Leg 3 - Gijon

Saturday March 12th was a travel day - sailing from Santander to Gijon Spain. About a 100 nautical mile trek, Even though we did a lot of weather planning we still got caught in a storm about 25 miles from Gijon near sunset. We were only on the Genoa power sailing and saw the dark waters and clouds approaching so was able to furl the sail in before a blast of wind that started at 27 knots and peaked at 40 knots (Gale force and #8 on the Beaufort Wind Scale). The boat under two engines worked very well but when the swell turned to sharp peak waves it became a rocky ride. Even traversing the large wave on 45 degree angles some of the larger waves shot the bow out of the water and crashing down. It was a white knuckle hour for the both of us. No apparent damage to the boat that we could see when we docked.

Gijón is a large coastal city in northern Spain on the Bay of Biscay. During the 20th century, Gijón developed as an industrial city in the steel and naval industries. However, due to the decline in manufacturing in these industries, in recent years Gijón is undergoing a transformation into an important tourist, university, commercial and R&D center. A population of about 275,000. The first evidence of human presence in what is known nowadays as the municipality of Gijón is located on Monte Deva, where there exists a series of tumuli, and on Monte Areo, where there are some neolithic dolmens. These dolmens were discovered in 1990 and were supposedly built around 5000 BC.

Today we refueled 200 liters used in 45 days with 40 hours on each of the two Volvo Penta 60hp engines. Price of Diesel in Spain is 1.90 Euros per liter. When we arrived in France on Feb 3rd it was 1.69 Euros per liter.

Learnt a good lesson rounding the point out of Santander (the other side of where the Palace is). Each contour line on the Mercator chart represents 5 meters. Notice how many there are close to shore which means that not a far distance from shore is 30 meters deep so the swell approaching this part of the shoreline will create large steep waves that eventually crest into a surf. You can see our track heading more offshore as we saw the surf and break. There were still a few steep sharp waves we cruised up and over.