We depart early morning from Corunna and head out into Biscay.

The weather forecast says that we could get some heavy winds on Friday so we need to try and push as hard as we can in order to miss them.

Fog descends once again as we are going around Ushant but this dissipates come day break and we are just about clear of the shipping lanes as the large vessels appear.

We approach Plymouth about two hours before last light and see quite a few warships on exercises:

Wait for the morning high tide and then deliver the yacht to its destination, delivery complete!

In 1808, General Sir John Moore took over the British forces in the Peninsular War.

After a series of victories over the French in December, the British received news that 150,000 French under Napoleon were moving against them and that only a retreat to Corunna could save the army. In appalling winter conditions, they retreated over the mountains towards the coast losing over 3,000 men.

Political considerations, climate and fierce rear-guard actions caused Napoleon to leave the pursuit to Marshall Soult and his corps of 16,000 men.

On 16th January 1809, 14,000 British fought against the French at the Battle of Corunna. The French were beaten back with 1,500 casualties, the British losing 800: Sir John Moore was mortally wounded at the moment of victory.

Map courtesy of Wikipedia

The victory enabled the army to embark the next day and to continue the fight against Napoleon under a certain Sir Arthur Wellesley, later the Lord Wellington: one of the last acts before embarkation was the burial of Sir John Moore by the 9th Foot on the city ramparts.

Other Links

Cabarfeidh website

p.s. I served in the 1st Battalian the Royal Anglian Regiment from 1983-1990. The 9th Foot, in the 3rd Division under Fraser were the forerunners of that regiment. Corunna is one of the regiments battle honours.

I would prefer to head straight off after refuelling but Larry and Jeff want to stay for the day. Best I take a walk around Corunna then.

There is a memorial to Sir John Moore here. He was a British General who was killed at the Battle of Corunna in 1809.

Make an early departure for La Coruna where we will refuel before heading off across the Bay of Biscay and back to Plymouth.

Once we are out of Bayona and fairly near Cape Finisterre, the fog closes in once again! FOrtunately, the shipping lanes are further out so it's fairly easy for us in that respect.

Make La Corunna at around 10 am on the 09th:

We refuel here and the decision is made to stay here overnight as fog is still on the outskirts of the bay: a look around Bayona then!

In the harbour is a full-size replica of Columbus's Pinta:

and Bayona castle:

We arrive off Bayona around 7 a.m. but thick fog is all around us. We can't really push on any further as we're very low on fuel so, at 1330 hours, we decide to do a bit of blind navigation (radar sure helps :-).

As we move in, the fog is slowly lifting:

and as we get closer to the marina:

We leave Sines, sail NW and when north of Lisbon, the first of four or five days of fog hits us.

Without radar it'd be a bit hairy but thankfully it spots everything and we can progress fairly slowly and safely.

We saw this boat, but we're sure he didn't see us:

We make it into Sines in Portugal just before last light. We'll have to refuel in the morning as the fuel pontoon is closed - just time for a couple of beers before the bar closes.

Sines is a beautiful little town (you can't see all the industry from the town - thankfully :-) and is the birthplace of Vasco De Gama (1460-1524) who discovered an ocean route from Portugal to the East.

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It's that time of year and there's a big high pressure system sitting over Spain which means we're going to get northerly winds and have it on the nose all the way up the coast.

Passing the SW tip of Portugal we head west for 12 hours to see if there's any change in wind direction but unfortunately it looks like we're going to have to motor-sail all the way. This is going to slow the journey down and force us to make frequent fuel stops.

Spent yesterday sorting the boat out and depart today after refuelling. The owner has tod us that the fuel capacity is far more than we can actually get into the tanks so there's a slight discrepancy there.

A very fast sail out of the Straits of Gibraltar with a strong wind behind us and we see quite a few dolphins on the way out.

Soon the rock is way behind us:

Get out to Gib at around 8 o'clock that night, take a walk down to the yacht and meet Larry and Jeff.

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A nice (relatively :-) early start and off for the delights of railway transport down to London and back up to Luton for my flight out to Gibraltar...