(No. 13) Lagos (Algarve) - Porto Santo (Madeira group)
Catou
Paul and Sylvie Tucker
Sat 25 Sep 2010 13:20
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Sorry, my last blog finished rather abruptly for some
reason. I also forgot to number it (it should have been No.12). I
have started numbering them again, starting with this one as No.13.
During our first night at sea after leaving Lagos, we
passed through the shipping lanes around Cape St. Vincent with little traffic,
and little to worry us. After a great start with favorable weather, the
wind died on us at midnight and on went the engine. It was flat calm for
hours. We then had some good sailing on our first full day at
sea (but 10 hours motoring as well). We settled comfortably into
watches for our 2nd long passage. Janet had done a long passage
before when living in Australia, and Terry had as well when sailing between
UK and Gibraltar. By Thursday (Sept 23rd) noon position we had averaged
5.45 knots and covered the first 115 miles towards Porto
Santo.
Friday 24th Sept. Stopped engine at
midnight and, with a single reef in the main and genoa set, we had a good sail
through the night. At 0900 we decided to drop the main and furl the genoa,
and set the cruising chute. The sea was quite lumpy so it was a bit
of a dance on the foredeck, but eventually up the chute went and it was a great
success all day. Weather was generally very overcast, but the morning was bright
and sunny before cloud cover in afternoon. Noon position gave us a day's
run of 125 miles . As evening approached the swell increased and the the
wind veered around from NW to NE, dead astern. This is not a very
comfortable point of sailing with a heavy swell on the quarter. We handed
the cruising chute at 1845 and set genoa only for the night sail for ease of
handling in case of squalls or other eventualities. And we rolled and
rolled..... Janet then produced the most amazing curry
from the galley, with all sorts of condiments - and the naan bread we'd
forgotten about when Ben cooked supper the first night across the
Channel on 27th June ( it was vacuum sealed!) We steered manually most of the
night, due to the continuing corkscrew motion. Generally we had
a good night's sailing, but different opinions about amount of sleep
that each of us had managed! Sylvie took over from me at 0300 -
just as (1) we entered a busy shipping route (2) it started drizzling (3) the
wind increased sharply. I couldn't leave her on her own, so stayed up
for another hour! In my days at sea in the early 1970's we used to sail up
the West African coast and up through the middle of the Canary Islands and
continue north towards NW Spain and Bay of Biscay. These ships were doing
the same, and were quite concentrated as they travelled north. We
negotiated around the stern of the first (who was supposed to alter for us, but
didn't) and the 2nd altered in good time for us, and the others went clear of
us without the need for further course alteration.
Saturday 25th Sept At 0900 we hove to
and set the main and furled the genoa. This helped with the uncomfortable
swell. It was a mucky drizzly sort of morning, then the wind veered
sharply from NE to SSE within minutes and we found ourselves on the opposite
tack and sailing along beautifully on a reach. Even the sun came out. Noon
position gave us a run of 120 miles and a distance to go to Porto Santo of 120
miles. We've been swotting up about P/Santo. Christopher Colombus's
father-in-law was from there! Well it needs it's claim-to-fame to I
suppose! (Bit like going to Cornwall/Devon - Everywhere you seem to go, either
Daphne De Maurier or Agatha Christe had either (1) lived there (2) written a
novel there or (3)stayed in the same hotel as you!)
Our ETA is early tomorrow morning, so we hope to have a
day or two to look about before moving on to Madeira.
Sorry, I can't sent any pictures while at sea, since we
are using the sat. phone. Will try sending some if we can find WiFi
available in P/Santo.
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