Madeira to La Palma

MADEIRA TO LA PALMA 15^TH October to 17^th October

 

It is 250 miles to La Palma, one of the 7 Canary Islands and the one furthest west.  To ensure we arrived in daylight we left at 7pm which gave us 2 night passages.

It was a very uneventful trip. No dolphins, no ships, boats or anything really. It is hard to imagine when used to sailing in the solent an AIS screen that shows nothing for nearly 36 hours.

The skies devoid of a moon were filled with stars. I wish I could take a photo and share it with you. It is one if the good things about night sailing. It is truly mesmerising.

The wind in the words of our Swedish friend Staffan from Salsa "is a fickle bitch". She was well behaved for the first 24 hours where we had the opportunity to sail on a reach at a steady 6 to 7 knots. Nice and peaceful with a calm sea, either that or we are getting used to the sensation of swell. In the last 12 hours the wind has developed PMT and is sulking. She can't make up her mind which way to blow what little wind she can be bothered to. The engine has therefor been on for the last 12 hours and I suspect as our destination is only 4 hours away that it will be our mode of propulsion for the remainder of the trip. The main sail flaps annoyingly with no pressure and diesel fumes tend to linger. The boys also complain because they can't hear the DVD properly in their cabins. We are hoping that she will behave herself on our Atlantic crossing as we only have so much fuel and motoring will be a luxury.

We are now 1600 miles from Hythe knock buoy. We are around 150 miles from Gran Canaria.  All our sails will now be short hops between the islands. The longest a mere 60 miles. This is equivalent to a channel crossing which we would have had to psyche up to do, now it is just a day sail.

Today we made bread and biscuits. Ethan kneaded the dough. The recipe had a single proving but I think I prefer the recipe with 2. The bread was very dense, needed more air bubbles. Oli said its texture resembled cake. It tasted ok but we can do better. The biscuits went down well.

I started my watch at 5 am and land is clearly visible as a mass of lights. We were 35 miles away so I am not sure at what distance Russ picked it up. The visibility is amazing and rumoured to be at least 45 miles. This means that when you have seen land it takes a long time to get to it. I can clearly see the arc of a lighthouse sending the beam in a great sweeping motion. It is 6 am and it will not get light until 8am which seems quite late. I guess it is only a few weeks until the clocks change. It is now getting dark at about 8pm. The weather is definitely warmer as I have not needed to dig out my socks or thermals for a watch, just trousers and a fleece.

We have chosen to go a different route to Gran Canaria than the most popular east to west. Ours is probably the less favourable due to prevailing winds, but as the trades are not yet established properly and the distances are short if we need to motor into a light headwind so be it. If we do this again we felt it would be nice to have a different route. We also thought it might be nice to re-establish our routine away from distractions of other arc boats that we will be spending 2 weeks with soon. The boys need to do some solid school work and the inside of the boat could do with a good clean.

In the final moments of our trip we had some excitement. Russell spotted a man overboard. It was a teddy bear bobbing about in the sea. We decided to test our man overboard skills and rescue the teddy. It was not easy and we managed to lose our small fishing net trying to retrieve it. If it had been a person they would probably have died from being poked in the head with a boathook and being run over a few times. Finally I decided to stand on the bathing platform and in the swell I managed to grab the bear. I also got very wet doing it as the bathing platform was going underwater in the swell.

It wasn’t long until we were safely tied up in the marina. First impressions very empty and very nice, with a small Spar shop that sold the basics including cold bear. Brilliant!

Madeira Video

 

Unable to upload - please view on Mad Fish facebook page.

 

Madeira Photos

 

 

 

 

Treasure hunt.

 

 

View from hill. We are on second pontoon with a 2 vacant berths next to us.

 

The boys enjoying catchng lizards.

 

 

The roads clng to the side of the mountan. We will be travellng on that road soon...

 

The tunnels can be really long.

 

At least they build a barrier.

 

Insde the Sao Vicentee Lava Tubes. These are left when the Volcano erupts. They create a maze of caves. The photos do not do it justice. Amazing.

 

A waterfall.

 

What a view.

 

Butter wouldn't melt now but moments before they were throwing stones and couting how long to reach the bottom. So far down you could not hear.

 

Litterally above the clouds.

 

Banana plantations.

 

Madeira

MADEIRA – 12^th to 16^th October

 

We left Porto Santo after 9 days and made the 32 mile trip to Madeira itself. We stayed in Quinta do Lorde on the north east tip. There was not much there other than a housing development and five star hotel due to open in December. When it does I am sure that it will make anyone's stay more attractive as visitors will be able to use the hotel facilities and have the benefit of a shop on site, rather than having to rely on the marina courtesy bus into Machio to go shopping at Pingo Dolce (Portuguese equivalent to Tesco).  We were able to spend a couple of hours in Machio . On Monday we went to a sandy beach there and did some shopping. The sand I think is imported from Mexico.

The marina itself is quite tight to get into and expensive. Even with our 30 % arc discount it still cost €30 per night. We had expected 50% discount so were glad we only stated for 4 nights rather than our original intention if 7. We also wish we had spent the first couple of days in the nearby anchorage, although people came into the marina saying it was quite rolly. The marina itself suffered from surge so not altogether the best night’s sleep.

We met up with Alex the French boy and were invited to do a treasure hunt using a website and gps co-ordinates. You find a plastic box and have to take treasure out and put something back in. You write your names and date in a note book and put it back for the next person to find. It encouraged the boys to go on a spectacular walk over the cliffs.

The island is volcanic and we hired a car to go and visit the lava caves at Sao Vicente . These were spectacular and well worth the entrance fee of €8 for adults and 6 for children. We paid €49 inc insurance to hire a car. It was a Chevy Matiz and it had done 137,000km. It was gutless and struggled on the steep and winding mountains that we made it go up. It did add to the day as we pretended we were on Top Gear. We were glad it was a Sunday so the roads were quiet as they were not very wide with lots of blind bends. It was scary in many places and I have captured this on a video.

We continued around the whole of the island stopping for tea on the south west tip. It would have been a lovely place to stop and have a leisurely lunch.  We enjoyed some lovely homemade cake. I tried the tea of the house which was a mixture of lemon grass, zest , mint. It smelled a lot like a mojito but tasted of hot water. I am sure it was excellent for detoxifying.

We set off again in search of a petrol station, the car used €30 of fuel as we had to rev the nuts off it often needing 1st gear. Petrol is also expensive at €1.75 do we used about 17 litres . We think the tank only held 20 litres in total.  Helpfully the tank was on a quarter when we got it so nothing as simple as filling it back up at the end of the day.

The south of the islands roads cut through the hill using tunnels rather than clinging to the mountain side which is a lot less heart stopping to drive on. The land is also lower and the hillsides are full of banana plantations. The bananas here are smaller and fatter and ripen very quickly. They are pretty straight and they do not have much of a stalk so are prone to splitting. The fruit and veg generally has a short shelf life, I am not sure if it is the heat or lack of pesticides. You can also only buy things that are in season, or grown locally, no baby corn or sugar snap peas here. They are also sold in kilos so it can be a bit of a lottery as to how much things will cost. We paid €2 for a chilli as it was €11 a kilo. There are very little processed foods and Russell made the mistake if buying pot noodles at €3 each.

We went to Funchal itself which is the capital. We walked around the marina and saw our Swedish friends on Salsa. It is difficult to get into the marina and it had taken them 3 days to get a spot. We didn't want to spend another 3 days trying to get in and also strong winds were being forecast for the end of the week. We had decided to leave on Monday for the 250 mile trip to La Palma the western most Canary Island.

The boys spotted a MacDonald’s so we had dinner there . It seems a waste of a meal out but to have a meal out would cost at least €80 and MacDonald’s is €20.

We had a walk around an open air market and then went back to the car park. Our hearts started jumping when the shutters were down on the entrance and we feared we were locked in or out, whichever way you looked at it, it wasn't good. I thought it had a closing time of 2200 and Oli thought 2100. As it was 2000 we both thought we were ok. Starting to panic a bit, a security guard above said we needed to come up and hope of escape was restored. We managed to pay for parking which for 3 hours seemed to be 45 cents and then set about getting out. We had a debate about which way to go confused by the way out sign being next to one saying private parking. We found a machine to slot the token in and voila a roller shutter lifted and we were free.

The next exciting bit was driving in the dark and trying to find the marina. The map we were given was a tourist map of the island and the road signs often gave place names not on it. But we managed and Ethan had a good idea of heading for the red light on the hill above the marina.

The airport is on the south side of the island and to get a piece of land long and flat enough it is built up on big stone pillars which hold it high above ground below.  Underneath is a boatyard where you can keep your boat out of the water under the runway. Nice and dry but I am guessing a bit noisy. The road goes under the run way too which feels a bit odd. When we left we could also see the runway and some planes coming into land. I am guessing it is a bit scary as it is not very long and has a cliff at one end.

Porto Santo - Photographs

Oliver with Erika his Sweedish friend from the boat Salsa

Lysander (German), Alex (French), Oliver, Erika (Sweedish) & Ethan

 Ethan and Lysander from Morning Haze

The Open Top bus. Ethan and Erika

 View down to the Marina.

 The amazing Beach - and it is real not man made. The water was also a staggering 30 degrees which was abnormal - it is normally max 24. A hurrican in the canaries pushed up the warm seas along with an unseasonal southerly breeze.

The marina from the view point. We are on the middle pontoon. The 3rd boat in on the north of the pontoon. We have our navy bimni up.

Porto Santo

Porto Santo - 3rd October to 11th October.

This place is really something. Fantastic beach next to the marina. We did lots of surfing and the waves ate Ethans goggles and my sun glasses. We are still finding the sand even now.

The marina had a really good spirit, so much so that we arranged a beach BBQ one night and people delayed leaving until the next day to come.

There was lots of children of different nationalities, French, German, Sweedish, Norweigan and Irish.

The wall was covered with pictures so we had to do ours too. Ethan designed this one and Olivers design will be completed in Gran Canaria.

We were treated to a night out just Russ and I thanks to a lovely dutch lady called Hanneka on Nelly Rose, offering to babysit. It was a real treat. Her duaghter had spent 3 years circumnavigating with 2 small children and said the thing she most missed was going out just the 2 of them. We were so appreciative, it was nice to get dressed up and go out, even if it did seem a bit weird as we have been inseperable as a family for 2 months solid. We ate limpits which i can definetly say i will not be eating again, but we were curious to what they tasted like.

We took a 2 hour bus tour of the island and that was about it. There was not really much to do but chill out. Pure bliss.....

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.