We finished our time in Cornwall with a couple more days staying at Mimi’s house, we saw our cousins again and then we moved back onto the boat on Thursday.
On Friday morning we sorted the boat ready to leave, and on Friday afternoon our crew, Emilia (who sailed from Dun Laogharie to Falmouth with us) joined again. We went out for a test sail to make sure that everything was working after the work that we had done in Mylor.
While we were on the test sail, Emilia slipped in the cockpit and sprained her ankle, but it seemed to just be sore. We went out on Friday evening for a last dinner ashore and we had Pizza.
On Saturday morning we went shopping with Mummy to get fresh food while Daddy and Emilia cleaned the boat and finished some final jobs. By mid afternoon we were ready to leave across the Bay of Biscay to Spain, and the weather forecast was looking good.
Unfortunately, a couple of hours after leaving Falmouth, we were just south of Lizard Point when Emilia slipped in the companionway and landed on her sprained ankle. It was very sore. Emilia spoke to Mummy and Daddy and her family ashore, and we decided to head to Newlyn so that Emilia could get off the boat to get her ankle seen by a doctor. We arrived at about 8.30pm and the harbour masters helped Emilia to get off and to get to the coach station at Penzance. We were very sad that she had to leave.
On Sunday morning, Daddy got a message from Emilia to say that she had torn some ligaments in her ankle and it will take about 3 weeks to heal, so although we will miss her it’s good that she saw a doctor and will get better. Emilia, if you are reading this, we hope you get well soon!
We went into Penzance to buy a few things for Tom. We had to climb across a big fishing boat and up a steep ladder which was a bit tricky!
On Sunday afternoon, Tom (who is planning to cross the Atlantic with us) arrived on board. Luckily, when Emilia had to get off, Tom had a few days free so was able to join as crew instead. After Tom had packed his things away, we showed him the boat and Daddy told him all about the safety things you need to know to sail on Coconut. Then we left Newlyn to try sailing across the Bay of Biscuits again!
The first night was a bit rocky but we had good wind and were able to sail at good speed. Yesterday it started to calm down a bit but it was still very cloudy. Today the wind has got a bit lighter so we have had to do some motorsailing to keep up a decent speed. However, the sun has now come out and the sea is blue instead of grey.
Yesterday we saw two dolphins and today we saw a spurt that we think might have been a whale. We hope we don’t see any Orca as they have been causing trouble to boats near Spain and Portugal by bashing into their rudders.
During the crossing, we have been helping with the day time watches, hopefully we will help with a night watch tonight. We have been reading stories, listening to audiobooks, playing with our iPads, a little bit of school work, helped to make tuna and sweetcorn pasta, keeping a look out for ships, eating snacks, and playing games.
We have been checking out the navigation screen to see how long it will be before we arrive. At the moment, it says we should arrive in 1 day 2 hours, which would mean we get into Vigo on Wednesday evening.
So far, we have enjoyed our longest trip.
