Conwy North Wales to Sada North West Spain
On Monday the 18 April we left Conwy North Wales on route to Sada North West Spain. This was the start of my 10 year sailing odyssey around the world with my Vancouver 32 Stella Polaris.
The last 16 months had been a rather difficult time with my family in Rhyl (sister and mum). When I’d arrived in January 2021 to be close to both of them little did I realise that my sister husband would pass away at only age 66 and my elderly mum at age 99 at the end of 2021.
Fortunately I was able help support my sister who was my mums carer and comfort her on the passing of her husband. Plus spend quality time with mum for the last months of her life.
My original plans to sail off into the blue yonder were all put on hold. Time passes quickly and low and behold my big adventure suddenly dawned.
I thought as this was as shake down cruise I’d advertise for crew. I placed an advertisement on Findacrew. And two English guys applied Scott from Leeds and Carl from Manchester.
Both guys were keen to join me and were both flexible on timings. I had a pre meeting over one weekend so they could meet me and Stella Polaris. Carl a more experience offshore sailor were-as Scott was an active and keen dinghy sailor.
I had been looking closely at the weather situation for crossing of the Bay of Biscay and decided to leave Monday night at 23.00 hours on the 18 April and head up the winding channel of the Conwy river which drys out at various places at low tide.
https://www.boatfolk.co.uk/assets/files/uploads/Conwy%20Approach%20Channel%20Buoys%20Map.PDF Approaches To Conwy River
We left two hours before high water Conwy which were on spring tides. In the Conwy river the tides can run at great speed and you have be careful not to be swept onto moored boats near the river entrance.
We carefully negotiated the channel with Carl on the helm Scott at the bow and me watching the course on my iPhone using the Navonics navigational app. Once we cleared the fairway buoy we headed out to round Anglesey and Holyhead. You have to vigilant as there are over falls and strong tides when running on springs. Alignment of the moon and sun giving greater gravitational pull on the oceans and seas.
Around headlands there are Traffic Separation Schemes you have to negotiate. These are designed for large ships as a safety measure like a dual carriageway for cars and heavy goods vehicles on a motorway. These are imaginary markings but are distinctly marked on navigational charts..
We safely passed the TSS at Anglesey, the TSS at the Smalls off Pembrokeshire and the TSS between Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly. But the tricky one was the huge TSS off Brest which is designed for vessels to safely negotiate Quessant the small island off North West coast of Brittany France.
The winds got up from the east that night prior to going into Brest at a max of 24 knots. Sea got rather lumpy and we had a number of vessels to contend with as we were crossing the bottom entrance to the TSS. We had fairly close encounter with one vessel who was overtaking us. Normally the overtaking vessel is the give way one or stand off vessel.
We arrived safely in Brest on Friday evening and decided to eat out. We popped into the local marina Restaurant and ordered beer and wine and the local delicacy of Moules-frities. Mussels and chips. Very nice to! After people had eaten the music started and before long all the young ones were dancing on the restaurant tables. An amazing night and the three of us got pretty inebriated. Which we suffered for the next day especially poor Carl.
We had a nice weekend in Brest and headed out again to sea on Monday morning 25 April. We had a little scare over white smoke coming from the engine not long after leaving. Strange? What caused that? new fuel in the tank? Carl had a good check around the engine and we topped up the oil and water and checked the secondary fuel filter. Afterwards the white smoke disappeared and the yanmar engine sounded happy again no more white smoke.
26 April at last we had nice winds from the east to give wonderful sailing averaging 15knots wind speed . Living in a confined space can have its difficulties with other fellow humans.
We humans have large brains designed to adapt and cope with human social interactions. Humans are complex creatures me included. On small boats the skipper or captain unfortunately must have the last word. However human interactions can be complex with various dynamics at play. Some like to have the last word on certain interactions. As a skipper those interactions have to be dealt with in a delicate fashion however the skipper must always have the last word. Some fine that difficult?
As in the quanta world interactions are relative meaning from the observers perspective. Every single human has his own perspective on other humans. There is no real truth like the quanta world it’s all based upon a subjective interactive relationship with each other.
I listen to a interesting talk by the physicists mathematicians Carlo Rovelli about the weirdness of quantum mechanics. Niels Bohr the father of quantum mechanics who came up mathematically with the concept of quantum mechanics. The photon is packet of light being both a particle and a wave. Albert Einstein hated the concept and he and Bohr use to have long intellectual conversations about quantum mechanics. But as Carlo states the mathematics works even if we can’t fully understand quantum entanglement at a distance. Wave particle duality can’t be explain and things only become apparent from an observers stand point at that particular moment of time.
But I’ve always felt that life has arisen on earth by complete chance and maybe we’re not meant to fully understand the wonder if it all. Maybe it will always be hidden in plain sight. A complete contradiction for ever and ever.
I’m sitting this morning 26 April in the cockpit of Stella Polaris with the wind on the beam having a wonderful sail to our destination in Sada Spain.
Originally I wanted to do the trip from North Wales to Spain in one direct passage. But due to higher winds predicted in the Bay of Biscay I decided to do it in two legs which worked out very well indeed. The Bay of Biscay is notorious for generating rough seas. Get it wrong the crossing could be a complete nightmare! This is due to the prevailing winds being south westerly and the water piling up or being pushed up the continental shelf from 4000 metres to 200 metres. For a sailing boat it means you’re on a lee shore or being pushed towards land which isn’t ideal in a small sailing boat.
Sailing with the wind on the beam is the best point of sailing giving the best speed over the ground. Each day we were making excellent mileage. On the 27 April we ran out of wind and had to do some motor sailing.
Another note on my English crewmen both were in their early 50’s which meant they were about 20 years younger than me. Scott i noticed was taking blood pressure tablets. Blood pressure is not uncommon today as its very prevalent in the modern western world.
Carl was a multi tasker meaning he was constantly busy doing little jobs round the boat. Obviously I was very appreciative of his mechanical aptitude. Unfortunately his nature in a way could cause him to suffer from health issues. I said he needed try take life easier and not push himself so hard. For past 30 years he’d been self employed. Scott was going through relationships problems again another stressful situation.
I explained to them both they need to look after their physical health and well-being, for me, this is critical for a happy healthy long life.
We left Brest on Monday morning 25 April for our crossing of the Biscay. Motored out but soon picked the predicted easterly winds which were more or less on the beam.
Engine off and wonderful sailing south westerly 3 hour watches were a dream for me as a solo sailor it allowed me more or less a 6 hour off watch rest between my next watch. The lads were very good didn’t have to wake either of them before they came up on watch.
We all shared the cooking as well which again made life easier for me. We eat well and overall the trip from Wales to Spain went very smoothly indeed.
From now on I’ll be able to pick up the trades winds down the Iberian peninsular to Gibraltar. I spoke with an American boat and they mentioned the ORCA whales threatening passing boats through straits of Gibraltar. Strange something not right why should they be doing that hunger lack of good fishing for them? Noise pollution ?
We had many excellent dolphin sightings across the Biscay, dolphins love to bow race watching them at the bow is a real joy. I’ll upload a video later this weekend.
My next passage will be from Sada to Gibraltar after I’ve got a few things tweaked onboard Stella Polaris. The weather since we arrived has been absolutely glorious. So I will keep following the sun on my odyssey around the world.
Quantum entanglement is for me the fundamental nature of existence. Why?
I believe every single thing in the universe has a deep connection far deeper than we perceive. Every single entity we come in contact with be it human or be it from the natural world is there to communicate a message to us in one form or an other.
However we must have awareness deep with in us to pick up on these subtle nuance’s. Otherwise we miss important clues and messages from the universe we have be tuned in and theses messages are fleeting and very subtle indeed. Sometimes they will come in a flash or what I call a eureka moment. When you get a eureka moment it’s very powerful feeling and it can give sense of real joy inside.