Sailing to Pôrto Santo in the Madeira Archipelago (Part 1)

Leaving La Linea marina   

We had completed a mega maintenance session at La Linea whilst we waited for our new mainsail to be delivered and, now that we had the sail, we were finally clear to leave. It certainly felt good to get out of the marina and also to know that BV was in fine form and ready for long distance passages.

We slipped our lines at 0830 on Friday 22 September, a little later in the month than we had hoped but much earlier than if we hadn’t had Andy Longarela’s help in getting the new mainsail measured up and ordered before our trip home. Gibraltar was capped in cloud for our departure and it felt cold; it was clearly time for us to head for sunnier climes!

The ugly superyacht and the Queen Elizabeth cruise liner   

Our route out through Gibraltar Bay’s shipping anchorage took us past what has to be the ugliest superyacht ever. There are so many beautiful superyachts so, if you have the money, why on earth would commission this ugly one? I guess that the urge to be different must be strong.

Flying fish in Gibraltar Bay   

Beyond the superyacht we came across a large pod of dolphins. There are lots of dolphins in Gibraltar Bay [Ed: and plenty of tripper boats in Gib to take you to see them too!] and the ones we saw were very small – maybe recent babies out learning how to hunt with mum. It would have been nice to think that they came over to wave us goodbye but actually they were busy chasing a school of flying fish for their breakfast.

Nicky had found a new 2-crew watch system that she wanted to try but we enjoyed being at sea again so much that we decided to both stay up for the first day. We know full well that that isn’t the best way to do things but it did mean that we were both up and about for the passage through and across the Straits of Gibraltar. However, with the wind light to virtually non-existent, we had to motor for an hour and a half to get out of Gibraltar Bay and down towards Tarifa because we didn’t want to miss the favourable tide on the inshore route out through the Straits.

Tarifa ahead   

Fortunately, Tarifa, ‘the windiest place in Europe’, lived up to its reputation somewhat and few miles short of the town there was enough wind to justify hoisting the mainsail, poling out the genoa and starting to sail.

Tarifa   

With 5 knots through the water and a bit of help from the tide we made good progress. We were one of 6 yachts going west and as we closed Tarifa we received a radio call from Tarifa VTS asking us if there was a race on. Bizarrely, we were the only ones actually sailing; the others were all motoring. By the time we reached Tarifa itself, the wind and tide had built and we were making 8 knots over the ground. Most satisfying! We were particularly pleased with the shape of the new mainsail – much flatter and much more of a decent aerofoil shape than the last one [Ed: even allowing for the fact that our old sail had probably stretched quite a bit over the years]. So far, we’re delighted with it, even if it has left a big dent in our bank balance!

Passing Punta Marroquí (Morocco Point?) at Tarifa   

Georgina steering   

Having passed through the Straits along the northern side we had to cross towards the African shore to continue our route towards Madeira. This meant dodging the steady stream of shipping entering and leaving the Mediterranean via the two traffic separation schemes, one off Tarifa and one in the approaches to the Straits. At 1630hrs, after we had got ourselves past all of that and I was bored of steering, we rigged up Georgina, the Hydrovane, and BV quietly steered herself on about 256^o to take us towards the Madeiran Archipelago. With the delayed departure from La Linea we have a little less time to visit Madeira than we probably need to do it justice but we thought that we’d do so all the same. Madeira is achievable with a 600nm beam to broad reach from the Straits of Gibraltar. If we didn’t visit it now we’d probably have to do a compete circuit of the Atlantic to comfortably get back there and so we decided that we should seize the opportunity before we head down to the Canary Islands.

Trialling a new watch routine   

During the evening, we clicked into the new watch routine that Nicky had found. Essentially, you spend a day as either ‘the Cook’ [Ed: Steven Seagal?] or ‘the Navigator’ [Ed: Vasco de Gama]. The overnight period is split up into 4 hour watches but during the day there are 2x two-hour overlapped periods to share meals. The cook spends more time on watch during the day to sort out the food but the navigator takes a compensating long watch from early evening up until midnight. The stagger allows us to swap roles at midnight so we are each take on the role of cook on alternate days.

The first overnight went well with a steady 15-20 knot wind. We started off with a poled out genoa and mainsail goose-winged but half way through the night, when we were well clear of the land, the wind came around to be from the north and so we switched to a reefed down beam reaching plan. Come the morning when we were both up at a watch changeover, we stowed the spinnaker pole and raised a little more sail to get BV bowling along at around 7 knots.

Nicky took on her day’s navigator job very seriously and dug out the sextant for some astronavigation. It will be interesting to see how slick we get at taking the sights and doing all of the calculations. With the GPS giving our actual position, it will also be very interesting to see how accurately we can calculate our fixes using the old methods.

Pôrto Santo in the Madeira Archipelago