We’ve been wrestling with the route west for Wind Horse and crew. There are good reasons for each of the options we discussed back in February. The decision has been simmering in the background, and only started thinking about a route decision a few weeks ago.
After four high latitude summers we have decided it is time for a change in scenery. We are going to head south, to Spain and Portugal, possibly some time in the Med, to the island of Madeira and then the Canaries.
Part of the decision matrix was the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers, or ARC as it is known. This is the 25th anniversary of its founding. Moonshadow, a Deerfoot 2-62 won the first outing, and many of our yachts have made the ARC crossing in subsequent years, with more than a few trophies collected along the way. So we thought it might be fun to close this chapter in our own cruising plans with a trip across the pond doing the ARC to St Lucia.
We have mixed feelings about hanging out with the crowds (notice we did not say hordes) in this part of the world. We’ve always avoided high density humanity in the past. But our stay in London last April opened our eyes to the benefits of some forms of concentrated civilization, and we are going to give it another shot.
By the time Wind Horse is at rest in the Bahamas she will have covered 6978 nautical miles. That sounds like a lot, but this takes place over 6.5 months, and by our new standards, represents a leisurely pace.
Wind Horse will launch the end of next week at Berthons in the UK and we shall report in due course on what we find in Southwestern Europe.
Posted by Steve Dashew (May 13, 2010)
May 16th, 2010 at 1:55 pm
We last said Hello in Dartmouth last year and now I say hello from our boat Zeemeeuw presently in a marina berth in Aviles North Spain.
My wife and I left England a month ago on route to the Med but have encountered a difficulty in Spain in that the authorities are forbidding us to anchor and insisting that we go into their very expensive marinas.
This is a major setback for us and so I have been making enquiries and find that even the harbour authorities in Coruna are stopping vessels from anchoring. We have already been charged 42Euros for just one night in Santander marina and our vessel is only 45ft.
With your cruising range you can of course just steam right past Spain but I fear the same trend is happening all around the Med and I wonder if you have experience of this
Kindest regards
Sid and Jackie Fisher
May 16th, 2010 at 11:24 pm
Hi Sid and Jackie:
Nice to hear from you, but sad to hear about the anti-anchoring regs. This is a first for us in this part of the world, so we will be learning as we go. We much prefer to anchor too. Maybe we will catch up with you along the way.
May 16th, 2010 at 7:12 pm
Good,
Getting back to sea, at last.
Congratulations on the successful 64′ launch, Outstanding effort for EVERYONE involved.
But i’ve missed your cruising updates, so get back into it!
once again, congratulations to everyone!!