A Coruña to Palma De Mallorca, Spain

After a really wonderful time in A Coruña, we continued out passage along the northwest coast of Spain and turned south for the long stretch along the Portuguese coast. We began in earnest to be on the lookout for Orca whales as they have been harassing sailboats for the past four years from Gibraltar to the the southern coast of the UK. Their unusual behavior had been from just bumping into the boats hull to actually biting off the rudder! In some cases, boats have sunk (I think 4-5) but a good number of yachts damaged to ht point of needed to be towed into port.

Every boat passing through this area is on high alert and doesn't want to be the next victim. However, the actual statistics show that overall only a very few boats have encounters with the Orcas and out of that a still smaller few have damage. Still, we had a brand new yacht and wanted to make it unscathed to the Mediterranean! After rounding˙ the northwest corner of Spain we tacked south and after about 2-3 hours later we heard a MayDay from a sailboat in 20 nm of us just at the point where we tacked to go south. Orcas were attacking the yacht and the Spanish Coast Guard was enroute to tow them to port. Naturally we feel extremely lucky to have escaped their fate but it made us nervous for the remainder of our passage.

We continued our passage rounding Cape Finisterre, Spain and found a nice anchorage in a beautiful bay in brilliant sunshine just off the spectacular Praia Da Langosteira beach. The next morning we spotted an opening over at the publish pontoon in the town of Fisterra and motored over to grab it before anyone else could. We just squeezed in and we happy to be able to easily get off the yacht and explore the town. Tracy and I had a lovely seaside lunch at "Arco da Vella Restaurante"".

Next on our list was to head to Baiona, Spain for our last stop on the atlantic coast of Spain. We had tried to get a berth in a few places but they were all full. That is until Andrea called a few friends and suddenly had a nice berth for a few days at the Puerto Deportivo Baiona right downtown. Andrea's girlfriend, Naty, was with us and she found an amazing restaurant, Porto dos Barcos, down the coast a bit. So we took a taxi there for the most wonderful lunch we had on the entire trip from Finland.

After a few days of rest, we re-fueled and started back down the coast on passage to Lexeõs, Portugal which is close to Porto (yes, home of the world famous Port wine). We had a reservation at Marina Porto Atlântico but was not as nice as I had remembered from when we brought our Hallberg-Rassy 54 from Sweden in 2012 however, it was OK for the few days we were there. Visiting the town of Porto brought back pleasant memories and we enjoyed another amazing meal of local Portugese specialties at Restaurante Casario.

From Porto there was only one marina 100nm away in Nazarè and no bays to stop in so we headed out in dense fog and stayed in fog almsot the entire way south. We motor-sailed and kept a lookout on radar for fishing boats (some with AIS, most without) as well as for Orcas. About half-way to Nazarè we spotted three fast moving large critters heading our way and we assumed they were Orcas. We gunned the engine and headed for the shoreline (as recommended by the Portugese maritime authorities) but soon realized they were just Pilot Whales and of no danger to us. It's sad to be afraid of sea-life as we love to see them and share a moment together but with the reputation the Orcas off the coast of Portugal have obtained, it has put a bit of a damper on the joy of spotting wildlife.

We arrived in Marina da Nazaré and were met by Miguel who had a great spot for us. What a nice palce to stay for a few days! Nazaré is world famous for its huge waves (30m, 100 ft) in the winter months that surfers come from all over the world to try and set new records. The marina is a really nice place and the staff super-friendly. The beaches to walk and pleasant little town to stroll around make for an enjoyable stopover.

After a few days we had a good weather opportunity and headed out to [Peniche][]11. It was about 25 nm south along the Portuguese coast but the conditions were foggy and light winds so we motor-sailed the entire way. We found a spot to anchor behind the breakwater however, there were tons of big, fast-moving fishing boats coming and going all night and the next morning we headed out early to escape the barrage of swells.

We had been eagerly looking forward to next stop, Lisbon. In 2012 we stopped there in our Hallberg-Rassy 54 and really enjoyed the Marina de Cascais and surrounding town. Upon arrival we topped off with fuel and headed to our berth in heavy winds. Andrea deftly got us into the berth with the help of the dock staff. We spent three nights there taking walks, enjoying fabulous food and the brilliant sunshine. Cascais is still one of our favorite sailing destinations and it's a shame it is so far from the Mediterranean but it's possible we'll pass by again at some point in our sailing life.

Finally we were off to Sines further down the coast for an overnight rest. We anchored in Ensendas de Sagres Bay and enjoyed a very quiet night before continuing onto the Faro area. We had a brilliant sail after the first 30 minutes of fog opened up to sunshine and good winds. I launched the drone for the first time while sailing and got some decent footage. I had a little trouble getting it back onto the boat but it was good training and later in this journey I got much better at live launch and retrieval of the drone (actually Andrea was the guy who caught it off the back of the boat!)

One night to relax, then off the next morning to push on for Cadiz. It was a long day (11 hours, 94 nm) but filled with sunshine and nice winds. Once we arrived, we had to look for a spot to anchor as the winds and trafic in the area prevented a number of locations we had previously considered. We did find a quiet spot by the Puente De La Constitución De 1812 Bridge in about 6m with a sandy bottom. It was quite a distance from the coastline but it ended up being a very quiet place for the night.

OK, this was a ig day. We left Cadiz and began our passage through te the Strait of Gibraltar with Estepona as our destination. This was the most treacherous part of the are where Orcas had been attacking sailing yachts fot the past three years, even more so than up north. We stayed close to the coast in about 20 meters of water and resisted the urge to cut across the bay to Tarifa. Our caution paid off and we also picked up a nice big of current pushing us along through the Strait. No matter how many times we pass this magnificent rock, I'm in awe! The winds picked up and we had a glorious sail in big following seas up the coast of Spain and into Estepona. It had been years since we had visited this town and it has just gotten better. We really enjoyed a few days here with good food and a relaxing town to stroll around.

However, Palma was calling and we had to get moving so we pushed on towards Almerimar where we stayed in the Almerimar Marinafor a night. As it was the end of the season a lot of the restaurants, etc were closed so we pushed on the next day.

Our next destination on the Mediterran coast of Spain was to be an anchorage just off the town of Calabardina (just in front of Cabo Cope) which took us and entire day (100nm). We anchored in 6.5m out fo the wind and enjoyed our first swim of the summer.

The next day we continued up the coast reaching Torrevieja after a long day starting with rain and thunderstorms, then no wind, lots of wind, no swell, big swell and a lot of motoring in-between. A day filled with just about all sailing conditions. Another good night of rest before we pushed on.

Calpe was to be our last destination before we launched across to the Balaerics and onto Palma. It was a beautiful anchorage in the shadow of a huge rock, Ifach. We had and amazing sunset and were really getting used to the warmer weather.

Finally we were on the passage to Formenterra, an island in the Balaerics Tracy and I had never been too but everyone said was amazing (it was!). The water was clear, it was the end of the season so there were very few boats and we found a nice anchorage close to the town of La Savina. We got a dinner reservation at Cafe del Lago and had the one of the best meals of the entire passage from Finland. In summer season you would never get in this place.

The next day the winds were changing so we went around the corner and anchored at a spectacular place, Raco des Ses Pedreres. This was easily the best anchorage of our entire passage and we stayed for a few days. Andrea went wind foiling and I took lots fo drone footage of him and Feelin' Good at this amazing anchorage. I still have a photo on my iPhone of this palce as a reminder of how fantastic it was!

The winds were forecast to build ands we needed to take advantage of them before they turned. Even then we had to seal with building winds to 30 kts and 3m seas on the way to our reserved mooring ball in Cabrera Maritime National Park. Once we got inside the protected bay, the winds dropped and we got onto our mooring ball for the night. We had planned only one night as Tracy had a flight back home in a couple of days and we needed to get back to Palma de Mallorca. It's too bad as this was a wonderful to explore and we had no time. The winds were forecast to be from the west at no more than 20 kts by morning but the seas state continued to be large.

Regardless we headed out the next day with a reef in the main and the full jib. The last 60 nm to Palma proved to be one of the heaviest sailing we had on the 4000 nm journey and it was because for the first time I had boxed us into being somewhere on a particular day. The was a reminder to not do that again! It was not at all unsafe or too scary to do this passage but it did put us on our best sailing performance. Perhaps it was a fitting way to end this journey when we had the most experience of sailing this new yacht.

We pulled into Palma Bay and dropped anchor. Four months, four thousand nautical miles and hundreds of hours of getting to know the capabilities of this wonderful Swan 58 as wella s to refresh my sailing skill level. We were all proud of ourselves for the accomplishment and Tracy and I were ever so grateful to Andrea for being there for us.

The three of us (me, Tracy and Andrea) have sailing almost a hundred thousand nautical miles together all over the world in two different yachts of a ten year period. Our love of sailing is directly related to sharing it with Andrea and being together once again has been the highlight of our life.

Thank you Andrea!!

Take a look at the video (Feelin' Good Spain to the Mediterranean 2024) to commemorate this epic last passage from Finland.