Porto Santo

Into The Blue
Andy & Gina Hilton
Sun 4 Oct 2015 11:49
33.04N 16.19W

We left Sines on Saturday 26th September, we woke up surrounded by fog in the bay so we waited until we could see it lifting before setting off which was later than we had hoped but at least we were on our way.

This was to be a 3.5 day trip so we set sail and agreed a watch rota for the night passages. Katherine was exempt from duties initially until she had settled in and felt ready to take on a night watch.

Tom and Gina took the first watch 22:00 (10pm) to 02:00, Josh and Andy 02:00 to 06:00, Tom and Gina 06:00 to 10:00.

We sailed as much as possible but the wind dropped so motor came on.

This was a quiet passage with very little traffic, there were cargo vessels going North, South and East towards the Straits of Gibraltar, some passing quite close so we were able to see just how big some of them were!! Very little else and at one point we thought we were the only ones at sea.

The sunsets and moon rises were spectacular, we had a full moon one night and saw a lunar eclipse.

Wildlife spotted were dolphins, basking sharks, porpoises and a small bird which took a ride on the boat with us. We couldn’t identify the bird unfortunately.

When we arrived in Porto Santo we found a flying fish on the deck.

On the approach to Porto Santo the lighthouse on the island is clearly visible which was a great help as we arrived in the early hours of Wednesday morning (01:00). The entrance to the harbour was well defined and easy to enter but there was no space on any of the pontoons. There were several yachts anchored in the harbour so we dropped anchor with full deck lights and spreader lights on.

At 2am we all crashed into our bunks for some sleep.