17 June to 13 July 2023

Having proudly reeled off our new found knowledge about Porto Santo to our Portuguese teacher, we almost instantly decided not to be in any rush to leave. After a couple of nights at anchor, we took one of the harbour’s newly laid buoys and ended up staying nearly a month, nestled under the steep cliffs with SV Momentum as our near neighbours.

Aside from the joint annoyances of the constant hum and stink of the power station, the harbour has many positive features. It is well protected from the prevailing northerly winds (although more about that later) and, for the bargain basement fee of €6 a night, offers access to unlimited water to fill up our tanks, a newly refurbished shower block and a safe spot to park the dinghy to explore the island.

As soon as we arrived Stefan and Rene had put their bikes together and embarked on one of Rene’s infamous bootcamps – finding ever steeper climbs as the days went on. They took themselves to places usually only 4WD went. When Stefan complained that his legs hurt I had to remind him that Rene was once an Olympic coach for a reason!

Whilst Stefan was being put through his cycling paces, I took a gentler pace by foot. The skyline of Porto Santo is dominated by a volcanic shaped peak called Pico do Castello. At 437m high it might not be the highest but it makes for an energetic hike

through eucalyptus and pine forest and scrubland and up a rocky outcrop

to some pretty spectacular views down across the island. We could see all the main landmarks and watch the planes landing on the runway.

Just as Stefan learnt to distrust Rene’s declarations that there would be ‘no more hills’, I learnt very quickly that Babs had become very forgetful of the vertiginous sections of her regular walk with Rizzo.

Naively, I joined her for what was more dog scramble than dog walk up the hill behind the harbour. There was barely a path and more than a few sections that nearly made me turn round and return to the bottom. But me and my wobbly legs persisted and I was glad not to miss the views across the incredible sandy ravines that characterise this part of the island.

Another morning, at low tide Babs, Nancy and I took a cab to the north side of the island to see another of it’s geological features – the rock pools of Porto das Salemas. The road only took us to the top of the high cliffs and we were grateful for the wide path being dug to enable us to get down to the sea. Without it, it would have been a steep rock climb.

At the bottom we were greeted by some friendly locals and some spectacularly crystal clear pools.

It was too tempting not to jump in and enjoy the cool water but the tide was rising again and we had to get out before our exit was blocked by the waves.

Our stay in Porto Santo coincided with the annual festival of São João. It ran for a couple of weeks but as most of the musical activities didn’t start until 10pm we didn’t see very much of it.

We did, however, venture into town for the parade on the last night which started at a more sensible hour! A number of the island’s different communities processed and danced in turn through the main street, from tiny children to the older generation, all dressed in themed costumed and accompanied by their own brass band.

We reckon that all of the island’s population must have been involved. Someone had certainly been extremely busy with their sewing machine! First in the parade were the Lambecas – the family responsible for the island’s famous ice cream shop who are either an extraordinarily large family or they had roped in friends and neighbours to join them!

Next came groups from some of the small neighbourhoods around the island, one even featuring a replica of the iconic pier. Again we wondered how such small clusters of houses could produce such large numbers of people.

And the number of children taking part also suggested that there should be no concerns about the future population of the island. They must have been practising their dances for weeks as they barely put a foot wrong!

We quickly learnt that, much like Gibraltar, the high peaks of the island meant that it generated its own weather. So whilst the Mediterranean was suffering extreme summer temperatures, Porto Santo remained a nearly constant 25°C during July and we benefited from lots of lovely cloud cover to shield us from the glare of the sun.

However, after a couple of calm weeks on this island in the Atlantic we braced ourselves for some weather. The general wind forecast wasn’t due to be much more than 25 knots but we knew that the harbour area was in the direct firing line of strong katabatic winds down from the peaks so we could expect much more. We weren’t quite expecting the onslaught we were to get here.

For three or four days we were battered day and night by gusts that hurtled at us like freight trains. The noise was something else and it was pretty hard to sleep at night.

When the wind finally subsided, we were delighted to be joined in our little island paradise by our friends, Nic and Neil.

It was Neil’s 50th birthday and we spent a wonderful few days celebrating him whilst showing them the island, even surprising him with an albeit rather strangely blue birthday cake!

The leftover cake wasn’t quite in such good shape after a dinghy ride back to the boat!

Neil and Nic had spent a weekend with us before at Essex Marina in 2015. Their visit had even inspired their move to Burnham-on-Crouch! So we decided it was time for them to have another sail on Pintail. With Neil clutching his newly acquired fishing gear, we went off to see if he would have more luck than he had when we anchored in the River Roach.

We had a lovely sail with the cruising chute but had underestimated the impact of the ocean swell on our novice crew. A few hours pootling around the River Crouch eight years ago was a little different to a couple of hours in the Atlantic and as we left the protection of the bay, although Neil was thoroughly enjoying his fishing, Nic was starting to feel more than a little sick so we quickly returned to the calm of the harbour. Neil continued his efforts to get us something for supper but despite a couple of near misses we ended up eating a broad bean risotto!

Sorry about the seasickness and lack of fish on the hook, Nic and Neil, but thanks so much for visiting and letting us celebrate with you. We had a blast.

It has long been a tradition in the Portuguese islands for visiting sailors to leave their mark on the harbour walls. The full length of the wall at Porto Santo brightly records the names of boats and their crew who have passed through.

None of the sailors there on that wall could quite claim the notoriety of one Christopher Colombus but, before we left, we weren’t going to miss an opportunity to add Pintail to their ranks.

So, together with Babs, over the course of several sessions at the hot concrete wall we immortalised both Momentum and Pintail’s stay on the island. It’s not often that I do something quite so creative and I admit to feeling very chuffed with the result!

And with our visit recorded on the wall for posterity, it was time to be off to discover somewhere new…