Since the days are getting shorter and the nights colder we thought that the 120nm jump between Bilbao and Gijon would be a bit to much so we decided to split it in three short legs so that we would have daylight both when we head out and arrive port each day.

The day when we left was grey, super grey and even a bit grey with a ton boring clouds surrounding us when we left Bilbao the early morning 16 of October. West of us towards our destination Santander we had a wonderful clear blue sky and sunny weather just waiting around the corner for us but unfortunately the grey and cold clouds had the same destination as us and followed us the entire day. Luckily we only planned to go about 40 nm today.

Log date: 16 okt. 2020
Route: Bilbao – Santander beach
Time: 08:30 – 17:24 ( 8h 54min )
Distance: 37,7 nm
Average speed: 4,2 knots
Wind: 12 knots
Weather: [ ] Rain, [ ] Fog, [ ] Sunshine, [X] Cloudy
Temperature: 13 °C

The Santander marina is located quite deep into the bay, almost 4nm, so we decided to anchor next to the beach instead. Our Rocna got a great holding in the sand and we had a good night sleep and was really happy that the wind or swell didn’t change direction during the night. 🙂

If you who read this ever plan to visit the area, anchoring next to the beach or close to it is not only a lot cheaper is’t also closer to the city center since the marina deeper in the bay is located just next to the airport and just from a quick glance at the map you soon realize that it’s not really walking distance to get into town.

We left our anchorage at dawn together with a lot of small fishing vessels and a few crazy SUP (for those of you who doesn’t know what SUP is, it’s a big ass surfboard that people stand on and paddle with a canoe paddle, Stand Up Paddling) people!!

Next stop San Vicente de La Barquera