jimbaerselman
Well-Known Member
The long trip from S Ireland (or Scillies or Falmouth) to A Coruna (or onwards) in N Spain has several snags. If you wait for a weather window, you may be sitting around for a long time doing nothing. Eve if you find a weather window, over that period of time you may still be caught out with a gale. Or you may have to motor the whole way! But, most important, you'd miss a lot of great cruising grounds.
The coast hopping trip from L'Abervrach southwards is day sailing to La Rochelle, with lots of delightful stops en route, enough to occupy 2 to 4 weeks if you go up a few of the estuaries. And the coast is far more weather friendly (with ports safe to enter in any weather) than some parts of the N Brittany coast. So safe passages, only needing to wait a day or two here or there while nasty weather passes, is easy.
From La Rochelle, you need to plan a longer hop, since Arcachon is unfriendly if there's any swell, even if the weather is nice. You need a 48 hour weather window if you want a high probability of an easy trip, which is quite easy to achieve with modern forecasting. But watch the swell forecasts.
Enough ports along the north coast are safe to enter in any conditions - they are good ports of refuge. Fuenterrabia, Santander, Bilbao, Aviles, Cedeira are examples; there are more. See my web site maps.
So you can can set off without a clear destination, and just accept what a comfortable sailing course will give you. A good plot is to head for Bilbao, and if the wind heads you, go for a harbour further east. From Bilbao (worth a couple of days pottering around) go east or west for some exploring whenever the wind and swell permit, which is much of the time in summer. One can easily spend two weeks working this coast, few yachts, many fishing harbours. Work slowly west, with couple of longer hops to reach Galicia.
Galicia will occupy another two weeks, with loads of well sheltered places to visit. This is safe pottering, but with some strong N winds in flat water caused by the summer Portuguese trade winds.
Don't rush these coasts, as so many do. They offer superb cruising, few yachts, friendly locals, sea food to die for, and a zest for life in the holiday season that will, at times, keep you awake with barrages of fireworks and festive noises til dawn. But only locals on holiday, not tourists.
The coast hopping trip from L'Abervrach southwards is day sailing to La Rochelle, with lots of delightful stops en route, enough to occupy 2 to 4 weeks if you go up a few of the estuaries. And the coast is far more weather friendly (with ports safe to enter in any weather) than some parts of the N Brittany coast. So safe passages, only needing to wait a day or two here or there while nasty weather passes, is easy.
From La Rochelle, you need to plan a longer hop, since Arcachon is unfriendly if there's any swell, even if the weather is nice. You need a 48 hour weather window if you want a high probability of an easy trip, which is quite easy to achieve with modern forecasting. But watch the swell forecasts.
Enough ports along the north coast are safe to enter in any conditions - they are good ports of refuge. Fuenterrabia, Santander, Bilbao, Aviles, Cedeira are examples; there are more. See my web site maps.
So you can can set off without a clear destination, and just accept what a comfortable sailing course will give you. A good plot is to head for Bilbao, and if the wind heads you, go for a harbour further east. From Bilbao (worth a couple of days pottering around) go east or west for some exploring whenever the wind and swell permit, which is much of the time in summer. One can easily spend two weeks working this coast, few yachts, many fishing harbours. Work slowly west, with couple of longer hops to reach Galicia.
Galicia will occupy another two weeks, with loads of well sheltered places to visit. This is safe pottering, but with some strong N winds in flat water caused by the summer Portuguese trade winds.
Don't rush these coasts, as so many do. They offer superb cruising, few yachts, friendly locals, sea food to die for, and a zest for life in the holiday season that will, at times, keep you awake with barrages of fireworks and festive noises til dawn. But only locals on holiday, not tourists.