Sailing to Pôrto Santo in the Madeira Archipelago (Part 2)

And so, we settled into life on board with our activities governed by the watch routine. It would be our longest passage to date and we’d already found some new anomalies. Our somewhat dated Raytheon [Ed: predecessor to Raymarine, shows how old they are!] ST80 cockpit instruments are fed data by the much newer Lowrance GPS and we discovered that they got bit confused trying to show any ‘distance to go’ greater than 409 miles. We haven’t done a passage longer than 409 miles before and so that just hasn’t shown up before. I guess I’ll have to check the wiring is all good when we get to an anchorage at the end of our passage but it’s probably just one of those things that we’ll have to learn to live with. We also need to do a little work on the mainsail reefing point blocks/frictionless loops to get them exactly how I want them. But, aside from those minor things, BV was performing brilliantly. It was also so nice to have a steady wind for sailing; such a change from the light winds we’d experienced in the Mediterranean.

Astronav calculations and plotting sheet   

We took it in turns to practice our astronavigation skills when we were in the navigating role. We tend to take sun-sights, though we have played with moon and star sights. With the sextant we measure the angle between the bottom of the sun and the horizon. Then, using a series of formulae and data from annually updated tables, this angle is adjusted to give a figure which represents a circle on the earth’s surface; we should be somewhere on that rather large circle [Ed: assuming the sextant measurement was accurate and all the data manipulation has been without error!]. Doing the same at meridian passage, when the sun is at its highest, gives an accurate[!] latitude. A few hours later we do another sun-sight to give us a third large circle. These 3 bits of information are then plotted, the circles are shifted forwards and backwards by the distance our log says that we have moved through the water and, where they intersect they form a small triangle [Ed: technically 2 small triangles, one approx. where we are and one at another point on the world a long way from us. But the plotting sheets aren’t large enough to show the second intersect or, indeed, the whole of the large circles our sights produce; they actually look like 3 straight lines.] Theoretically, if we have done our sextant reading and sums accurately we would have been somewhere inside that small triangle at midday. That’s the theory – now add waves and swell! It’s definitely an area navigation tool but, if nothing else, it helps to pass the time!

After our second night at sea, I did a quick tour of the deck to check everything was OK, only to discover a squid (now deceased) on deck. Nicky had commented on the amazing phosphorescence she had seen during the night – the wake, the bow wave and the wash along the side of the boat had been filled with large blobs of green light as BV pushed through the sea. She had even seen phosphorescence in spray that had been thrown up as BV hit a wave awkwardly. Presumably, the squid had been thrown aboard in a similar way. We have read of people collecting flying fish from their decks at dawn when sailing in the tradewinds but not of finding squid on board. However, since they come to the surface at night to feed, I guess it’s probably a relatively common occurrence.

The small tuna   

Just as Nicky was preparing lunch on our third day at sea (Sun 24 Sep), my fishing line started to reel out. It didn’t go out terribly fast so we both assumed that my ‘rubbish fisherman’ status was about to be confirmed with a catch of a plastic bag or something similar. So, it was with some surprise that I got to the end of the line only to find a mini-tuna attached to the lure. He/she was quickly dispatched and filleted and Nicky’s menu plan for the evening meal adjusted accordingly.

Trying to land the dorado(L), Spanish mackerel (R)   

It turned out to be a good fishing day; we caught 3 fish in all, the small tuna, a Spanish mackerel and, the largest, a beautiful green dorado. Sadly, the dorado got off the hook as we tried to get it on board, which was a shame because they are very good to eat.

Land Ho! Madeira land flag   

On Monday our progress slowed. The wind gradually dropped off and for most of the day we only had 10 knots, often less. Our midday to midday run was 132 nautical miles and this slowing trend continued into Tuesday when the run was down to just 115 nautical miles. However, Tuesday had some significant highlights. Firstly, we got to see our destination and, as we closed with the land, we hoisted our Portuguese courtesy ensign as well as the rather colourful Madeiran land flag.

Secondly, as we got closer still, we were met by a school of dolphins who enjoyed playing in our bow wave.

The dolphins returned when we were just 6 miles away from Pôrto Santo but by this time the wind had dropped right off to 6 knots. Much to the delight of the dolphins we switched on the engine which gave them a much better bow wave to play in.

Approaching Pôrto Santo   

Pôrto Santo is a fascinating island to approach with its abrupt volcanic peaks and dark, seemingly scorched, appearance. The harbour is on the south side of the island protected from the prevailing wind and swell. You can anchor outside the harbour just off a sandy beach but with the swell hooking around the east end of the island, that looked to be very rolly, so we went for the better shelter inside the harbour.

BV anchored in Pôrto Santo   

The harbour is certainly not as picturesque a location [Ed: not shown in Reg’s ‘estate agent' photos are the marina/yacht club buildings, power station, cement plant and cement storage unit] but it is very sheltered. We dropped our anchor at 1600hrs on Tuesday 26 September. The GPS gave the passage distance as 580 nautical miles, our log had counted up 565 nm, the difference being from the help of the tide through the Straits of Gibraltar plus our log probably needing a bit of adjustment. The passage has been our longest to date. Whilst we were en route we passed 2 milestones: 3000nm sailed this year and 25,000nm sailed since we have owned BV. With those milestones and the sense of achievement after our long passage it was definitely time to pop a cork and celebrate. We did, but only after we had been ashore and completed the arrival paperwork.

Pôrto Santo in the Madeira Archipelago