Lisbon to Porto Santo - 30th Sept to 3rd Oct

LISBON TO PORTO SANTO – 30^th September to 3^rd October

We left Oeiros near to Lisbon at 8am on Sunday morning, along with another 6 boats from the same marina. We were all waiting for a good weather window for the 500 mile trip to porto santo which is a smaller island around 20 miles from main land Madeira.

Offshore sailing is not generally exciting but we were treated to a nice force 4 to 5 on the beam and we romped away at 7 knots. We clocked up a very respectable 165 miles in 24 hours. The next day we were able to put up the spinnaker as the wind had moved aft of the beam and we continued to make good progress. Our sensible heads decided to take the kite down and run with just the main and the genoa goose winged. This is not as stable and we suffered a lot of sail flogging as the wind became lighter overnight and we were sailing dead downwind. At around midnight we dicided it was just too light and uncomfortable to sail and put the engine on to motor sail. We had hoped that in the morning we would have been able to rehoist the spinnaker but we lost the wind completely until about 4pm.

One of the highlights of any trip is seeing dolphins.Today (2^nd Oct) we were treated to around twenty dolphins for an hour playing at the bow. The boys named one Bob junior and he was identifiable by two spots on his back. One dolphin was perfecting a move called the side slapper, where he would jump and land on his side causing a big splash, which the boys loved. We thought they had left us when they sped off 100 meters ahead and started really jumping. Then two dolphins did a synchronized jump out if the water which must have seen them jump over twenty feet. It was, in the boys words, the most amazing thing they had ever seen.

The boys and I spent a couple of hours playing games. Ethan really likes bananagrams which is a word game a bit like scrabble but you play on your own making words and linking them trying to use all your letters before your opponent. I am not sure if fantastical is a word but felt I had to give it to Ethan. Oliver is surprisingly good at it given his dyslexia. We have some odd spelled words but hopefully he will remember how to spell them again. Ethan always strives to make the longest words and Oliver the most. The educational games are really paying off.

Ethan really enjoyed chart work across Biscay and has continued to want to plot our course to Madeira. Having done co ordinates in maths last week this was the real thing. He can now plot a position using the lat and long off the gps. When we had a clear out at work we came across some old course packs , out of date and destined for the bin I gave them a home on board and Russell is going to teach the boys the basic navigation course as this weeks school. We have right up to ocean master so I might be putting them in for exams when I get back. I am hoping it will also refresh my yacht master theory done many years ago. The boys are also looking forward to Gary teaching them celestial navigation when he joins us for the Atlantic. They now want a telescope to look at the stars.

Today's school task was to make a happy anniversary card for our wedding anniversary tomorrow 3rd Oct. they were supposed to write a poem inside. This was met with mixed feelings and I think they lay half finished in their cabins. They did come up with an idea to put a playlist of songs on the iPod but I am not sure that went well, but the idea was sweet. I suppose most wives would love to be taken to Madeira for their anniversary but maybe by the more conventional method of plane rather than sailing some 1300 miles.

We have had a few spots of rain today and one of the auto pilot bolts had worked lose so needed fixing. The spinnaker snuffer that went up prematurely yesterday didn't want to go up at all today. And yep you guessed it when it was time to come down it didn't want to. The rope must have become twisted and we had fun and games trying to untangle. Fingers crossed that tomorrow it will behave itself.

The wind is decreasing all the time but still sat around ten knots from behind. We have tried a new sail configuration tonight using the spinnaker pole as a permanent guy for the genoa so we are romping along goose winged at a steady 6.5 knots. It is midnight and the gps tells me it is 65 miles to go so all going well we will be there by lunch time.

Russell is obviously suffering from hallucinations at night because last night he told me the penguins from Madagascar had gone past in their cruise ship and tonight his watch handover said nothing doing but the milky bar kid came past on a peddaloe. There really is nothing out here. We get very excited when we see a small triangle on the AIS telling us that someone is near. It tells us the name of the vessel and if commercial where it is going. Ethan likes to know how big it is but they are starting to remember that the places they are traveling too are places we have visited.

The boys are also using there imagination at making pictures out of clouds. Today it was the Simpsons. The sunset tonight was particularly impressive.

We tested our AIS personal locator device today. We wanted to try it when we had no AIS targets in range as it comes up as a man overboard locator beacon. We didn't want to set off a search and rescue operation. We use it at night when on loan watch. With the autopilot you would never know someone had gone over, and assuming the casualty is conscious and can activate the device it sets off an alarm and sends a gps signal so you can pick the person up. It was very reassuring that it set the alarm off immediately and within a couple of minutes it had a gps position.

It's just started raining...,

When I next cam on watch at 6am we had around 30 miles to go. I could just make out the shadow of land. It does not seem to get light until about 7.30 or 8am. It then seemed to take forever to actually get to the land. We made it at about 10am on the 3^rd of October. Everybody was very excited, if a little tired.