Madeira 1st October
Sarah Grace goes to sea
Chris Yerbury and Sophy White
Sat 1 Oct 2005 09:24
Madeira October 1st
2005
We made the crossing from
Porto Santo(volcanic rock island) over thirty nautical miles of sea to Madeira
(large volcanic rock island), in the company of two other yachts.. A word
of advice gentle reader, do not mention the 'R' word to a bunch of
skippers. No sooner had we left the harbour, than Chris was dragging
spinackers(sp?) from the hold, and cranking and tweaking every thing like
mad. Despite leaving a good quarter of an hour earlier than the other
boats, our headstart didn't last. We were overtaken quickly by Regina and
Koshlong, all flying as much canvas as possible. We didn't quite go to the
lengths of throwing all the water and cannons overboard to catch up, but Chris
is now using insulting language about our home, like 'tub', and 'slow'.
Here of a picture of
Chris sailing last into Maderia. Despite much prepassage bragging, NO-ONE
caught any tuna or dorado today. Mimi was especially disappointed that our
new octopus lure did not work.
Otti had a great birthday
beach party, followed by a birthday tea on board, and a game of roulette.
It was suprising how quickly seven kids who have never been to a casino take to
roulette..........
Here is a picture of Otti
on her birthday.
We intend to make our stay
here shortish as we want to get to the Canaries. We are going to
hire a car today and tear around looking for gas, as we have nearly run out of
cooking gas. So it's not all romantic vistas and cocktails, beleive
me. I am now about to do a family wash by hand, sitting on the pontoon,
and hope that it won't get blown away by the willywaws after being pegged
out.........