Arrived in Porto Santo (Madeira)

Finally arrived in Porto Santo. The trip was uneventfull bordering to boring ;) I guess sailing to a destination you have been to before, lowers the challenge and the exitement. The weather enroute was mediokre, wind was a little too light and speed had to be increased using motor at times. Normally we sailed best during daytime and the windvane did all the steering. Night time motorsailing. Surprisingly there was a lot of shipping traffic. And we had to give way twice. So sleeping at the helm was not recommended. Although we did sleep - but in short periods. Arriving at Porto Santo we went straight in to the anchorage inside the breakwater. Lots of boats already anchored there. At our first attempt we did'nt find a good holding and drifted to close to another vessel. We then moved to another spot further north and found good holding and good swing-room. Next contacted the marina and sent them our covid vaccine certificates. They need to be authenticated before we are allowed to come ashore. Hopefully we will do so tomorrow. We have cold beer in the fridge and Grete has prepared a nice dinner for tonight, baccalao. No one makes baccalao as good as she do. We plan to spend a month here - and will start stripping our broken down teak deck. Plan is to get that done and apply Kiwi Grip deck paint. We got hold of paint online and it was sent to us at the marina in Cascais. Grete & Geir

On our way to Porto Santo

We departed Cascais Wednesday afternoon. We had just received a parcell of tools ordered online, filled our tanks with freshwater.
Maintank and 2 jerry cans filled with diesel. Diesel is getting very expensive. 1,65 Euro per litre.

So far we have been sailing and steering by our trusted Hydrovane wind rudder.
It needs correction quite often as it will veer of course slightly. On a longer voyage 1000 nm or more you can accept
drifting of course and longer intervalls between ajdustments. But now our voyage is less than 500nm.
Adjustments at night time gives us less time to rest/sleep. Yes - we do sleep on watch.
Our AIS system is keeping us safe and decides how long sleeping periods we can allow to do.
Usually we have napps of 30minutes or max 2 hours.

So the Hydrovane is used at daytime and the electric autopilot at night time. The autopilot draws from 4-6 Amps,
so in order to maintain the battery capacity we run the engine at just above idle speed. It also helps with a half/one knot extra. Charging is also pretty good from our wind generator and at daytime solar panels.

The weather is perfect. We have winds constantly from the north at 10 to 15 knots, meaning 130 degrees into our starboard side.
Speed is averaging 5.7 knots. Looks like we will arrive Porto Santo early morning on Sunday the 19th.

We are both feeling well and the boat is performing excellent. We have a Danish neightbour 10 miles off our port side.
S/Y Hennessy also bound for Porto Santo.

Grete & Geir

Spennende "innspurt"

Vi er på de siste 25 nautiske milene inn til Cascais. En kjenning ligger i havnen der og

vi pratet på WhatsApp om hvor god ankrings plass det er. Før vi slutter av forteller han at 3 båter ble angrepet igår av spekkhoggere, utenfor byen Sines, like sør for Lisboa. Nå blir vi sittende å bite negler og finkjemme djøen rundt oss - til vi er kommet oss inn og er oppankret. Da har faenskapet flyttet seg nordover fra farvannet utenfor Gibraltar stredet. 

Adrift in Baiona

Monday we did our first trip ashore.

We have been safely anchored for 3 nights and had periods of 15 to 20 knots in the aftetnoons. We went in with our dinghy just before 12AM and went shopping. When we returned almost 2 hours later our boat was adrift. The wind was 10 to 15 knots and was pushing our boat and two others into the bay.

A young guy on a Belgian sailboat that was in the drift path, had just managed to get our boat alongside as we arrived. We soon got control, recovered our anchor and motored back to the anchorage. We sooner learned that a large AMEL sailboat had started to drift as their anchor had been caught on a fishing-pot when they anchored the day before.

Checking the AIS history, it looked like the boat had drifted over our chain and most probably disturbed chain/anchor enough to set our boat adrift. But all in all, no damage. The AMEL and a french catamaran drifted almost accross the bay before they were recovered.  So even if you own boat initially is safe, you are totally dependent that other boats have been properly anchored. 

Baiona

 Baiona is a sheltered small town located WSW of Vigo. It has 2 marinas and a large anchorage. 

We departed Vigo 2nd September and did the 10 miles to Baiona arriving at high water at 2PM.

View af Baiona marinas (Geir & dinghy)

We anchored in 5m water and with a number of other sailing yachts around us.   Even a few more Norwegian boats. We had decided to have few days at anchor here, just relaxing and do some excursions ashore. So far we have been too lazy, but the dinghy is ready ;)

Grete has made some great dinners which we have enjoyed fully. We really need to get some excercise done.

Beef Stroganoff - captain very pleased with the chef  ;)

Have been on the ham radio most evenings, but it’s hard on the batteries, so radio skeds has been reduced to Mondays & Fridays at 1730z on 14045 CW and on 14328 USB at 1800z. 

Sunset at Baiona anchorage.

Back in Vigo

 We have been to Vigo on our last voyage in 2019. We arrived Vigo PM the 30th August. Marina Davila located in the suburb of Bouzas. We had a very foggy trip and therefore chose to sail in the traffic separation zone to avoid meeting vessels. The direct track would have been shorter, but also buisier with local fishing boats.

Sailing on th NW coast of Spain requires in our opinion a good radar and understanding
of how to use it - to plot a target and see witch way it is moving and how fast.

As we got closer to the marine we were called by Vigo pilot informing us of a large cargo vessel which was about to cast of from the RO-RO terminal. We reduced speed and waited for the vessel to pass. Visibility was down to 50 to 100 meters. 

As fog lifted, vessel was 200m from us.

 

RO-RO terminal to the right, marina a bit further in.                

When we passed them and looked out to our port side the fog lifted and we saw a large wall of steel rising op from the sea, 200m away. We motored the last 5 minutes into the marina and were welcomed by the marina straff who gave us a hand with tie-up and power connection.

Doing the paperwork

The next day we had our laundry done while we taxied up to Alcampo supermarked.
Its a large well stocked place about 10 minutes by taxi from the marina.
We also tried to get hold of special kind of deck paint - as we have plans for a major job when we get to Porto Santo, in the Madeira’s. And a new solar panel we planned to fit the foredeck. But none of this was available locally. We will just have to try elsewhere.

Shopping done

Masks neccessary and compulsary at Alcampos.

Illa de Ons

 After a couple of calm, quiet and relaxing days at anchor in Arousa we received a navigation permit to visit the nature reserve Illa de Ons. We departed Sunday 29th August and motored the short stretch of just 3 hrs and anchored our side Playa Melide. A long popular sandy beach. 

 Unfortunately the demand was all dinghies had to be carried up to the upper end of the beach - too hard work for us. We ended up watching the island from the boat.

 The final day fog rolled in and visibility was next to nothing. A bit scary as local fishing boats came pretty close. We could hear their engines and the waves slapping against our boat. We decided to leave for the city of Vigo where we would fill up with fresh water and foods/drinks. At same time do our laundry and get rid of the garbage.