was done and @wozzletron made a delicious grilled nectarine feta cheese Mediterranean salad for dinner, on the side of Kathryn’s fresh sourdough loaf for dinner, with a spot of wine.
Get ready, this is an exciting one, Galley tour time!
Welcome to Hannah Penn’s tiny kitchen. In this little corner of the main saloon we prepare all of our meals (jokes, there is a table in the saloon that we use too, or when it’s a bed we put a board on top!).
Galley, with cover boards on
You’ll notice various kitchen items missing in the picture above, that’s because they are all covered over with boards to keep things tidy, and make the space more useful during the day. Also the fridge is just out of shot to the right.
The boards get stowed alongside the galley, and the kitchen area then looks something like this.
Galley, with cover boards off, revealing kitchen things
The main features of the galley are:
2 burner stove
Oven
Grill
Instant hot water heater
Fresh water sink
Fridge
Stowage
This is mostly powered by butane gas which we occasional buy from shore in 4.5kg bottles. (Currently we use Calor, but as we have left the UK we will need to change that soon)
The fridge box is old, but the compressor is brand new and fitted during the 2022 haul out. It’s hidden behind this door to the right of the main galley area. Keep and eye out for the fridge upgrade post in the future..
This is not an original Camper and Nicholsons galley, it was renovated by the previous owner of Hannah Penn about 12 years ago. However the Vaillant water heater is original, still going strong 50 years later.
Vaillant water heater
The sink drains straight into the sea, so we need to be careful about what we put down the sink. For this reason we use diluted eco friendly cleaning products, such as Ecover for washing up liquid, and Oceansaver and bicarbonate of soda for general cleaning.
The sink had 2 taps, both for fresh water. One was hand operated, the other electric pump operated, but we have removed the hand operated tap for now, in preparation for installation of a new salt water tap which should allow us to conserve some fresh water while doing the dishes.
Galley sink uncovered, and surrounding area.
Behind the sink we also have 2 sets of bilge pump controls for our 2 bilge pumps, and a gas alarm.
The galley is full of compartments for stowing things in, most of these contain kitchen related items or food:
Big cupboard beneath sink for large pots and pans
Draws for cutlery and utensils
Cupboards above stove for spices and staples
Dedicated plate, bowl and mug holders
Large compartment accessible in the worktop to the right of the sink for easy access food
Fridge for the cold stuff
Under the oven… Various toolboxes…
The galley also has one of the windows from the saloon, so while your cooking you can gaze out to sea… Still wish it opened though, maybe that’ll change in the future.
The feeling this morning is “I can’t believe we are motoring again… We finished wrapping up all of the previous blog posts this morning, then set out for a sail, to somewhere exciting so that we can get in the water.
A side note here is this means we will aim to write these sail logs as we go, so they might get longer, but also more accurate…
Starting the sail
Half an hour in, we are still motoring out to sea with all of the sails up, but not much wind…
All of Hannah’s sails up, hauled in as far as possible
Don’t worry though, 35 minuites in we turned the motor off managing 2-3 knots.
An hour later, we came to a stop and started motoring again. Where is the wind?????
Time to reef
Don’t worry, the wind appeared. Once we got fully out of the mouth the wind picked up and we started speed along while Adam was trying to cook the Needle fish from yesterday for lunch!
We started to reduce our sail area, first the mizen came down, then we reefed the genoa, and finally started reefing the main, planning on putting 2 reefs in.
We got past the first reefing line, but the sail stopped coming down half way to the second reef. What was it stuck on?
Looking up we saw one of the sail lugs caught in a feeder line (string) that we have in place to add a second halyard. This meant that we could reef no more, so we raised the sail back to the first reef.
After a couple of gybes downwind on a less rocky point of sail Adam headed up the mast in a bosun’s chair to untangle the mess (which ended up being quick and easy).
Navigating to anchor
We carried on for the rest of the day with a half reefed Genoa and 1 reef in the main. The fish cooking effort had to be restarted once all of the excitement had died down.
The next effort was navigating to our anchorage. We had to change our plan, as we discovered that you need a navigation and anchoring permit for some islands in the area (where we were originally planning on anchoring for the night).
Our new target was a beach that looked well protected from the Atlantic swells, but this meant a change of course, and also navigation around the conservation area that we shouldn’t enter without a permit.
You can see the conservation area boundary line in red below which we should stay north of. This will take us within 10s of feet of some quite shallow areas, and also take us generally through a shallow area that will be funneling the swell.
Screenshot of navionics, showing the norther border of a protected area
It’s the closest we have been to the coast, shallows or rocks in a while when actually out sailing, but all went smoothly.
The rocks nearby
At the anchorage
We found this anchorage on Navily with a single review, so we could have been heading into anything.
Anchoring in around 7-8m, and it was quite windy to start with. We were the only boat around so we ended up putting 40m of chain out.
Adam went for a quick adventure under the boat cleaning the waterline on his way.
Adam scrubbing the waterline
Kathryn prepared some tasty tasty dinner including flat breads from a sour dough starter, and soup for dinner.
In order to shorten the Biscay crossing, similar to our thinking when leaving the Isles of Scilly, we wanted to get as far south as possible without actually entering the bay too much. We looked at our options and the time that we had before our weather window and decided to aim for Crozon.
This was a short hop down the coast, but we were beating into the wind to get out of Brest which took quite some time.
This meant that not only was the marina in Brest quite full, but also the whole harbour area was extremely busy with classic yachts, ships, music, food and drink.
A tall ship in the harbour of Brest during the festival
As we were walking around the festival we kept hearing bagpipes in the background and wondered where they were coming from.
We ended up at the music stage, but there were no bagpipes to be seen initially.
It turns out they were warming up around the corner, but of course quite loud as bag pipes generally are.
When they came to perform, the band was not only made up of bagpipers, but also people that seemed to be playing what looked like a small clarinet, but it turned out to be (we think) a set of practice chanters.
All quite loud, but also enjoyable.
We walked past what seemed like hundreds of food establishments, all of which were jam-packed.
Eventually, we settled on a pizza place right next to the marina jetty that Hannah was moored up on.
They let us know that firework would be happening at around 11pm, so we set on a bench across the road, and waited both for the fireworks and our pizza with some drinks in hand.
We captured the climax of the fireworks display for you to enjoy.
The restaurant forgot to bring our pizza out (probably distracted by the fireworks) but we collected it shortly after they finished, and headed back to the boat, warming it slightly and then devouring it at about midnight.
Heading to shore, we landed the dinghy on the northeastern side at Old Grimsby.
Desert
The first thing on our minds was a spot of lunch, and the closest place (also quite expensive) was Ruin Beach Cafe, very yummy. We ended up having a full 3-course meal for lunch, see our deserts to the right.
We started exploring and headed for a big walk counter-clockwise around the island without much planning about what to see, except for some greenery and the open ocean on the far side.
There is lots of green space on the northern side, with great views of the open ocean, and views of the other Isles.
As you make your way around to the western side you find a couple of castles / forts providing a little history lesson and some more good views, such as New Grimsby.
New Grimsby
We stopped off at the supermarket in the middle of the island for some icecreams and drinks because it was around 28 degrees C.
Continuing south, we planned on visiting Tresco Gardens, but unfortunately due to our late planning, they were closed. Nonetheless, our adventure to the south let us relax while watching lots of rabbits and pheasants frolick in the grass.
Rabbits frolicking in the grass
It was low tide when we got back to Old Grimsby where we had left the dinghy.
We spent a little time in Ruin Beach Cafe once again making full use of their WiFi to download the latest Stranger Things season, as well as updates to our navigational charts.
Finally, it was time to carry the dinghy, engine and all, back down to the water (now quite the trek).
We were considering heading to Falmouth for day 6 (sailing to a schedule), but started heading out of Plymouth, reached the swell and decided that was not the day for us.
We turned did a U-turn to head back into the protection of Plymouth.
Along the way a pilot boat can and did a little doughnut around us, letting us know there was a great big warship following us in, and that we might want to move over a bit.
We had said before that it would be cool to sail under the Tamar bridge, so we took this opportunity to head a few miles up the river to get under it and anchor on the other side.
You can see the track heading out, turning around and heading up river below.
We ended up anchoring at the end of a collection of mooring buoys on the northwest side of the bridge, which also happened to be along side a rowing competition of some sort!
As we were staying around Plymouth we had the opportunity to invite a friend of Hannah aboard for dinner!
