Funchal - Madeira Grande

We left Porto Santo the 23rd for Madeira. We first intended to anchor at Machico. But there was work being done at the breakwater and Madeira airport runway ended just beside the anchorage. So we continued to Funchal. Arriving one day early they were kind and gave us a good berth.

We have been sightseeing eating and shopping. Done some work on the boat. Unblocked the sink  in the galley and replaced a diode in the solar panel/windgenerator circuit.

We had an exciting trip on the cable car up the mountain to the tropical garden.
Have a look at the video on Youtube:   https://youtu.be/7SfjbRez7oQ

And here is a few pictures too.

Grete relaxing after a hard trip up the mountain.

Tropical garden, waterfeatures

Fluids in large quantities is imperative in temps like theese...

On our way down the mountain

Tomorrow we sail 15nm to the small port of Cahleta.
We will stay there in till Friday. On Wednesday we are going for a 6hr walk on the "Levadas"
We will be arriving the Marina at Santa Cruz, Tennerife Sunday afternoon.

Will try to be on HF radio for SSB and CW on 14328 at 1900z.

Still in Porto Santo

We are still in Porto Santo. We love this island for it quiet and relaxed athmosphere.

Today we rented a car and went exploring. On the higher peaks there were some nice viewpoints.
Here is one of them overlooking the port and the marina we are in.

We zoomed in to get a look on "Ocean Viking" resting at the pontoon.

The north side of the island was clearly marked by earlier volcanic terrain.
There were more birds there, a few trees (almost a forest) and a thin layer of vegetation.

Grete spotted a few hawks (not shure what kind) that hung in the air looking for preys...

Even got close to one sitting on a fensepost at the airport, that didn't mind being photographed

View from one of the Pico's showing the airport and out towards the west.
You should be able to see the main island, Madeira Grande in the horizon.

Our plan is to depart from Porto Santo on Wednesday towards Madeira Grande.
There are a couple of anchorages/marinas we might try - before we arrive in the main town of Funchal. Will write more later.  Cheers to you all !

PS. Have had regular contacts on 14.328 (shortwave radio) at 1700Z with Leif/LA3ZH and Alf/LA1ZM) But as there is lots of local noise in Porto Santo Marina I havn't heard anyone else
calling.

Radio sked times

The past week condx to Norway on 20m HAM radio has been from fantastic to poor. I will be on 14328 (14333 if QRM) at 1700UTC. However we are at anchor in Porto Santo with hills shielding to N.Europe. Try listen via SDR receivers online. Many of them to be found at SDR.HU

Cascais to Porto Santo

We are approaching the Island of Porto Santo in the Madeira Archipelago.
We should be in Porto Santo Marina in a couple of hours.

Porto Santo - land ahoi !

 We left Cascais near Lisboa at 1100 the 2nd of October to sail 480 nm to PS.
This has so far been our longest crossing. Weather has been very nice, a bit too nice as we have had to motorsail much of the time. We have been supplied by weatherforecast by Geir's radio friend Leif/LA3ZH via Winlink/Pactor on the HF radio.

Beeing a low traffic area it has been possible to risk longer sleeping periods between lookouts. 
Radar and AIS makes it possible to spot other vessels. The water is too deep for fisheries.

But we were paid a visit by these guys:

We were a bit concerned that no officials asked our next port of call or dep/arr times.
We tried to call Portugese radio stations or coastguard on VHF while we were withing range, but got no reply.
We ended up phoneing MRCC Lisboa who gladly registred our sail plan and we agreed we'd call them back then arriving at Porto Santo.
When we were within cellphone range from PS - Sunday morning they had already tried to phone us Twice.
Phoned them back and thanked them for their vigilancy and concern.

Grete has served very nice dinners on the way. Twice Indian caserolle and Saturday we had this nice pasta bolognaise.

Home made Bolognaise and a small glass of red ;)

Vigo to Cascais

We decided to push on from Vigo directly to Cascais near Liboa. We really want to get to warmer waters soon. After we had departed Vigo we slowly discovered that our new toilet setup wasn't working at all. Solids would not come out, fluids would - but very slow. As the weather window was limited we decided to push on.
In spite of the poor toilett conditions we had a great trip south. Wind from 5 to 15 knots and we had to use the metal genoa when speed got too slow. The 48 hour trip was eventless, but we had a couple of meetings with other vessels that made the trip a bit more fun.

Costa Mediterranea 

As we crossed the border to Portugal the Spanish courtesy flag was replaced with the Potugese.

This fishisng boat wanted to have a look at us and passed close by.

We arrived in Cascais at 0730 Portugese time on Sunday the 29. September.
The next day we got started checking the toilet problem. The hose on the exit of the toilet was packed solid with salt/stone recidues.  Banging the hose on the pontoon and flushing it with water cleaned it up and it was reainstalled. Now it all works as it should. We spent one day at the marina, but as the berthing fee is rather high we left and anchored just outside.

We are discussing where to sail next. The weather is fine to proceed for a 4 day trip to Porto Santo and Madeira.

Muros to Vigo

Long overdue on the blog updates.

We had 3 nights in Muros. Waited on weather to go south to next destinations..
We had two nights in the marina with very high winds and heavy rain showers.

Our electrical toilet is about to stop working and we need to get it fixed.
We would like to have it done by a mechanic and have found a marina in Vigo that will do the job.
We think it may be enough to replace the electric pump-out with a manual one.
We purchased a manual pump conversion kit when in Falmouth, for later installation.
The electric pump draws 20 Amps and being on a boat every Amp saved is important.

We left for Vigo at 10AM to sail the 70 miles to Vigo. We had some wind from the west and we motorsailed most of the time arriving Marina Davila Sport in Vigo just as the sun set.
The next morning Javier from the marina boatyard came onboard for a look at the job.
He said it would be an easy job which would be done the next day.

Thursday we got a taxi to a large supermarket in Vigo and bought provisions the will last us a few days. Outside the supermarked was this big fishingboat put on display several km's inland.
It's clear to see Vigo is proud of it's inheretants of being a big fishery port.

Same afternoon the mechanic appeared and got to work. He was very efficient and the toilet was in place with a manual pump. We left Vigo the next morning (Friday, after having filled up 100L of diesel. Our destination would now be Cascais near Lisboa in Portugal.
Distance 240 nautical miles and 48 hrs of sailing.

La Coruna to Camarinas, Finnisterre & Muros

We left La Coruna to go south along the Atlantic coast on Wenesday morning.

Ocean Viking in Marina Coruna (center)

Weather was fine but even if the wind was from the NE it was too light to be of any help.
Once again our green metal genoa had to be put to work.
As we motored on our way towards the anchorage for the night in the little town of Camarinas, we sailed into dense fog. We have a good radar and it was started. Most ships/boats today are equiped with an AIS (Automitic Identification System) which makes boat visible on chartplotters.
But there are exceptions and we met a few of them. One of them was this fisherman.
We saw him on the radar - but he wasn't paying attention to his radar and kept coming at us.
As you will see he spotted us just 5/10 seconds before we would have crashed.

We arrived Camarinas and anchored just before darknes.
There were a few other boats anchored there aswell. German, Dutch, Danish, French.

At anchor in Camarinas

 When we woke up the next morning visibility was ZERO. We waited untill midday when the fog lifted slightly and we were on our way this time to sail past Cape Finnisterre and to Muros, our next anchorage. Also this time motoring as there was no wind. We passed Finnisterre and the sea was dead calm.

Cape Finnisterre capped by fog.

 We arrived Muros at sunset and anchored just outside the marina in 9m.

First Mate relaxing after anchoring

As the weatherforecast predicted strong wind and lots of rain, we decided to go into the marina the next day and wait it out.
Saturday morning the wind got up to 35-40 knots and the boats in the marina realy moved from the wind coming down the mountainside.
Muros is a small town, but nice and quiet. There are many yachts here, 3 of them Norwegian.

Muros seen from the anchorage

Looks like we will be stuck here untill Tuesday.