Rabat To Madeira

Although we have done quite a lot of passage making in Sarah G during this cruise, we have not so far, done a proper ocean passage. Two days from Cadíz to Rabat was really just a long coast wise passage. Thus we were approaching our planned trip to Madeira with some slight trepidation. However it has panned out quite well and we are now delighted to be in Porto Santo. It was not he easiest of passages as the trade winds blew with quite a vengeance and for two days we were getting winds of between 25 and thirty knots for hours at a time. Indeed, they only dropped for a few hours from lunch time till sundown – rather the opposite of a sea breeze really!

Of course, with the stronger wind came steeper seas rather than the long rolling waves we were hoping for. In particular the third night at sea brought a vicious cross sea that led to a very jerky and uncomfortable motion. So, for two days we really did not enjoy ourselves! However, we were putting in good daily runs and were averaging around 4.5 knots which equals about 110 miles a day rather than the hundred we normally budget on. Thus the whole passage only took four days rather than the five we expected. The final day at sea was also very nice, the cloud that had obscured the night sky disappeared and the wind did not get up nearly as much being much more what you expect in the trade winds – 15-25 knots. Then to cap it off we got a landfall just as the sun was going down with an ethereal hazy view of the mountains of Porto Santo coming up. We eventually picked up a swinging mooring in the harbour being unable to find a marina berth.

Landfall was truly spectacular with a very mountainous Porto Santo emerging out of the haze just as the sun was going down. The final approach took a couple of hours and then we had a bit of a go around till we picked up the mooring and of all things another boat was arriving at exactly the same time! This photo sort of does justice to the landfall. I make no apologies for the crooked horizon either :-)

Clear skies brought spectacular views of the milky way which was running almost directly over head. Also, being the Persids, there were lots of meteors to see. It would be lovely if the boat were sufficiently stable a platform to set up a telescope though the idea of putting my 130 mm reflector telescope on the foredeck would be an interesting one. Were old Patrick Moore alive he could make some acerbic comment about extreme astronomy.

As it turns out, a race had arrived that night and the marina was nearly full. So, we are on one of their swinging moorings and happier just as we prefer to be at anchor if we can. It is also cheaper!

As for other observations about the passage. UK based yotties will be familiar with how carefully the UK Coastguard patrol the VHF airwaves. Well, down here, when in range of the coast, is a very different affair and there is a constant barrage of silly chit chat and other stuff. One person in the region of Casablanca spent the whole night being “Monkey” and giving instructions for “Banana Port Operations”. Lots of other people would then tell him to shut up but that only encouraged him more. We were getting very puritanical about it all and wondering what the calm officers at Falmouth Coastguard would do about it.

This was one very large tanker that passed quite close to us on one of the cloudy days.

Offshore, the ships keep up a very ugly set of abusive chat between each other. We now know that Philippino and Indian crew all hate each other and trade racist insults on channel 16 but only at night. For the non sailors, there are a whole load of VHF channels all of which have different purposes such as port operations, ship to shore and ship to ship. Channel 16 is the designated calling and emergency channel. You are supposed to keep a listening watch on it so that if any one is in distress, they can make a mayday call and everyone else will hear it. When making routine calls you must keep the usage of channel 16 to a minimum and then move to a working channel. Of course, well out to sea there is very little to do on the bridge of a large ship and no zealous radio officer to tell you to shut up so I can understand the tendency of a bored and underpaid fourth officer to trade insults with the other ships he can see on his radar though it is a bit unpleasant when you are trying to snatch some sleep while off watch.

Still, we are delighted to be here and are definitely ready to do some more! We might turn off the VHF radio though.

This, even greyer, picture was taken about half way. I have a note in the logbook to say that Porto Santo was 235 miles dead ahead!