The owl and the pussy cat went to sea in a beautiful awlgrip boat
Zepher
Chris & Lyn Darch
Sat 15 Sep 2007 22:39
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Date 8th Sept to 14th Sept
Noah's Progress "The Owl and the Pussycat went to
sea in a beautiful awlgrip boat"
Well folks prepare for a big blogin first though we
have had several requests from the girlies for more of " Lyns corner (
the sensible bit) so before I rabbit on her she is ,
Lyns Corner : "Because he is of a peculiar species
( man )"
After repairing our battered but not torn sail I
decided to make a baggwaggle, Chris was beside himself wondering what I was
doing its a strange affair unravelling soft rope then festooning it around the
boat with Chris saying, what you doing in a child like manner, in this situation
I just say , all will be revealed in a short time.
I cut the rope in eight inch sections take a
long piece of one inch leather and stitch the rope down the middle on the sewing
machine this gives you something that looks like a boa , now Chris at this stage
is really getting hot under the collar thinking were is that bitof fluff goingon
my boat , it was really a lovely creation pure white nylon anyway he was sent
out embarrassed on deck to tie this around the baby stay wire that was doing the
damage to my sail , after all that he said shame you didn't make it longer ,
girls it works great, I have some left over so if Chris wants to do a Zulu
warrior some Carrabian rum soaked night the would look smashing round his
angles.
We had a dolphins farewell from Bayona
hopingthe photos come out well as they would make ( sorry for this word X mas
cards) we had adult and baby's a total of about fifty.
Two days out from Bayona Chris was gazing
into the blue yonder whenthis very tiny bird landed on the back of his life
jacket , then moved to his arm, he stayed with us for two days hitching a lift
down to Southern Spain he would fly off for three hours to feed and then return
its amazing that he found us each time ,I looked him up in my Birds of Britain (
sad) and found him , a Savis Warbler , well girls I will report on any wild life
next time including man .
Love Lyn
Back to me , thanks for all your ems you sent
whilst we were on passage ,we downloaded them when we got the satalight weather
forecasts every morning and started making a habit of reading
them its been a real boost onthislong trip
to read them so from Lyn and Myself thanks to you all .
Anyway back to the trip , we left Bayona in
the afternoon of my birthday I had a pencil holder for my chart table
, I dint tell you on the last blog but we were led up a blind ally
once again and were berthed righton the inside bows facing in on a forty foot
berth , we had pondered our escape for a few days , a few people had looked and
wondered how we would get out , the fortunate thing was that the wind always
blows across the berth pm so we hauled her back along the inner pontoon till we
were nearly into the next berth tied her of on the stern released the drift
happy bow and hay presto the wind pivoted her all the way round pointing right
down the exit allay no bow thruster , we were pretty chuffed it worked held our
heads high as we released the stern and motored out, several people had been
looking and wondering what we were doing , the bow thruster set of yachties
...
It was a brilliant sunny afternoon not a
cloud in the sky as we exited the fort and headland of Bayona , ten knts of wind
from the NE , after we changed course for Madeira and about four miles offshore
we were surrounded with schools of dolphins it was pretty amazing and that's
coming from some one who has been upclose and personal with many of them late at
night down a pipe line they used to scare the s**t out of you as they would come
up from behind and go straight over your head , turn round look at you as much
as to say goch ya .
A little while after the dolphins had gone so
did the visibility down to about 20m , we had only discussed the day before
about the pilots warnings of fog during the summer months in the Rias of Spain ,
anyway it was a pee souper , that's ok I thought I will put the Auto Ship
Indicator AIS on , this recognises other ships transmitters and is displayed on
your chart plotter it assists you in collision avoidance , with the radar
running is a great navigation aid ,but it wasnt as it ceased to function ,
another chinermans bad soldering I suspect , also before we left Bayona we
tested our fog horn which had ceased to function , I replaced it the day before
we left , good job too , we had six hrs of it just like Lyme bay in late August
.
Dodging the big ones we made our way offshore
, fog cleared to a great starlight night , so we plodded on our merry way out of
the shipping lanes and into the deep blue stuff, unfortunately that's the last
of the sky we saw as the next day cloud covered it all the way to cloudy Porta
Santos .
Third day out we sighted a tall ship must
have been going to the med they were under motor , strange we thought as they
were directly down wind , must have been short handed , fourth day we tested our
hove to position which seem to work reasonably well but the wind wasn't that
strong but it was a good exercise , the rest was pretty boring watch keeping ,
didn't see bugger all one day , then at night they appeared just to keep your
radar skills sharpened .
The bad news all the bacon has finally been
consumed , so has the Mrs Bees ( Heinz Treacle Pub ) deep sorrow ..
We finally made landfall at 0800 Friday morning
Porta Santos Madeira , had a look around the small harbour , looks bigger in the
pilot book , went out to the anchorage and dropped the hook in 7 m of clear blue
water , you can see the bottom as clear as day .
Went to see customsand immigration , no
handcuffs or rubber truncheons but they want a lot more detail than in Spain ,
we also have to clear out when we depart to another part of the Island this is
the procedure in Portugal , I did miss the soles of my feet being beaten though
as they tried to get the last of my depleted bacon sarnies out of
me ,actually he was a very nice guy spoke perfect English and we discussed
the best places to visit and Chinese imports which he really had a thing about
.
Lyn has had another smouldering moment , the
marina launch came out to see if we needed anything , they offered us the
harbour wall but we politely declined it was another Anthony Bandariss they must
all come out of the same mould and work in marinas , he also spoke
perfect English .
We spent the rest of the day resting and as
we had loads of em to reply to started to attack them .
Departing for the main island in the next few
days , we are going into the new marina there, getting a hire car and going off
to be tourist for a week or so , plus the gas filling of the bottles , thanks to
our friends who came this way late last year , Ike Becky and Dan this task
is much simpler as I have all the info .( no fish yet Dan )
That's all for now folks
The Madeira Noah's
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