30:08.41N 15:52.34W

Anticipating a 20 hour passage and not wanting to arrive before mid-morning the next day, we hung around until midday before heading off to Selvagem Grande, another Portuguese nature reserve island.  After a short hitch on starboard gybe, we gybed around the southern tip of the Islas Desertas and set a course directly for our destination.  As sunset approached we put a reef in the mainsail and settled down for a 3hrs on, 3hrs off watch.  Giles and Cordelia took one watch, while Jane and Richard took the other.  This was to be Cordelia’s first night offshore and nature didn’t disappoint her.  The moon set shortly after the sun and the stars lit up the sky, followed later by Jupiter and Venus.  The phosphorescence coming from the rudder and the hydro-generator was also brilliant, throwing off phosphorescence “bombs” which exploded as much as 20 feet back in our wake.  Shooting stars and satellites were also in abundance but despite all the entertainment and having Giles’ scintillating company, Cordelia was soon fast asleep.  Apparently the motion was very soporific!  No problem as there was absolutely nothing to do all night, with no other vessel on either AIS or radar and no course or sail changes. 

As the night wore on, the wind picked up, gusting to 18kts.  That pushed our boat speed up to 8kts and we were at risk of arriving very shortly after dawn in a rock-strewn area that we really shouldn’t be approaching in anything other than good visibility.  We put one more reef in the mainsail during a change of watch and of course the wind then dropped. 

At dawn, Richard and Cordelia’s fishing line was cast again.  It’s a simple squid-like lure and a small weight on a simple reel of line and reputedly cost Cordelia just $5 but we were assured it was very effective.  Effective it was.  After hooking two fish which managed to get away, we hauled in the third, a wonderful tuna.  We don’t know what it was but the meat was white and there were yellow patches on its body and tail so we think it might have been an Albacore or Yellow Fin.  Needless to say, we were very impressed and Cordelia was very relieved that her $5 line had lived up to its reputation.  The fish was dispatched with a dose of vodka, now referred to as “tuna juice” and fileted before we arrived at the no-fishing zone around Selvagem Grande.

With perfect timing, we arrived at the anchorage just as another boat was leaving.  Anchoring there is not without its risks and there is just one mooring that visiting yachts may pick up.  So we did.

With the water temperature up to 26 degrees now, even Cordelia was tempted in for a swim.  Roasted tuna supper in the cockpit watching a spectacular sunset over the rollers breaking on the rocks was followed by a night of rocking, rolling and heavy slapping.  Infinity swung lazily around her mooring, sometimes going side-on to the swell and sometimes presenting her transom to it, when the waves would slap under her flat aft section.

In the morning we went ashore for a guided tour of the island from one of the naturalists, who showed us the Corey’s Shearwater fledglings in their nests in shallow hollows all around us, and told us all about them and the other seabirds which nested there.  Amazing how the birds know how to find their way back to the nest they were born in after spending 7yrs thousands of miles away and then bring up a chick which requires different fish from different parts of the Atlantic as it grows to become a fledgling. 

Apparently various settlers had tried to make a living on the island, from the Guanches onwards, but none had succeeded.  The guide took us to the island’s peak, where the lighthouse is.  From there we could see Galatea approaching and we headed down to welcome them.  Having negotiated for them to use the Portuguese navy’s mooring for a night, we then discovered that ours had broken free of the seabed!  We were extremely fortunate that hadn’t happened when we were on the island.  Much of the seabed is flat rock but Richard dived to find a good spot to drop our anchor and checked it once it was down so we set our anchor alarm and stayed another night.