Porto Santo
Escapade
Thu 17 Nov 2016 08:35
Dreadful 3 nights sailing here from Cascais, big rolly seas so very little sleep! By the second day my body had gone on strike and didn't want to eat despite leaving me heaving in the sink during my night watch, so poor James could at least get his head down for an hour, I then curled up in the aft bunk wrapped around my largest saucepan.
Couldn't wait to get to Porto Santo for a good nights sleep. On arrival there was no space for us in the small marina and they have tiny finger berths anyway so we had to jostle for a space in the harbour. Only about half a dozen of us, but with the wind racing down the mountains we had high gusts and choppy seas and being a light, relatively flat bottomed boat we were swinging around 360° on our mooring line and the wind generator was going ballistic all night! We decided to up anchor and move to a different position in the morning but the anchor was held fast to something on the bottom, James motored the boat around the anchor to try and dislodge it which eventually came up wrapped in a big ball of lines and crap, we dropped anchor practically in the fairway giving ourselves a lot of room.
Cycled into the town again, like last year it was bye on deserted so we sat and had a spot of lunch and glass of vino in the square, picked up some fresh milk etc and headed back. We had our first swim here last year as there is a golden sandy beach running along the whole south coast and ending next to the marina but it wasn't very appealing this time as quite high winds.
So here we are second night and I wake up to James jumping out in the cockpit naked shouting ''F*CK, F*CK!'. I'm like 'what, what?' Turns out the yacht has done a full 180° dragged anchor and the stern was now sitting on the fairway boy! By the time I had grabbed a torch, James was on his knees with his head in the lazarette....now I know it was supposed to be the largest moon that night, but lets just say I wasn't prepared for what treated my groggy eyes in torchlight! Lol
Got out of there early morning hopefully never to return again, fabulous 5 hours sail to Madeira. About an hour ahead of a French boat that left half an hour before us, James also wanted to mention that we were reaching in to Quinta Do Lorde at 10.2 knots, back to feeling full of life!
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