Photos from Porto Santo and update

Still not seen a lot yet and we only on Porto Santo which is a small volcanic and fairly barren but with a great beach. It's still VERY quite here. There are only 4 other visiting yachts and 3 are all Swedish! The other not sure. Only a couple of local yachts in the water. We took a taxi into the (only) "town" yesterday evening.  Attractive and been developed sympathetically but the original town no bigger than a small village. Columbus apparently lived here so hope to get back into town later to see the museum and Church after doing various odd jobs, mainly on the wind vane.

The plan is to leave tomorrow for Ilhas Desert as - small islands off the south coast of Madeira itself and which being a nature reserve we need a special permit to visit. It looks beautiful and only has one secluded anchorage which given it is so quiet hopefully will be just that. As long as weather is ok we'll stay there overnight and probably try out the "new" outboard to get ashore. Then we'll go over to Funchal the day after.

Cascais to Madeira...(Porto Santo)

Porto Santo landfall

...was tough going for the second half of the first day and the first of the second. It all started benignly enough in the sun in Cascais bay on Saturday morning in a gentle westerly breeze. The forecast did include strong winds F6-7 for a spell later in the day with 4 Meter waves but Portuguese meters seem pretty big to me, or perhaps they don't count the swell the waves are on and when the swell came from more than one direction, a F6/7 in the Atlantic felt a different proposition to one at home. Our first reef went in at 1330 with Angus beginning to struggle on abeam reach. The second an hour later. Two hours later reef number three after one of the blocks in Angus's system shattered under the strain. During this period I had been progressively tightening up the cross bolts on Angus's deck mount to stop him kicking up in the ever growing seas. Around the same time one of the eye splices I had made unravelled and I had to tie another bit of line in place that restricted Angus's movement. One of his outriggers was also wearing down which messed up the angles of the tiller lines and reduced his movement still further. Over the next couple of hours I tried a couple of temporary fixes and ended up tying a bit of rubber in place to stop the outrigger moving so much. Tony went down with a bad attack of sea sickness during this period aggravated by an existing tummy issue and so I stood two watches back to back. Come 0800 on Sunday it was still blowing a stinker and Tony still out of commission after he gamely struggled to operate. We therefore hove too for 4 hours to try and get some rest. I had still not adjusted to the rhythm of the sea and so sleep was impossible but the rest did help.

Up to this point AS had been storming along a 7 + knots. I had never experienced her sailing at that speed sustained hour after hour and was secretly keen to better our estimated 5 days for the 500 mile passage. I really should have hove too earlier to give Tony a break earlier (from the fairly vigorous motion of the boat).

Anyway by midday Sunday the conditions began to moderate and with Tony feeling a bit better we got underway again. At 1530 we shook out a reef. After a couple of hours we were a little under canvassed but still making 5 knots so kept our reefs in to give us an easier ride.

0700 on Monday saw us at the same Latitude as Cape Trafalgar - 36°08' and so we liberated Trevor the Duck to mark the historic sea battle. By 1100 we conditions had eased further and so shake out the remaining two reefs and due to a wind shift to pole out the Genoa. I did this on my own to get the practise in. It took me an hour!

By midday we had covered 247 miles over the ground towards Madeira.

The rest of the trip was pretty much plain sailing with slight wind shifts requiring the Genoa to be successively set normally then to be poled out. By this time we were both able to sleep when off watch which was a blessed relief. I had even mm managed to make a Shepherds Pie which lasted two dinners and on Tuesday Tony woke hungry for the first time in the morning and cooked scrambled eggs for breakfast which we then chased around the still heaving cabin for fun.

At 0035 on Wednesday I sighted lights on Porto Santo and as the dawn broke the Island emerged from the still gloomy dawn. It seemed a much more significant landfall than the others despite this being a passage two days shorter than our crossing of Biscay.

The Pilot book warns yachtsmen that the ferry from Madeira arrives daily at 1030 and that yachts should keep clear at time. Guess what time we were approaching the harbour?

At 1100 we had avoided the ferry and were moored up in the marina. 4 days to the minute from weighing Anchor in Cascais bay!

Lisbon 20/5/1

Spent a very enjoyable Monday evening out to dinner with Charles and Zoe from Valindra a 37 foot Kim Holman sloop. They have just started their round the world cruise having left the UK south coast a little after us.

They have also been very helpful with the loan of their digital scales needed to measure the weight of the counter balance weight of the wind vane, and with a gift of some lead flashing that we needed to adjust the weight of same.

We have now completed the various adjustments to the wind vane suggested by John and Chris, barring a couple that may need to be made whilst under way.

Also did a couple of other jobs on the boat - rigging a permanent preventer line for the mainsail and a downhaul on the spinnaker pole. Both lead back to the cockpit and should make setting up the sails for running much easier.

Now we need the wind to calm down a little which has been howling here for the last few days (and to do our laundry) before we set of on yet another trial of the wind vane. That will probably be to Cascais on Friday, weather permitting. Hopefully, we'll then be ready to head off on the longer haul to the Azore, possibly via Madeira.

Lisbon and Wind Vane update.

This taken from the marina water front looking towards the bridge last night. Arctic Smoke is buried in there near the bridge. It looks prettier than it is!

This the party boat that kept us awake on our first night.

We have now had loads of information and advice from John and Chris the designer and builder of the wind vane and have started to digest it. There are half a dozen things to look at/adjustments to make, which we will start tomorrow. Fingers crossed! 

Went looking for Chandlers, shops and markets today. Found a supermarket and market for provisioning. Found a Chandlers but they didn't have what we needed/very expensive. The response we got when asking for grease was as if we had asked for nuclear fuel! Still will try alternatives tomorrow or day after.

Also looked for digital scales to weigh the weights on the wind vane. No luck other than now know best place to look which is a bit of trek. Not sure if essential requirement yet so will see how we get on without.

Otherwise wandered around as tourists do and just enjoyed the experience of Lisbon. 

Ongoing quest to find a jazz venue also continues. There's a jazz festival on but only at weekends, by which time we plan to have departed.

Just as we got back to boat we saw another Brit boat come in that we had chatted too in Leixeos. Have been invited for drinks later.

Peniche to Lisbon

We left Peniche around 0830 and headed south initially in moderate and then light winds from the NW that after a couple of hours dropped to nearly no wind at all for an hour or so. The winds then increased to a F5 possibly gusting 6 later in the day from more or less north that put us on more or less a dead run. The wind at least initially was no stronger than the previous passage but the swell probably was and we were always close to gybing. In these conditions Angus found it impossible to cope. The boat kept on gybing or veering off down wind despite trying various sail plans, which cumulated in two reefs in the main and genoa when the wind and swell was at its highest. We had to resort to hand steering again which was a bit of a blow given we have a longish passage coming up to the Azores.

Conditions were quite challenging even for a human helmsman between Cabo Roso and Cascais so perhaps it was a bit too much to expect Angus to deal with. At times and for (very) short periods Arctic Smoke surfed down waves at 9.5 knots, a speed I had never witnessed before. Most of the time however she was making around 6.5 knots. Nearer to Cascais the conditions moderated and we passed a couple of yachts going in the opposite direction against the weather and the current and we wondered if they realised what was lying in wait for them around the corner!

Prior to Cabo Roso however, we were in conditions that will be only too common on the open ocean so we still need to make further improvements to Angus's operation if we're to make the Azores without being completely exhausted. I've therefore emailed the two brains behind Angus, the designer and builder and have asked for their views.

The upside of the day was a great sail across the bay and up the river to Lisbon. The water was almost flat once we were in the lee of the land but for the most part we still had a good breeze and so we romped along at 6-7 knots on a close reach/close hauled for the next couple of hours. That was just as well because the tide had turned against us and we were often only making 4k over the ground.

We entered Alcatara marina just before 2030 to make it a 12 hour passage to cover the 60 nautical miles, not bas considering we were pushing a foul tide for the last 3 hours.

We moored up on the first pontoon we came to and given the lateness of the hour and the fact that we had two steaks in the fridge we dined on board thanks to Tony's excellent skills in the galley. We turned in at around 2330 only to be disturbed by a party boat anchoring a few meters away with disco blaring at full blast. They disappeared after about an hour only for the clubs to open up with their cacophony a few minutes later. They didn't stop until 0700 the following morning.

Today, Sunday we moved the boat further up the marina, away from the clubs we were assured. We're now nearer the bridge but also further away from the commercial docks.

It's so hot today that we have rigged the cockpit cover for the first time since 2012 in Amsterdam!

We plan to stay here a few days \u8211\'96 hopefully improve the wind vane, rest up, tackle a few jobs and generally prepare the boat and then head out into the ocean proper.

Peniche ...

... is an old fishing port.

Once a very major one but the fleet now is much reduced. Used to be an island but now joined up with the rest of the land (not sure whether silted up or reclaimed land). The local fort dating back centuries more recently housed political prisoners - republicans I think during the revolution.

Any resemblance to my mate is of course entirely coincidental.

Going out for a fish dinner tonight. Tony is on a mission to try as many fish soups on the cruise as possible.

The wind is still blowing a near gale from the north and a number of yachts are waiting like us to head south to Lisbon.

We plan to leave tomorrow.

Leixeos to Peniche

Sorry, no photos but see the tracking page for the only one taken this passage.

We left Leixeos at about 1500 on Wednesday 13/5 in light westerly winds with Nazare about 70 miles south our intended destination. Subsequently however we decided to push on to Peniche another 30 miles south. The wind gradually increased in fits and starts over the following 24 hours such that by mid morning today (Thursday) we had a reef in the main and a few turns in the Genoa and were running at about 6.5 k in a NNW F 5/6 with a heavy swell running that occasionally and then more frequently over powered Angus and caused the boat to gybe.

It was after this had been going on for 30 mins or so that I partly furled the Genoa which improved things dramatically. I realised that without a reef in the Genoa the sail plan was out of balance and in the gusts the poled out Genoa pushed the bows downwind forcing the gybe despite Angus's best efforts!

I also figured something out about wind vanes - unlike a human they can't compensate for variations in weather helm that gusting conditions (exacerbated by swell) create. Getting the sail plan balanced to the best compromise is therefore critical to maintaining a steady course relative to the wind. In open ocean providing gybing is avoided it doesn't matter too much if the boat yaws about but if as we were, you're sailing to way points (between islands and the mainland) you want a steady course. I then also found that the best way of managing the extreme fluctuations in the wind was to adjust the main sheet tension.

We saw  one solitary dolphin this morning. By the time I had the camera out he'd gone!

A couple of issues cropped up on the passage. Around midday I noticed that the solar panel meter display was showing a full battery despite the fact that the battery was continuing to drain rather than charge. I eventually traced the cause to a blown fuse on the positive cable to the batteries. I then realised that I failed to replace the fuse with one of an increased rating when i added the 2 100w panels to the original 50w one. The 6.5a fuse was not able to cope with 12+ a being generated by the panels. Strangely the 10 fuse I replaced it with (the highest rated fuse I had) was!

The other issue is that something's amiss with the end of tiller near the rudder head. A bolt seems to have pulled out. Something to look at tomorrow, but nothing a bit of epoxy won't sort out I'm sure.

By 1400 we were between Ilha Da Berlegha and Cabo Carvoeiro and the seas were quite boisterous, no doubt brought about by a combination of shoaling water and the north/south current funneling through the gap. Things quietened down once we got into the lee of Cabo Carvoeio and we were moored up in Pineche at 1600.

Tomorrow will be a rest/odd job/sight seeing day. We aim to push on for Lisbon on Saturday.