Written bij Guusje (16)

Departure Wednesday 25 Nov 2020

The departure went like this, Laura, Sander, Leonie, Annabelle, Babs and I were awake to leave. The plan was to get up at 6:00 am and sail away at 7:00 am. It was 7:15 when we left.

I (Guusje) wanted to help to sail out of the harbour but I could not find my life jacket after taking off each life jacket twice, I came to the conclusion that someone from outside should have it on. That was also the case. Leonie had mine on. We exchanged lifejackets and we all sat outside until 8:00 am, because that’s when the next watch came on deck,

In the afternoon Annabelle and I tried to fry eggs, It tasted very good. We have seen dolphins around 5 times. In the evening we ate bread with sausages and we made tomato soup for the vegetarians.

Day 2 Thursday

Thursday we saw more dolphins. Dinner was made by Sista and Annabelle and it was boiled eggs on a bread

Day 3 Friday

Friday Sander made a Pizza for dinner and later we made another 6. During the night many people sat outside and listened to music while enjoying the calm sailing. 

Day 4 Saturday

On Saturday it was very foggy when we woke up, but when the sun was up, the fog was gone. “In the afternoon we sat outside and enjoyed the sun. It was nice and warm for the first time. In the evening we arrived in the port of La Coruna. For dinner, we tried making pumpkin soup, but the stove didn’t work. So we made potatoes and sausages in the microwave oven and cheese soufflés. When the gas stove was fixed we finished the soup. The first group took a shower while cooking and the second after dinner.

Note from the Captain

After waiting a couple of days for some southerlies to pass, the winds finally turned more favourable and we set sail on the outgoing tide, still navigating through the break water in full darkness. The small team out on deck hoisted the sails before waking the next group up. With Annabelle on the wheel we sailed past the cape and the Channel Islands. The Channel Islands caused for some confusion onboard as several phones switched to english time, so we had a lesson in Geography, times zones, board time and what times to keep where. We continued on Central European Time. Most of this day was fairly cloudy but we had dolphins accompany us on a distance for most of the day and night. The following day the dolphins were still there and even the sun came out as we slowly rolled our way south with the sails wing on wing. By now pretty much everyone has started to find their place onboard and of course getting used to the motion of the boat. We planned a short pitstop in La Coruna because of a southerly wind that would blow past Portugal on Saturday and Sunday. With a nice warm sun landing on our faces we sailed past the beautiful hills and rocky landscape of Spain. In the distance we saw some spouts of whales and a fin coming up every now and then. Some of us even spotted an Orca but it was far away.

While Guusje and Leonie tried to make soup they complained the stove wasn’t working, after a quick investigation we found it was the gas regulator, but since we had a spare onboard it wasn’t much work 🙂 We also had time to quickly fix something we had noticed on the furling system. So it’s been an efficient stopover. After our young crew has seen what La Coruna has to offer we will continue our way south 🙂

Laura