July 2023

 

Santander and Altamira

We left the Basque Country and sailed further west, along Biscay towards Cantabria. The next stop was Santander, which is well protected in a bay. We anchored outside the harbor, opposite one of the beautiful sandy beaches that lie on either side of the bay. On the Spanish election day, we disembarked and, as we had previously seen in Getxo and in Bilbao, the election campaign was in full swing. N ...

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San Sebastián and Bilbao

San Sebastián was our next stop after sailing on the hottest day we've experienced during our sailing so far. The city welcomes its guests from the sea with a statue of Christ looking out towards the city from Mount Urgul. Incidentally, the name Urgul sounds like it comes from a Tolkien saga... The statue is not as magnificent as the one in Rio de Janeiro, but it was still visible from afar. Once ...

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Basque Country

The 24-hour sailing from Île de Ré was tougher, rainier and bumpier than planned and what the weather forecast had promised. We certainly got our fair share of Biscay's infamous waves! It was difficult to get any sleep between the watch shifts, but otherwise the crew was in good spirits and mightily impressed with how well the self-steering windvane worked. Now we could set it for a specific win ...

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Quotes

" It is not that life ashore is distasteful to me. But life at sea is better. "