Monday 18th July

Whitesatin
Mon 18 Jul 2016 21:07
Monday 18th July

A great 24 hours.

We left Porto Santo on Sunday for a shortish trip to Madeira. We had heard that Funchal marina gets very busy so we decided to sail to an anchorage on the north east tip of Madeira, then to get to Funchal in the middle of the next day, hopefully to get a good berth.

Winds were good and we had a great sail, motoring the last couple of miles into Baie d'Abra, a sheltered bay under high cliffs. The promised 5 - 10 kts winds ended up gusting to over 20kts. Anyway we anchored very securely and, despite the skipper worrying, we were absolutely all right all night.

This morning we sailed and motored the 15 miles or so to Funchal, the capital of Madeira. A somewhat scatty marina, we moored on the reception pontoon which had no cleats, we then reversed into one lazy-line berth which proved too small so we the moved to another similar berth. The good news was that the skipper was then awarded 3!!!! successful mooring beers!!

A lazy line is where you reverse towards the dock and you take (or are given) a line which ends up connected to a huge block of concrete sunk in the marina. A crew member takes this filthy muddy piece of rope to the bow and ties it on. The stern is tied to the pontoon and there you are, boat secured.

Attached is a photo of team Madeira, having reached our destination.

We now have 5 days here in Funchal, we plan to do touristy stuff for the rest of this week, Paul and Helen leave on Sunday, Jon and Fiona arrive!!

White Satin

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