Porto Santo - Maderia
Arion's West Indian Adventure
Hermione & Douglas Pattison
Sat 7 Nov 2015 18:11
Our journey started straight out of the Marina in Lisbon into an immediate very rough wind verses tide. Not dissimilar to leaving Chichester Harbour on a strong ebb into a force 6 southerly. We would of liked to of sailed South rather than west but the winds were not favourable. So we sailed west into what we knew was much stronger winds.
The wind was initially SSW from Lisbon which was good as our making tack kept us on the rhumb line. We made excellent progress for the first 24 hours. The wind then went around to the SE and built. For about 6hrs on Tuesday we had 35Kts on the nose. We were all finding our sea legs at the time so this was rather unpleasant. We had 2 reefs and a pocket size hankerchif of a jib. Arion behaved impeccably.
Wednesday the storm ended followed by good sailing conditions. We were at last able to get onto starboard and make some southerly miles. The wind then died at sunset and we motored down the rhumb line.
Thursday the wind got up and champagne sailing by mid morning on the rhumb line. The wind later died and motoring resumed in bright sunshine. Douglas got the water maker working after about 2 hours of reassembling the filter. We then had Chateau Arion 2015 with lunch.
The rest of the day we alternated between motoring & sailing and wind died to almost nothing at night.
100 miles to go at cocktail time so opened a bottle of red wine.
Douglas has first sighting of 3 Dolphins at first light. Very magical with sunrise.
Alastair sighted land on his watch. Wind was still very light and sea flat just long Atlantic rollers. Porto Santo 25M away at 08:00.
14:00 Arrive Porto Santo
Has a fantastic dinner at Pe Na Aqua.
