Follow us on our passage from Costa del Sol in Spain, around the Iberian peninsula, over the Bay of Biscay to the island Belle Isle in Brittany France. Further, via the north Brittany coast to Normandy, to Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, the south Baltic Sea to Sweden. Then up along the Swedish west coast ending in Strömstad. Then over to Norway, Sandefjord and along the Norwegian coast up to Bergen on the west coast.

In the end of July we crossed the North Sea from Bergen to Inverness in Scotland. We had planned to sail through Scotland on the Caledonian Canal. The canal trip was just as wonderful as one can imagine, despite a lot of rain most of the time.

After the Caledonian Canal we continued via all the famous islands and peninsulas like Oban, Melfort Bay, the isle of Gigha and round the peninsula of Kintyre up to Campbeltown.

Then direct down to Dublin where we stayed in Howth marina before we continued to Dunmore East just south of Waterford on the Irish southeast coast. From Dunmore we continued over the Bay of Biscay once more and ended up in Ria de Muros. The last passage for the year will be from Muros to the Azores and further to Puerto Mogan on Gran Canaria.

A long time has passed since any update of the website. One of the reasons is that we were not moving around a lot until the spring 2009. We were mostly sailing around the south coast of Spain and mostly just moored in Estepona marina. The reason for this was that Béa was still working as her contract was prolonged a few times which was good, because the boat budget had passed well over the limit we set. Costa del Sol is a nice place to spend the winter and we did extensive touring of the area. It is a total different scenery just a few miles inland up in the mountains away from the tourist places and untypical Spanish lifestyle along the coast. The pictures below are from Almunecar in the east to Cadiz in the west.

Of course Gibraltar has its special environment with the “Rock” and its “wild” monkey population.

Over Christmas and into January we were fortunate to be looking after this adorable West Highland Terrier while our friends and owner to the dog named Sasha were back in the UK.

Before we left Estepona, the investment of the year was bought, a bread making machine. And the first sample I proudly show here.

At last it was time to sail north with the aim to be in Sweden and Norway for the summer months June and July. We left Estepona the 15th of March and sailed non-stop up to Ria del Muros just south of the northwest corner of Spain. We did that passage in 4 days and 9 hours. The Muros bay is a nice place in the spring and the only marina there, Portosin, has everything you need, we did good and cheap provisioning there, much cheaper than Costa del Sol. The following pictures are from the Muros bay and the next one just round the corner to the north, Cabo Finisterre.

The first photos are from leaving Estepona and arriving in Gibraltar where we bought some “tax free” diesel. The others are from the boisterous sea outside Portugal and the final photos are from Muros bay, Portosin (a nice marina and town in the Muros Bay) and Cabo Finisterre.

I might add that we had an unexpected blow for two days with over 50 knots, however the bottom has very good holding qualities in sand and gravel. Our anchor, a 40Kg CQR was dug down so deep that only the chain was visible.

We continued after a week in this area to a very nice harbour called Cedeira, located 20 NM east of La Coruna. It is a fishing harbour, but yachts are allowed to anchor among the fishing boats in the extremely well protected “lagoon” a few hundred metres east of the concrete pier. The town Cedeira is not at all touristic but a very pretty place to visit as it has kept its original charm. We went to town every day, just because it was such a nice place. A few bars with wi-fi was also frequented to keep in touch with friends and to check our email box. We also use the internet for the weather prognosis.

After a week in Cedeira a perfect weather situation showed up for our crossing of the Bay of Biscay. We took off towards Belle-Isle outside Lorient on the Brittany coast. Now our bad weather luck started and has been following us for reminder of our trip to the north. The winds in the Biscay turned 180 degrees away from those forecasted. We had much more wind than expected and the swell was enormous. It was a very tiresome trip and on top of it the connection from the hydraulic autopilot piston to the quadrant attached to the rudder shaft started to come loose. This happened in the middle of the night with 28 hours to go to Belle Isle. At first light I unbolted one of the watertight doors that gives access to the steering quadrant and was able to make a jury repair of the connection. We were lucky as it kept all the rest of the way to Belle-Isle.

In Belle-Isle we were invited to spend some Easter days with Béa’s cousin Christian from Brussels and his family, who has a summer house on the island. The day we spent together was one of the first days one could feel the summer was on its way. Christian’s and Francoise’s grown up children fixed the dinner for us and we had a real wonderful old fashion family gathering. We even had time to spend some time in the afternoon at the beach in the sunshine.

Anyway, first thing first. Well in France a price is not a price until one has done some haggling. The marina price in Le Palais was on the high side, so Béa in her native tongue started to discuss a price for the Easter mooring. With her full French charm the harbourmaster melted and we got a very good price for the mooring inside the lock which meant that we did not think about the tide levels.

The harbourmaster also gave us a name to someone who could repair the connection point on our steering quadrant. We phoned the man who could do the repair and a got an appointment the same afternoon at 2 o’clock. At 2 o’clock precisely a young man turned up and presented himself as Romain Chartier. Romain checked the steering quadrant and promised to be back next day at 2 o’clock. I managed to disconnect the steering cables and removed the quadrant from the rudder shaft before Romain turned up next day. I figured it would be much easier for him to do the repair in his workshop. Again at precisely 2 o’clock next day Romain turned up, got the quadrant and off he went. Next day at the usual exact time, 2 o’clock, Romain came with the quadrant and presented a repair of the highest quality. The repair was done with the utmost skill and expertise, things one do not see any more these days. We found a few extra things that we wanted Romain to alter and repair. One was the end of our spinnaker boom, which needed a new end piece. Again Romain did a wonderful job. So anyone who shall visit Le Palais on Belle Ille, please call Romain Chartier (+33 (0)6 78 04 01 85) if you need any repair, we cannot praise this young man enough.

We liked Belle-Isle so much that we had to stay a couple of days more than planned. The photos above are from Belle Isle and of course also some family pictures.

We had to continue, because we still had to see a lot of Brittany, or Bretagne as it is on the local language. We continued up the coast and after a short night-stop in Audierne we ended up on the island called Ile D’Ouessant. This island is situated just outside Brest and is the most western point of France. We both fell in love with this island, it is just stunningly beautiful and well worth a visit by all yachts-men and –women. The wind was south westerly when we arrived so we anchored in the north-east bay called Baie du Stiff. Here the IMRAY pilot book tell you to use the orange buoys, but this is WRONG, WRONG!

We followed the instructions from the pilot book and moored on an orange buoy. What I didn’t see was the little sunken ball connected to the buoy that held the rope that should be attached to the boat. So, when Béa got hold of the buoy I heard a “clonk” and something that shattered. I had my hand on the power/gearshift lever and immediately stopped the propeller from moving and put engine into idle. We were stuck and the main buoy didn’t want to move to the front of the boat. What could have happened? I dressed myself in my diving suite and dived down to see any possible disaster. Now I saw the rope and the small chain that was to be attached to the bow cleat, but it was not free but wound up around the propeller shaft. I took my diving knife and cut off all the rope round the shaft and to our luck the chain had not reached the shaft. At that moment a fishing boat was approaching our position. Béa told what had happened and asked hopefully that it was not the fisherman’s buoy. Of course it was! Anyway, the guy was nice and didn’t want anything for his damaged and crashed lineball, but he informed us that it was the white buoys that was for visitors and that they were all checked annually. So there you are, do not trust all the garbage that is written in the IMRAY books. There were so many comments on various places that we found totally wrong all over the Mediterranean and on many places on the way up to Scandinavia.

The following photos are from Ouessant

The day after arriving to Ouessant we took a walk through the whole island in the best springtime weather one can imagine. Sadly as the night approached the wind picked up to a dangerous level and from the wrong direction, so we decided to leave and sail direct to Lezardrieux, a little town which you reach after sailing up the river about 6 miles. This place is situated 38 NM southwest of Jersey or 46 NM west northwest of S:t Malo. We spent 5 days in the river because it was so beautiful in there that we could not just leave immediately.

These are from Lezardrieux

From this fantastic place we continued to Guernsey where we stayed one night for anchor. Fuel there was fairly cheap, so it was a good place to bunker up.

From Guernsey,

we sailed to Alderney, the smallest of the Channel Islands. It was a charming island, but the harbour was not very good for shelter as the swell reached all the way inside, no matter what wind direction it was outside.

So after one night we continued for a little longer passage direct to Boulonge. As you can see on the photos, Boulonge isn’t the prettiest town on earth and the marina was really like sitting in the middle of sewage tank. One night was enough in this overly expensive marina and we continued to Dunkerque.

Dunkerque was a pleasant experience. A very nice marina situated right at the bottom of the harbour bay. It was very nice personnel in the marina and good facilities for provisioning, fuelling, chandlers etc. Even the wi-fi was working with good signal strength. We stayed here during 10 days.

Béa took the chance to visit her mother in Belgium and also some of our friends in Brussels. Of course we were visited by friends from both Belgium and France. Our good friends Philip and Geneviève from Belgium have a summer apartment just north of Dunkerque and we were invited for a nice dinner with these two lovely people one night.

One morning when Béa was in Belgium, I had a visit from the French Custom and Coast Guard. 4 men in full armour entered the boat after kindly requesting to come onboard for an inspection. They all spoke very good English and only wanted to see that all the ships paperwork was in order. The paperwork was at their satisfaction. They could see that we had done a lot of work to keep the boat in a good shape and I told them the story of the rebuilding of the boat. They got genuinely interested in the project and asked if they could see the interior, which I was more than pleased to show. Well, after that and showing our website they told me that we had done a nice work and that it now had become a really strong boat for any ocean. With pleasant people like that onboard one has to offer some coffee and we ended up with a visit for more than 2 hours. Afterwards I saw that there were some other officers waiting for the inspection patrol in a RIB and they were not happy to have been waiting outside for so long.

Sadly we do not have more pictures from Dunkerque than these.

Even the nicest marina could hold us back for too long, so we left Dunkerque for Ostende in Belgium. I have forgotten to tell you that we had motor sailed all the way from Ouessant to Lezardrieux and from Lezardrieux to Bolongne. The Boulongne – Dunkerque trip we could sail, although in a force 7 wind. To leave Dunkerque is a bit tricky and to sail with tacking was not an alternative. There are many, many sandbanks to avoid on the way to Ostende, so motoring was the only way to safely get there. The weather was not on our side as usual and although the wind was sailable at the end it increased to well over 50 knots a few miles outside Ostende. I have never had so much steering to do as to keep the boat on a fairly straight line into the harbour. Just as we passed the outer pier in Ostende a few gusts up to 60 knots was recorded. We were met by the coastguard who wanted to make sure we were alright. Well inside the harbour it was still windy, but no waves to thrush us around and the coast guard was happy that we had made it into the harbour without any mishap.

We had had some problems with our water maker which was leaking salt water from somewhere and I could not find out exactly from where it was leaking. This was frustrating, especially as we had the water maker serviced in Italy during our winter stay in Estepona. Nevertheless, we found out that a service centre with a good reputation servicing our brand “Schenker”, was to be found in a town called Lelystad in the Netherlands. That meant that we had to enter the Dutch canal system somewhere. We chose to enter via Ijmuiden and the canal to Amsterdam and further via the inland sea Markermeer to Lelystad.

When we left Ostende the wind was perfect for a spinnaker ride, but as soon as we hoisted the chute the wind died and we had to continue to Ijmuiden by motoring.

We left Ostende and sailed direct to Ijmuiden where we entered the first lock to the canal system in the early morning after a day and night at sea. It was quite interesting to motor along the canal and the lake Markermeer to Lelystad, strong winds but no waves that we were so used to now.

The marina in Lelystad is very well organized, it is clean and has all the facilities boating people need. We had our watermaker serviced and we bought some extra spare parts, just in case for the years to come.

Pictures from Ijmuiden canal entrance and Lelystad marina:

From Lelystad we went through a lock to enter the Ijsselmeer where we continued to the town Lemmer. We had chosen a stretch of the canal system where we could motor along without stepping off the mast, the so called “standing mast route”. This route promised a depth of minimum 3 metres. Right, our draft is 2 metres and at our first stop in Lemmer we were stuck 5 metres from the pontoon at the canal bank. The depth here was 1 metre 70. All in all we were stuck 9 times at various places in the canals. 8 times I could get out with own power, but the 9th time we had to have a tugboat helping us to deeper water. We had originally planned to exit after Gronningen and close to Emden in Germany, but by now we were so fed up with the impolite Dutch canal personnel that we decided to leave well before Gronningen, in fact via the Schiermonnikoog sea lock.

These photos are from Lemmer (when we saw the Sierra Leone Maritime Administration boat we wondered where we had made the wrong turn):

There were of course many other people we met in the Netherlands who were extremely nice and helpful. I am thinking of the little marina along the Prinses Margriet Kanaal close to a place called Sûwald. We were wet cold and tired and couldn’t find a place for the night where we could moor due to our 2 metre draft. A bridge guard told us that we could find shelter by just mooring in the entrance of Jacht haven De Trijesprong. We were worried that we would block the whole entrance, but we went there and were met by the owner who lived in a house nearby. He helped us with the mooring and to get water and electricity. Next morning he came and asked us if we had had a good sleep and invited us to a cup of coffee in the marina bar. The kindness he and his colleagues showed us felt so good after all the mishaps in the canal before.

The following are photos from the canals in the Netherlands:

At last we were out of the Dutch canals and headed for Helgoland, the island outside the river Elbe that leads to Hamburg if one continues far enough along the river. The island of Helgoland was not the interesting place people have told us it was. We found it quite dull in fact. However it is a good starting point to reach the Kiel Canal entrance, as one has to time the tide precisely to take advantage of the ingoing stream that can reach 5 to 6 knots in speed. We wanted to go to Brunnsbüttel which is the entrance to the Kiel Canal that ends up in the Baltic just outside the German town Kiel.

The canal was very nice to motor along and for once we had good weather the whole day it took from Brunnsbüttel to Kiel. In Kiel we stayed at the British Kiel Yacht Club and that was a very nice experience. We hadn’t finished mooring to the pontoon and the Swedish guest flag swayed in the wind above the clubhouse. The service minded personnel there was outstanding. For a small fee breakfast was served in the morning in the clubhouse, a breakfast that both Béa and I really enjoyed. So, after breakfast we continued for a passage direct to our home harbour in the south of Sweden, Abbekås.

The passage took about 25 hours and was one of the most unpleasant sail conditions we had for a long time, at least for a week or so. The first evening the most intensive squall line I have experienced at sea appeared. We were enclosed with thunderstorms the whole night, it was horrifying. The next day we were met with wind against waves the last 10 hours to Sweden.

However, arriving at Abbekås was one of the happiest moments for many years, for both Béa and me. We were met by old friends and colleagues and clubmembers and that evening a welcome party was arranged. More of that in the next newsletter following this.