Bay of Biscay

[klfrodo]

Cruising out of Southampton next October. Invited a British couple with us. Her first words were,  No way was she sailing the Bay of Biscay in October.

I had never heard of any such issues until she said something. Then, I googled 😲

 

Tell me your Bay of Biscay stories

[harola]

We sailed Oasis of the Seas from Rotterdam/Southampton in 2014. We went to Vico in the North of Spain. The sea was quit rough in the Biscayan Bay like waves of 9 meters. So don’t be at the front of the ship but in the middle on the lower decks if you are prone to seasickness 

[John Bull]

48 minutes ago, harola said:

We sailed Oasis of the Seas from Rotterdam/Southampton in 2014. We went to Vico in the North of Spain. The sea was quit rough in the Biscayan Bay like waves of 9 meters. So don’t be at the front of the ship but in the middle on the lower decks if you are prone to seasickness 

 

Never trust auto-correct 😉

 

BoB certainly has a well-deserved reputation for having a bad temper - and October/November & Feb/March  are the most likely months. 

We take the same attitude as klfrodo's Brit friends, and just to rub it in the North Sea and English Channel are also much more likely to cut up rough at that time of year - when we cross to France in winter we take the tunnel rather than the ferries.

 

We've never taken the ferry to the Spanish north coast, but we've sailed cruise ships across BoB a few times without problems - and leviathans like Oasis o t Seas don't get tossed around like ferries. 

 

And even at that time of year it's waaaaay more likely that you'll have a smooth crossing rather than a rough one - but it's a risk.

And now that you know the score, even if you have a smooth out-bound crossing the same risk for the return crossing may play on your mind 🤞.

 

JB 🙂

[Globaliser]

16 hours ago, klfrodo said:

Tell me your Bay of Biscay stories

 

It's like Forrest's box of chocolates.

 

In May 2007, I sailed south from Southampton to northern Spain on Sea Princess (1998, 77,000 GT). When we woke up on the first morning at sea, it was blowing a Force 10. Worse, a lone long-distance yachtsman was in distress, and we were one of a number of vessels dispatched to assist. Of course, this meant that we couldn't steer a course to minimise the ship's movement, so it was an exciting ride. I sat in the very front of the ship on the highest enclosed deck (the seating area for the buffet, IIRC), which had large windows through which I could watch the SAR aircraft circling over the yacht's location and a number of ships converging on that point. It was a memorable day.

 

Five days later, on the northbound crossing, it was like a millpond.

 

AIUI, there are good scientific reasons why the Bay of Biscay deserves its reputation - something to do with common weather patterns, the shape of the surrounding shorelines and the shape of the bottom. But none of that can tell you in advance what it'll be like on any particular day.