Still here in Porto Santo!

Hi Everyone. Did you notice the deliberate error on the date of the 28 Sept. blog? I’m sure you’ve worked out that it was actually the 28th August. These things happen when you have too much sun, sightseeing etc.

We didn’t return to Lisbon but we did check the weather and decided that we should leave for Porto Santo (Madeira group of islands) on Sunday 1st Sept as there would be moderate NE winds blowing for the following 4 or 5 days. Our last two nights on anchor at Cascais were not peaceful. There were two rock concerts, one each night, held on the quayside about 400 metres away. The first group were awful – just noise – but the firework display, which was their finale, was spectacular. The second group were better and the show was mercifully half an hour shorter and once again it was followed by a fabulous firework display over the bay.

The next day, our departure day, we woke to see fog swirling in from the Atlantic. We delayed our departure until 10.30am when we could see far enough to avoid the hundreds of crab/lobster pots in the bay. It soon became apparent that something was wrong with the battery charging system. Jeremy hoped it wasn’t the alternator but he was worried when only 93% of battery power had been restored after running the engine for 8 hours. Straight away the wind was WNW but we could fly the main and the genoa. The swell was as low as we’ve seen it, the sky was blue with no clouds, the sun was shining and the ocean was a deep shade of blue. Time to blow the dust off the sextant and take some sights of the sun.

Quite quickly overnight the wind speeds dropped and the sails flapped. The Hydrovane could not steer us properly but faithful Neco autopilot could, although he does use battery power. The stars were fantastic and, although we recognised a few, there were so many constellations we did not know. We saw a number of ships the first night heading for the north/south shipping lanes just north of us and for Lisbon just east of us. We kept to our watch pattern as before when we crossed from Ireland to Spain i.e. 2 or 3 hour watches during the day and a 5 hour watch each at night. The light winds continued on Monday again from the W or WNW so the engine was on most of the time. In the afternoon, Jeremy stripped down the alternator battery manager, found nothing wrong and put it back together again. However, charging returned to normal and has been fine ever since!

Our passage continued in much the same way with periods of flat calm and glassy seas, which reflected all the stars at night. Our Navtex was not receiving any weather forecasts so Jeremy called up a passing ship on the VHF which confirmed that we should be having light to moderate N or NE winds. Still, no gales to worry about. I took more sights of the sun and even took a sight of Venus and the moon at evening twilight. Both sunrise and sunset over the open ocean were magnificent. The only scares were close shaves with ships at night. We both had to change course to avoid large vessels. In my case, I was convinced a huge cruise ship was passing safely when suddenly I realised she was too close for comfort.

At last, with the wind on our nose (SW) we motored the last 30 plus miles to Porto Santo checked in straight away with the Customs and the marina and then waited two hours for a berth. As I write this, I’m wearing my bikini and Jeremy is in his swimming trunks. We have miles of golden south west facing beach alongside us and once we’ve done all the shopping, washing, cleaning, repairs and sightseeing, we might have time to lie on it!

Adeus