13 to 16 June 2023

Portimão to Porto Santo, 33° 03′ 68″ N 16° 18′ 80″ W, 500nm (ish, we didn’t keep an accurate count), 4 days 10 hours

At 6am we slipped our lines and left our temporary berth in Portimão Marina as quietly as we could to avoid waking our neighbours on Alice May. It didn’t feel real that this might be our last moments with Pintail in what had become our home from home but we were as ready as we would ever be to head into the Atlantic.

As it turned out, it would be hours before the now familiar backdrop of the Serra de Monchique disappeared from view but when they finally did, Stefan confessed to feeling very sad indeed to have lost sight of the Portuguese mainland.

However, any sadness was balanced out by the joy of a cracking start to the longest passage we had embarked on together to date. As soon as we left the harbour entrance, the sails had gone up. The wind was strong enough to have us eating through those early miles

and already the new hydrovane (our new independent and, importantly, energy free steering system) was proving its worth. We were sailing with full sails and without the power hungry autohelm, making just tiny adjustments to our course by pulling a little bit of string!

Yet it didn’t feel like plain sailing. As the two streams of water, one out of the Mediterranean and the other down the Portuguese coast, converge they create a washing machine effect much like a bigger version of the one we had become familiar with at North Foreland in the Thames Estuary. Life on board was difficult. We were being thrown around constantly and both of us starting to feel sick. Those first 24 hours were horrible and sleep was hard to come by.

The only place I could avoid being thrown around when sleeping was to wedge myself on the beanbag at the bottom of our bed!

Some dolphins, some shearwaters and a handful of tankers was the only other life we saw for our entire passage. We spoke to no one but each other (and usually then only very briefly in handing over the watch!) until I needed to communicate with a tanker during my night watch on our first night at sea.

In the dead, dark of night I found we were on a collision course with a tanker. I altered course but still I didn’t like how close we were going to be. So, dog tired and bleary headed, I radioed the MV Cape Citia and requested that we pass port to port. Very politely the officer on the other end of the radio confirmed that he would alter course. Once they was safely passed I could turn back onto our correct course. I’m not sure why but passing big ships at night is so much scarier than in daylight.

By the morning of day two, the wind had moved round to our stern quarter and the confused seas were literally and metaphorically behind us. We were both able to catch up on some sleep.

After lunch, during Stefan’s watch we encountered another tanker coming towards us on its way into the Med. It altered course to pass us on our port side and then as we sailed passed them something unexpected happened.

The radio crackled into action and we realised they were calling us! A very friendly officer asked us to go to channel 72. We wondered what he wanted. We were certainly not on a collision course anymore. Turned out he just wanted a chat! He asked us how we were doing and Stefan exchanged pleasantries which were followed by mutual wishes for safe passages. It was a welcome reminder that we were not completely on our own out there.

But once they were out of sight it was just us again, in our big circle of blue. With no one else to bother, by mid afternoon we were blaring tunes out of the speakers for anyone who wanted to listen. We felt sure Neptune was a huge fan of Bronski Beat and will have enjoyed listening to Smalltown Boy at full volume!

It’s fair to say that we were in much better mood going into our second night especially as dinner was a passage favourite, lentil dahl.

During the night the hydrovane took the pressure off our precious energy supply but the freezer seemed to have developed a fault and was running constantly. With no sun on the solar panels this meant it was eating through the energy so carefully stored in the batteries during the day. Having got used to being able to use the freezer, we had packed it full of pre-prepared meals and other treats for this passage and beyond. In the dark Stefan tried to run the generator to top up the batteries but it made a horrible noise and he quickly switched it off. He suspected there was no water coming from the exhaust but in the dark didn’t want to go out on deck to inspect it. To avoid draining the batteries we decided to switch off the freezer to conserve power and resolved to let as little food go to waste as possible even if it meant offering Babs and Rene a very random pot luck supper of various curries, salmon and blueberries on our arrival in Porto Santo.

During the night the wind picked up and we were rocketing into the dark at sometimes 7 knots. Another of our new gadgets came into its own. Before we bought our new electronic winch handle, I would have had to wake Stefan to reef the mainsail because I am simply too weedy to reef it without assistance. In a Pintail first, with the EWincher’s extra power, I was able to reef without Stefan having to leave his slumber. In fact he was so fast asleep the noise of the motor didn’t even disturb him!

At change of watch at daybreak on day three, Stefan was able to get the generator running again (there had been an air lock) and with the solar panels back in action we could put the freezer back on and preserve all the food. The log also records that at 6am Stefan sharpened the pencil. It was all go!

On day three we were really starting to get into a rhythm of watches and feeling much more comfortable on board. We were more rested and more awake on our off watches during the day. The wind, however, had dropped considerably and with it our speed. We were desperate not to switch on the engine but also didn’t want to arrive in a strange place in the dark so we gave in and put the engine on for a few hours to keep us on schedule.

To pass the time on this long passage I had by now got through multiple downloads of some favourite podcasts (James O’Brien’s Full Disclosure, Jessie and Leni Ware’s Table Manners and Jay Rayner’s Out to Lunch) as well as the original cast recording of the musical, Hamilton.

And just as we were getting into the swing of being at sea, by mid morning on our fourth day at sea, the dramatic outline of Porto Santo appeared on the horizon and it was already looking a lot less like mainland Europe…