Lisbon to Porto Santo (Madeira group)

Cascaise still..........

When Sara arrived she brought the fog with her (although she denies this). The weather forecast for the next few days was gales from the direction we wanted to go, therefore we were stuck in Cascaise until Thursday 8 Oct.

Sara and I in Cascaise......and the weather she brought with her!

Sintra

In the meantime we visited Sintra (half hour on the bus) which at least gave Sara a bit of a break before we left on our sailing trip. The architecture of all the buildings was very ornate and the town possessed no less than 6 palaces! We went to the Regaleira Palace and then walked a bloody long way up a very steep mountain to the Moorish Castle at the top.

Regaleira Palace

All of us at Regaleira Palace

Puffed out at the Moorish Castle! View from the Moorish Castle

Keith after the long day!

Cascaise to Porto Santo

We finally left Cascaise on Thursday and had a force 3 to 4 on the beam which took us nicely along on our passage. On day two we were just having lunch in the cockpit when we heard a whoooosh from behind. Casually looking up from my ham roll I couldn’t believe my eyes.......we had a whale following us and he had just blown from his blow hole!

There was a mad scramble to grab cameras and video’s but the whale gave us plenty of photo opportunities. He/She just followed us like a big submarine for a while, then came along beside the boat, so close we could almost reach out and touch it. It was just below the surface and came up every now and again to blow through it’s blow hole. It was about the same length as the boat (36ft), and one point it went just under the boat and out the other side and we had a few moments were we held our breath unable to believe that it didn’t touch the keel or any other part of the hull which could have given us a nasty jolt at best! It stayed with us for about 40 mins before deciding that we were probably nothing worth mating with or it just got board, then swam off into the distance surfacing to blow every now and again. We were all so amazed we could hardly speak of anything else all day. (Keith said I have to say that we were boody gobsmacked not amazed!! (and I suppose he is right, there really are no words to describe the experience).

The more than amazing, gobsmacking whale

It took just under 5 days of downwind sailing to reach Porto Santo a little island close to Madeira where we made landfall around 9.30 on Tuesday morning (thank God for GPS or we might have missed it). The day before we arrived Sara and I made the courtesy flags for Madeira and the Canary Islands. She chose the easy one (Madeira) as the Canaries flag has two dogs on it and I have never been known for my artistic talents. They looked more like what a dog might do rather than a dog, but hopefully it won’t notice when it is flying 15ft up the mast!

Sara enjoyed the experience but found the night watches on her own a little scary (we did 2 hour watches each during the night) thinking she might get swamped by a giant wave (which is possible but we all clip onto the boat at night so the worst she would get is wet), or eaten by a sea monster(still possible I suppose!)

Making flags......I had to draw the dogs!

Sara raising the Madeiran courtesy flag

Porto Santo

On arrival it was glorious weather and being 500 miles further south has improved the weather, we had bucks fizz in the cockpit to celebrate our arrival. One thing that bugged us though was that we planned to anchor off the beach when we arrived but found out that they were charging 20 euros to anchor in the bay which forced boats to go inside the harbour as they only charged 14 euros to pick up a buoy. So, no free anchoring while we are in Porto Santo, and we have heard a rumour that this is probably the case in Madeira also. What a swizz!

Approaching Porto Santo


As we had left Portugal later than planned Sara had to alter her flights to Friday so at least that meant she had a couple of day to enjoy Porto Santo before flying home. It is only a tiny island about 11k long with some high volcanic peaks. We had a look around on the first day then got down to the serious work of cleaning weed off the hull the next day. It was lovely in the water and I dusted off the diving gear and we couldn’t believe that there was a fair amount of line wrapped around the prop which I removed while cleaning the deeper parts that the other 2 couldn’t reach using their snorkels.

Sara working hard scrubing the water line

Removal of the string from around the propeller

Another sight-seeing day on Thursday in which we took a local bus to the north side of the island (and walked back that is how far it was!) The view from the top of the cliffs there was stunning.

The wonderful view from the north side of the island

We had a farewell meal at the marina with Sara (Arlene and Bob joined us). Sara wanted to try grilled limpets but was not impressed! Finally we said a sad goodbye to her on Friday morning.
Keith and I shall leave for Madeira on Saturday morning (about a 7 or 8 hour sail).

The limpet mistake!

We have made some contacts with other people on boats on the same circuit as us and will be seeing them also in Madeira which is really useful for exchanging information and ideas and nice to make new friends whom we will see at certain points along the way.