The Bay of Biscay has quite a reputation, and we now know why. Very short and steep waves, as a result of the great differences in depths: from 770 meters quickly "shallowing" to 125 meters!, in combination with 25 kts of wind... It means you and your boat get a nice salt shower. When winds had died out and waves had flattened a bit, JW served at 5 in the morning macaroni with ham & cheese, our favourite dish when we are at sea.  

PHOTO 2 Our first landfall was in Basque Spain, according to the Basques not at all Spain because they plead independency. In the first port we found a nice berth alongside a quai. In (bureaucratic) Spanish countries one has to be extremely polite, so we headed for the harbourmaster at once. The girl in the restaurant on the pier told us that there would be someone by the end of the week, and the cook gave us permission to stay.

You can see and feel the resistance against Spain everywhere. People are warm blooded and hot headed. Also due to the warm weather  the atmosphere is boiling and you see political grafitti all over the place on rocks and banners.  
The Basque country is small but there live a lot of people, as we encountered every two miles a new attractive port! But we were hurrying along the coast with 6 miles per day!

PHOTO 3 Most ports are only fishing ports, in other words: no harbour authorities, just do as you like but don't bother the fishermen. An alongside quay berth, or doubled up on a fisher vessel. Today's neighbouring fisher gave us immediately several artifical baits for the bonito catch, his speciality. They look extremely cool with rubber strings and glitter, so if the catch at sea fails, P can always use them as ear hangers and catch something ashore...