The coastal route to the med, any months its not really viable or enjoyable?

Tranona said:
If you really want to see the west coast of France (and it is worth it!), then that is a summer gone. You may well find a 6 month French visa good for the first year. However as reported several times here on liveaboard it is nowhere as easy to get than you might imagine, particularly if doing it by boat as you will find difficulty in meeting the "address in France" requirement plus possibly the available funds requirement and health insurance. While the west coast is fine for the budget traveller as there are plenty of low(ish) cost places to stop the Med coast is a very different story and few lower budget cruisers bother with cruising there, but push on towards the cheaper and more interesting places in the Eastern Med.
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The 6 month visa isn't that difficult, just a bit tedious, an increasing number of UK based yotties are successful in getting one but it does require a detailed cruising plan including, if possible, firm bookings at at least some marinas. The more detailed paperwork you submit the better.
I've just been through the process, be prepared to lose a day of your life in the Visa centre.
Health insurance is not needed, just the UK health insurance card. The 6 month visa is for 6 calender months, not for 6 months of visits, if you want the 12 month visa then it's significantly more stringent, health insurance is an issue and that visa is intended for people preparing to actually live in France, you would find it difficult, if not impossible, to get one based on cruising around.
 
I went down, around the outside some years ago, mostly on my own, but slept in my bed every night. There are plenty of stops to be made with a max of 50 miles between them and the smaller ports, especially on the North Coast of Spain, were welcoming, and a delight.
Left in March and arrived in Ibiza in June.
 
Mudisox said:
I went down, around the outside some years ago, mostly on my own, but slept in my bed every night. There are plenty of stops to be made with a max of 50 miles between them and the smaller ports, especially on the North Coast of Spain, were welcoming, and a delight.
Left in March and arrived in Ibiza in June.
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If I did the sea route ... I would be harbour hopping to avoid deep sea and atlantic swells etc.

I must admit that La Rochelle and LaPallice .... spent quite a bit of time there when we had Seismic Ships registered there.

Remember one time sitting with a French Pensioner - LaPallice street cafe ... and he told us he watched the Mosquito bombers fly in below lighthouse level to bomb the U boat pens ... so low that water was kicked up behind them ...

Portugal .... great time in Setubal - fabulous Sea food market there ... never liked Lisbon.
 
Lightwave395 said:
The 6 month visa isn't that difficult, just a bit tedious, an increasing number of UK based yotties are successful in getting one but it does require a detailed cruising plan including, if possible, firm bookings at at least some marinas. The more detailed paperwork you submit the better.
I've just been through the process, be prepared to lose a day of your life in the Visa centre.
Health insurance is not needed, just the UK health insurance card. The 6 month visa is for 6 calender months, not for 6 months of visits, if you want the 12 month visa then it's significantly more stringent, health insurance is an issue and that visa is intended for people preparing to actually live in France, you would find it difficult, if not impossible, to get one based on cruising around.
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+1 to that. Plus you need to factor in that, as I understand it, at the end of your French visa you need to check out of France and travel to a non-Schengen country. So while you can go to eg Spain within your French visa time, to close off the visa you would have to return to France, check out and travel direct to a non-Schengen country. I don’t know what the consequences of not doing this would be, but as I am guessing it is an EU imposed stipulation to avoid too blatant circumvention of the Schengen rules, I wouldn’t be entirely confident that it wouldn’t cause complications with both future entry into Schengen and getting another French visa.
 
stranded said:
+1 to that. Plus you need to factor in that, as I understand it, at the end of your French visa you need to check out of France and travel to a non-Schengen country. So while you can go to eg Spain within your French visa time, to close off the visa you would have to return to France, check out and travel direct to a non-Schengen country. I don’t know what the consequences of not doing this would be, but as I am guessing it is an EU imposed stipulation to avoid too blatant circumvention of the Schengen rules, I wouldn’t be entirely confident that it wouldn’t cause complications with both future entry into Schengen and getting another French visa.
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It seems you could spend almost a year in France if you wanted to as the VLS-T doesn't take any of your 90 schengen days... 90 schengen days, nip back to UK then 6 months of visa, nip back to UK for a day then back to France for your next 90 schengen days. Apparently they're aware of this but at the moment it seems to be ignored, there is of course a 6 month wait between visas so if you played the system then as 'Stranded' above points out it might make getting another VLS-T difficult
 
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Lightwave395 said:
It seems you could spend a year in France if you wanted to as the 6 month visa doesn't take any of your 90 schengen days... 90 schengen days followed by 6 months of visa followed by your next 90 schengen days. Apparently they're aware of this but at the moment it seems to be ignored
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I think that’s true, but you couldn’t do, say France > France > France; you’d have to do > France > non Schengen > France > non-Schebgen > France. I think!
 
I don't know the French coast so can't comment, but I would say that the Portuguese Atlantic coast is to be treated with care. It has some nicer spots e.g. Nazaré, but mostly just industrial/fishing harbours and most ports can only be entered in good conditions. We were very glad to see the back of it. If trying to sail it in winter be prepared to be stuck for weeks here and there. Some of the places are not really where you would choose to be stuck.

We originally thought we would continue to cruise through the winter after arriving, but we'd done a lot of miles to get to the Algarve and felt we could justify stopping for a while, so settled in to Portimao. A place I'd highly recommend, and with a decent anchorage plus marina for when you need it.
 
Kelpie said:
I don't know the French coast so can't comment, but I would say that the Portuguese Atlantic coast is to be treated with care. It has some nicer spots e.g. Nazaré, but mostly just industrial/fishing harbours and most ports can only be entered in good conditions. We were very glad to see the back of it. If trying to sail it in winter be prepared to be stuck for weeks here and there. Some of the places are not really where you would choose to be stuck.

We originally thought we would continue to cruise through the winter after arriving, but we'd done a lot of miles to get to the Algarve and felt we could justify stopping for a while, so settled in to Portimao. A place I'd highly recommend, and with a decent anchorage plus marina for when you need it.
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With care definitely. But I liked it a lot - lots of nice low key places, and of course Porto and Lisbon. My wife’s view is closer to yours however. We did encounter the biggest single swell I have ever seen or even imagined coming out of Figueira da Foz - we had been trapped in by swell for a few days but when the entrance was reopened, after a walk down to take a look we were happy leaving in the moderate left over swell. But as we left an isolated HUGE swell developed - don’t know how big, but I’d guess 30-40 feet - maybe even more - not massively steep and no sign of lit breaking but we just seemed to be going up and up for ages - scary enough that I put the engine to full throttle for fear we were about to slide back down the hill (don’t know if that could really happen). It was a bit terrifying for a short while and I didn’t really enjoy the rest of that days sailing for fear there were more of the monsters out there!
 
coopec said:
A guy I spoke to who had sailed the world a a merchant sea man said the roughest seas he had experienced was the Bay pf Biscay. (I suggest he had 30 years experience as a seaman)🤨
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If you speak to anyone connected to the sea they all have a different coast or stretch of water that's the roughest and most dangerous in the world. It all depends on the conditions in the day. Biscay nowadays with a solid 3 day forecast is no problem for most yachts. Having crossed by the deep sea route several times including one with 36 hours of solid mid 40 knot wind speeds but well outside the continental shelf I don't consider it to be problematic especially now you can get very good 3 day forecasts and download grib charts at sea. Going down the coast which I have done again several times although usually as far as La Rochelle and once to Arcachon ( which is best avoided in strong onshore winds) is excellent cruising and you could easily use 90 days doing it. Then you are looking at at least a night at sea from La Rochelle to any northern Spanish port and Autumn / early winter will find you waiting for weeks just for a subsequent port to be tenable.
My recommendation for what it's worth would be go direct from the UK to N Spain use the 90 days to cruise the Spanish coast and Portuguese coasts to get into the Med. Then either go to N Africa or lay up come back to the UK for 90 days then repeat finally ending up with a 6 Month visa but Frances Med coast is expensive and very limiting for a small yacht so it may be better using the 6 months cruising the French Atlantic coasts, it's all a bit of a bugger being time limited in the EU no matter how you look at it.
 
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Oh and of course there's the orcas too.
Another point against doing the coast in winter. We tried to do all our passages in daylight as it is much easier to deal with orcas when you see what's going on.

It's not just a theoretical risk- I've lost count of the number of people I've met who were attacked.
 
coopec said:
Something like the Catalina 22 would be perfect for European canals (AND the Danube):LOL: (I wish):cry:
(Very slow loading)
Catalina 22
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interesting suggestion, although very unlike the sorts of boats that are actually used to transit the French canal system from UK to med. It is a well trod path and other than motor boats, many use their ordinary sailing boats with the mast down (or transported by road). Constraints are draft of 1.6m beam of around 4m and air draft of 3.5m. so viable for many cruising boats, particularly older style with less draft up to around 38' long (over that and draft usually becomes the issue) and catamarans. I bought my 37' shallow draft (1.4m) Bavaria with a view to transiting the canals on my way back from Greece, but circumstances changed and did not achieve it.
 
I have only skimmed this thread so may well be being repetitive. At that time of year, you should have no great weather problems as long as you watch the forecasts and listen carefully to swell predictions. Some French and Spanish ports can be lethal in a big swell. You can often get strong winds around the obvious headlands such as Ortegal and Finisterre.

Bear in mind that the Spanish low often deepens during the day and fills a little at night. Going south, our rule, basically, was to assume that you probably should be on the starboard gybe after midday and be prepared to put in a reef as the wind goes west of north and gets strong. There was a nasty accident a few years ago when an involuntary gybe resulted in a crew member becoming paraplegic. The skipper was probably trying to avoid the near inevitable gybe.

As regards Biscay, its reputation really harks back to boats that could not go to wind very well plus the swell effect. Some rather outdated notes, written in the 90s are at Crossing Biscay - A Weatherman's Perspective - Franks-Weather - The Weather Window. Somebody always demurs, but I often remind people that Audierne/Ste Evette is the closest port in France to A Coruna.
 
Hi Frank

Bear in mind that the Spanish low often deepens during the day and fills a little at night.

I've tried Googling the Spanish low but can't find anything. Can you provide any more info?

Thanks

Brendan.
 
Falmouth to LaRochelle…..to Santander…….Gijon……Vivero. Coruna. Lots of daysailing to Vigo. Leave the boat inVigo next season or time period explore in greater depth the rias with a good. heater winter in the rias is a bit damp but notcold……
 
Pete7 said:
What was the boat? and was that up the R Rance past Dinan etc?

Pete
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2 foot draft bilgekeeler
It was very quiet ( May)
It was that route

One northcoming commercial and a few brits returning from the med.
Nowadays one hears about more weed , less water and requirement for permits ..
but it is a useful cut through
 
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