Sailing to Baía d’Abra on Madeira

Leaving Porto Santo in Rain!   

Porto Santo is lower in height than Madeira and is supposed to have much less rain as a result but when we came to leave, at 0900 on Saturday 30 September, we had both rain and rainbows.

Fortunately the weather cleared after about an hour and we got a good clear view behind us of the port…..

Baía de Porto Santo   

… and of most of the island as we sailed down the coastline.

Ilhéu de Baixo   

But as we approached Ilhéu de Baixo, the island on the southern tip of Porto Santo, we got one last dousing before we could properly settle in and enjoy our 30 mile passage to Madeira.

Land ho! Madeira ahead   

With it being such a short passage and with the mountains on Madeira reaching up to over 1800 metres we spotted Madeira almost immediately. It was good passage with 15-18 knots of wind from behind us that kept BV bowling along and the miles counting down.

We aimed for the eastern end of Madeira where a long rocky peninsula stretches 4 miles out to the east of the rectangular shaped island.

Ilhas Desertas (L) and the rocky peaks of the peninsula   

Ten miles to our left we could see the imposing Ilhas Desertas capped by cloud and, to our right, the rocky peaks on the northern side of the peninsula we would be rounding. As the name suggests, the Ilhas Desertas are not populated except for a couple of wardens who police the nature reserve. Nicky had read that you can apply to the Portuguese authorities for permission to land on the main island. It would take some time to do but we intended to give it a try.

Ilhéu do Farol (top) and sailing along the southern side of the peninsula   

We gave Ilhéu do Farol, the island at the tip of the peninsula, a wide berth because of offlying rocks and then adjusted the sails for a fast beam reach along the southern side of the peninsula towards our destination. We planned to stop in a bay mid-way along the peninsula but the amount of wind and downdraughts coming over the high ground were quite impressive. Good for fast sailing but not so good for a quiet time at anchor!

Baía d’Abra   

The cliffs in this area are beautifully coloured with strata of sedimentary rock cut through by ‘chimneys’ of volcanic rock where the lava had worked its way up through the seabed during volcanic eruptions. It looks just like a diagram from a child’s book about volcanoes! With such high cliffs though, it was hard to judge the scale of things and to positively identify our anchorage. Eventually, however, the Baía d’Abra started to stand out and we could see 2 other yachts already anchored there; a small motor yacht seemingly anchored at the base of the cliff and a German sailing yacht seemingly a short distance off. We worked our way into the bay and dropped our anchor in 8 metres of beautifully clear blue water between the two. We did experience quite a few downdraughts which pushed BV around but the shelter was much better than we had thought it would be as we had approached. The scale of the cliffs had also deceived us and, looking from the shore later, we realised that the German was far too far out and the motorboat was actually 100 metres off the cliff base. But though we could easily have anchored BV further in, she was secure and a quick swim confirmed that the anchor was well dug in to black volcanic sand. We weren’t sure how long we’d stay at the anchorage but we had already seen lots of hill walkers exploring the rugged peninsula and so, as a minimum, we wanted to go ashore and walk through this wild national park.

Baía d’Abra, Madeira