We write the text for our website in English. The multiple language selection feature is an auto-translation by Google. This translation is not perfect; it sometimes uses peculiar words and even expresses things in a very different way than what we actually meant. So, if you’re reading in a language other than English, and you read something strange, switch back to the English version to read what we actually meant to write!
If you’d like a shorter/summarized version of our posts, read only the “Highlights” section below and stop before “The Captain’s Log“, which is much more detailed, more like a logbook / diary and contains information for our reference as well.
Highlights – the overview
We’re getting ready for our passage from Cadiz to Porto Santo in the Madeira Islands. Porto Santo is the closest island of the archipelagos, then Madeira Island. The trip should take 5-6 days, depending on wind and sea conditions.
There are some things to do to prepare the boat, setting off: cleaning the prop, cleaning the hull along the waterline as far down as we can reach, and cleaning the speed log. This is a little device that spins as we move through the water. It tells us what our speed through the water is, different than what our speed over ground is (due to currents, etc.)
There were some barnacles and an interesting little jelly thing stuck in the speed log.
We also need to prepare inside the boat: preparing meals ahead of time, making sure everything is stowed properly, adding extra padding to keep squeaks, rattles, and other noises to a minimum under way (so we can sleep), and especially important… packing a “grab bag” or “ditch bag”, which has essentials if we should need to abandon the boat. The idea is to have everything ready to “grab” and not have to start thinking about that during any possible emergency
What is this box that Sher is stuffing in the emergency grab bag?? It’s a bottle of 80 year-old Pedro Ximenez Sherry! Her theory is that if we aren’t rescued when we’re in the life raft, then it’s better to go down drunk from the best Sherry we have! 😂
Also important… Our clothes for tomorrow 😂. We’ll be sailing straight through “Orca alley” from Cadiz to the 1000m depth contour. There are many approaches to how to handle an orca interaction, some very aggressive. We think there’s a better way. We want to show the Orca’s that we are their friends! And, of course, friends don’t bite friend’s rudders! 😂
All dressed up for the Orca’s 😄. Yes, we’re going to cross “Orca Alley”! Off we go, as well prepared as we can be!
The anchor goes up at 0845h. It’s heavily stuck in thick mud. The anchor ground is a lot better here than where we were last time.
There’s no wind so we sail out of the Baya de Cadiz on the engine.
Bye-bye Cadiz 👋🏻👋🏻
Wim all dressed up for our friends 😄
At 1100h there’s a little breeze coming up from our stern and we set sail.
We have a lot of red dragonflies on board. They rest a bit and then they fly off. We wonder where they came from? We’re 20 miles off shore. Maybe they come from one of the nearby cargo/container ships?
We’re having really uncomfortable seas. Big waves from behind make us roll like crazy. But we have 12 knots breeze from behind so we keep sailing.
We’re crossing a very busy shipping lane. All shipping to and from the Med (and the Suez Canal) passes here.
A big cargo vessel is approaching us from behind and has a very small CPA (Closest Point of Approach) on our computer screen. Less than half a mile. Wim is trying to get some sleep (unsuccessfully) and Sher is on watch. She calls the vessel on the VHF to verify if they have seen us and go behind our stern. No reply. Multiple times. Sher says to Wim: it’s a Dutch vessel, maybe you can try? Wim calls them in Dutch. Immediate reply… Yes, they have seen us and they go close behind our stern.
Around dinner time we see a group of dolphins! They cross our course and they don’t come to play. We see one make a very high jump! He jumps out of a very high wave. Maybe he reached a height of 10 meters! Wow!
Sailing into the evening. We still have a light breeze on our Port aft (around 12 knots) and a very high and confused sea. Still very uncomfortable 🫤
At 2200h we cross the 1000m depth contour. This is supposed to be the official border of the Iberian Orca territory. Well, that is, they haven’t been seen here. Because there’s no tuna in these depths.
We have been sailing for almost 2 years along the Spanish and Portuguese coasts where these groups of orcas are that attack yacht’s rudders but we haven’t met them. Too bad, we would have loved to see them.
The sea state stays horrible. These high, short and confused waves totally don’t correspond with the wind. In the second half of the night we had a nice breeze, though: 12-20 knots, still on Port aft. So we made a nice speed, around 6 knots.
Even in the heavily moving bed we managed to get some sleep in our 3 hours off watch.
During the morning the wind drops down to 5 knots. We get into this area of light winds. We furl-in the Yankee and we start the engine to make way into the northerly winds. The sea is still very restless. Very uncomfortable.
The waves are around 3m average but there are some very big ones. Perhaps 5m. Some breaking. As they roll under Dione IV she just lifts her fat ass and the wave moves forward along the hull in a huge amount of white foam. Very impressive, but Wim decides to close the companionway doors in case such a breaker hits the cockpit…
After a couple of hours motoring the wind direction gradually changes to the north and starts increasing. Yes! We hoist all sails.
We’d like to get an updated weather forecast… a GRIB file, showing wind and waves. Since we don’t have internet, we do this using our SSB (Single Side Band) radio. We already know that the SSB transmitter causes problems on the communication systems on board. It crashes the NMEA2000 network and it crashes Bluetooth connections.
So, while Wim does the transmission, Sher is at the steering wheel to hand steer in case the NMEA2000 network goes down and thus the autopilot might quit.
Wim tries to establish the connection with the Sailmail station in Belgium. As soon as the transmission begins the autopilot starts beeping and disengages. Sher is steering. No answer from OSY (the station in Oostende, Belgium). Wasn’t very likely in the middle of the day. We’ll try again tonight.
We try again at night and still no connection. We try several times more and decide there is something wrong that we need to figure out. In the meantime, We have the Zoleo and Nigel and Klarien are providing weather updates for us. Thanks guys!
We didn’t sleep well last night and also during the day sleeping wasn’t easy. Sher tries to sleep but because we heel she rolls over. She decides to make a back support from some cushions and pillows. That helps, but in the strongly moving boat and the noise of the waves against the hull, sleeping is still not easy.
But by the end of the afternoon the winds slowly shifts to a “beam reach” (on the side) and the waves change direction, too. They don’t come on the bow any more, but on the beam. We are on the longitude of Cabo San Vicente and it looks like we have found the Portuguese trade wind, “El Norte”. The northerly breeze that blows all along the Portuguese coast all summer, up to the Canaries.
Pffff! This feels a lot better! Dione IV starts sailing smoothly instead of banging through waves. We make better speed, too. Around 6 knots. We’re both relieved 😅. As icing on the cake we get a message from Nigel on Zoleo in which he exactly explains and confirms the situation. Wow! He says, “the low pressure system near Morocco contributes to the confused sea. Once you’ve cleared that you’ll have a beam reach to Porto Santo.” Yes! 👍🏻👍🏻
We have a nice hot shower. 💦 🫧 🧼 🧴
It’s a bit of a challenge in a heeling and moving boat but we succeed 😅
In the evening we sail on a beautiful beam reach with 12-18 knots of wind and a normal sea state for that wind. Under full sail, Dione IV is moving steady en calmly and we start to relax 🙂🙂
Making a delicious lunch 😀
Isn’t she cute, in her orca panties? 😂
Bon appetit! Spinach-cheese-onion omelette on flatbread 😋😋
We love our Zoleo device! Staying in touch with the family is great. It’s Wim’s mother’s birthday today and we can send congratulations by Iridium satellite 🙂
We are now exactly half way! 270 nm done, 270 to go. We start counting down now!
A beautiful sunset to celebrate that 🙂
A little squid on deck. How did he get there? The waves are not that high…
Wim flushes him back in the ocean with a bucket of water. Hopefully he’ll survive 🙄 Look at his beautiful blue eye. Wim wonders how some people can eat them. Sher wonders whether she needs to stop eating them.
Sher is making flatbread with falafel but the falafel balls start playing 😂
Dione IV is rolling quite a bit in the downwind course…
That’s the way to keep them quiet 😂
2150h. The sky on fire!
The wind is funny, it changes between 13 and 20 knots all the time.
The sea is funny, too. Most waves are small and gentle and make Dione IV dance a bit. But there are some very big waves, too. Even breaking waves. Some make us roll very heavily, some crash with a loud bang against our hull, spraying over the deck and sometimes even spraying against the windows of the decksalon.
Later in the evening the wind stabilizes to 17-18kn. The waves stay big, on the stern. We roll severely. 2 times a kind of freak wave hits us! First one in the cockpit. Cockpit full of water! We close the companionway for safety. The second one on the beam midships. It crashes with a loud bang on the decksalon windows, so powerful that it makes the boat shiver. Scary. Glad that we have such strong windows… (10mm hardened glass)
We have our 3-hour watches and we sleep reasonably well in between. Our bodies are getting used to the pattern and to the rolling boat.
We’re passing some kind of shipping lane. These are the guys who came around South Africa from the far East and are heading to northern Europe.
How lucky are we to have such great software. It’s calculating the CPA (Closest Point of Approach) of a crossing tanker vessel. The yellow line is the CPA. Continuously updated on speed and course of the tanker and us. Like this, we can see well in advance how close we come and adjust our course if needed.
That is so relaxed!
Of course, we do a visual check to confirm. There he is.
At 4 o’clock, Wim tries the SSB again. The autopilot and OpenCPN crash. After resetting everything is back to normal.
But no SailMail connection…
There must be something wrong with our equipment. We’ll have to find out what.
For the moment, the Zoleo is the solution. Wim’s sister and Nigel supply us with wind forecasts which appear to be pretty accurate.
60 nm to go to Porto Santo. It’s a beautiful day with a gentle breeze.
Since Porto Santo is Portugese territory we have to change the courtesy flag.
The Spanish one is totally used up since Hondaribia!
0600h. 15nm to go. “Land Ho” as the sailors say, land in sight!
Full speed internet connection on our phones but not on the router, although signal on the router is good. There seems to be an issue with the Vodafone SIMs. Neither the Portuguese one nor the Spanish one is registering. We’ll need to get that sorted out.
Approaching the island of Porto Santo. Impressive!
There’s the town of Vila Baleira, and entering the harbor (just after the ferry from Madeira Island arrives… finally we are anchored and have completed our first offshore ocean passage together on Dione IV! Yay!!!
540 nautical miles in 5 days and 5 nights + 2 hours. That’s an average speed of 4.4 knots. Not a fast passage but we had lots of light winds, we were on the safe side (reefed) during the nights and we spend only 7 engine hours.
We didn’t have any problem (well, except the SSB issue but that was covered by the Zoleo), nothing broke down, we weren’t seasick (despite a lot of heavy boat movement), had delicious meals and we had a good time together. Finally, after 4 days, we got in a rhythm of 3 hours awake, 3 hours sleep perfectly: not feeling sleepy during the watch and sleeping deep when off-watch, despite the severe movements and noise sometimes. We and Dione IV enjoyed the ocean sailing after almost 2 years of coastal sailing in day trips.
We are a good team. We already knew that but extraordinary conditions like these confirm it once again!
We send a message to Rui, the Orca-man. He maintains a website and Telegram groups about the Iberian Orca’s. We have been communicating a lot with him since we arrived in Hondarribia. We get a very nice reply!
We’re very happy to be at this lovely island and back in Portugal… we celebrate that with a tapas dinner along with a delicious Dos Corvos 20-year old Port from Porto!
The Captain’s Log – the complete story
July 26.
Wim takes a dive with the Hookah breathing system to clean the prop. Last time, somewhere in the Ria’s, he had some trouble because his dive mask was leaking. This time, he shaved smoothly before going to dive. That makes the difference! No leaks.
The visibility under water isn’t great, this is an estuary so there’s quite some sediment in the water.
The prop is covered in a layer of very small barnacles and a few big ones. It takes him about half an hour to scrape everything off with a putty knife and finish with a steel brush. After that, the prop is smooth like a baby 🙂
After that, we scrub the waterline. Sher does the Port side, Wim the Starboard side. And Wim cleans the bow thruster prop. Same story as the main prop: full of small barnacles and a few big ones.
The speed sensor wasn’t working when sailed here. That must be the same issue… So we remove the sensor to clean it. Indeed, it’s massively packed with small barnacles and there’s even a big jelly thing in it!
It’s alive!
Clean.
And running.
What is this box that Sher is stuffing in the emergency grab bag?? It’s a bottle of 80 year old Moscatel Sherry! Her theory is: if we aren’t rescued when we’re in the life raft then it’s better to go down drunk from the best Sherry we have 😂
We prepare a number of meals. So that we just can heat it up on the passage. Easy.
A full fridge!
Our clothes for tomorrow 😂. We’ll be moving straight through Orca-alley from Cadiz to the 1000m depth contour. And we have to show the Orca’s that we are their friends! Because friends don’t bite friend’s rudders! 😂
July 27.
All dressed up for the Orca’s 😄. Yes, we’re going to cross “Orca Alley”!
The anchor goes up at 0845h. It’s heavily stuck in thick mud. The anchor ground is a lot better here than where we were last time.
There’s no wind so we sail out of the Baya de Cadiz on the engine. Bye-bye Cadiz 👋🏻👋🏻
Wim all dressed up for our friends 😄
At 1100h there’s a little breeze coming up from our stern and we set sail.
We have a lot of red dragonflies on board. They rest a bit and then they fly on. We wonder where they came from. We’re 20 miles off shore. Maybe they come from a ship?
After a couple of hours of sailing the wind dies down and we have to start the engine again. There are quite big waves (around 2m high) from the south-east that make us roll heavily. Obviously this sea is caused by the strong (35 knots) east wind blowing through the Strait of Gibraltar.
Later in the afternoon we get a 10-12 knots breeze in a broad reach so we sail again. Engine off.
We’re having a really bad sea. Big waves from behind make us roll like crazy. Very uncomfortable.
But we have that 12 knots breeze from behind so we keep sailing.
We’re crossing a very busy shipping lane. All shipping to and from the Med (and the Suez Canal) passes here. A big cargo vessel is approaching us from behind and has a very small CPA (Closest Point of Approach) on our computer screen. Less than half a mile. Wim is trying to get some sleep (unsuccessfully) and Sher is on watch. She calls the vessel on the VHF to verify if they have seen us and go behind our stern. No reply. Multiple times. Sher says to Wim: it’s a Dutch vessel, maybe you can try? Wim calls them in Dutch. Immediate reply… Yes, they have seen us and they go close behind our stern.
Around dinner time we see a group of dolphins! They cross our course and they don’t come to play. We see one make a very high jump! He jumps out of a very high wave. Maybe he reached a height of 10 meters! Wow!
Sailing into the evening. We still have a light breeze on our Port aft (around 12 knots) and a very high and confused sea. Still very uncomfortable 🫤
Sunset at 2040h.
At 2200h we cross the 1000m depth contour. This is supposed to be the official border of the Iberian Orca territory. Well, that is, they haven’t been seen here. Because there’s no tuna in these depths.
We have been sailing for almost 2 years along the Spanish and Portuguese coasts where these groups of orcas are that attack yacht’s rudders but we haven’t met them. Too bad, we would have loved to see them.
July 28.
We have the almost full moon all night. Great!
The traffic keeps us busy. But although sometimes there a small CPA (still well over a mile), we don’t have to perform any evasive actions or course changes.
This is the moon set at 0500h, just before dawn. At 0630h we had the first faint light, at 7 it got really light. Somewhere in the last dark hour the sky got cloudy. So we don’t see a sunrise.
The sea state stays horrible. These high, short and confused waves totally don’t correspond with the wind. In the second half of the night we had a nice breeze, though: 12-20 knots, still on Port aft. So we made a nice speed, around 6 knots.
Even in the heavily moving bed we managed to get some sleep in our 3 hours off watch.
During the morning the wind drops down to 5 knots. We get into this area of light winds. We furl-in the Yankee and we start the engine to make way into the northerly winds. The sea is still very restless. Very uncomfortable.
The waves are around 3m average but there are some very big ones. Perhaps 5m. Some breaking. As they roll under Dione IV she just lifts her fat ass and the wave moves forward along the hull in a huge amount of white foam. Very impressive, but Wim decides to close the companionway doors in case such a breaker hits the cockpit…
After a couple of hours motoring the wind direction gradually changes to the north and starts increasing. Yes! We hoist all sails.
The wind increases to 18-20 knots and changes to the north-west. That’s close-hauled sailing on our 250° course to Porto Santo. The waves build up quickly and a lot of water sprays over the decks when we hit those waves. We even have to close the companionway hatch. It gets hot inside, 30°C.
We heel 14° and bump into the big waves. This is no fun… We both get a bit grouchy. 🫤🫤
We didn’t sleep well last night and also during the day sleeping wasn’t easy. Sher tries to sleep but because we heel she rolls over. She decides to make a back support from some cushions and pillows. That helps, but in the strongly moving boat and the noise of the waves against the hull, sleeping is still not easy.
But by the end of the afternoon the winds slowly shifts to a beam reach and the waves change direction, too. They don’t come the bow any more but on the beam. We are on the longitude of Cabo San Vicente and it looks like we have found the Portuguese trade wind, “El Norte”. The northerly breeze that blows all along the Portuguese coast all summer, up to the Canaries.
Pffff! This feels a lot better! Dione IV starts sailing smoothly instead of banging through waves. We make better speed, too. Around 6 knots. We’re both relieved 😅. As icing on the cake we get a message from Nigel on Zoleo in which he exactly explains and confirms the situation. Wow! He says, “the low pressure system near Morocco contributes to the confused sea. Once you’ve cleared that you’ll have a beam reach to Porto Santo.” Yes! 👍🏻👍🏻
We have a nice hot shower. 💦 🫧 🧼 🧴
It’s a bit of a challenge in a heeling and moving boat but we succeed 😅
In the evening we sail on a beautiful beam reach with 12-18 knots of wind and a normal sea state for that wind. Under full sail, Dione IV is moving steady en calmly and we start to relax 🙂🙂
During the evening it gets cloudy again. It’s a light overcast. So, no beautiful sunset…
The moon hides behind the light clouds but still lights the sea.
July 29.
During the night we have 8 to 16 knots of wind at beam reach. In the evening, we have reefed a bit to be sure that we don’t have to do that in the dark in case the wind increases and to decrease the heel angle (easier sleeping). We’ve put the first reef in the main and furled the Yankee into its second reef. That makes us slower (we go from 6 knots to 4) and the heel angle goes from 14 to 6°. Also, the movements of the boat are more gentle.
As a result of all this we both sleep excellent when we’re not on watch! 😀😀
In the morning: 10-13kn at 120° (aft beam). Speed through water around 5 knots
During the morning the wind drops to 7-8 knots. Beam reach. SOG 4-5kn
We’re figuring out how to overlay a Grib file on OpenCPN so that we can see the wind forecast at our actual position. Nice .
But our latest Grib file is from last Monday, we sailed out of Cadiz, just before we lost the internet connection (about 30 nm offshore).
Let’s see if we can have a new one, via SSB.
We already know that the SSB transmitter causes problems on the communication systems on board. It crashes the NMEA2000 network and it crashes Bluetooth connections.
So, while Wim does the transmission Sher is at the steering wheel to hand steer in case the NMEA2000 network goes down and thus the autopilot might quit.
Wim tries to establish the connection with the Sailmail station in Belgium. As soon as the transmission begins the autopilot starts beeping and disengages. Sher steering. No answer from OSY (the station in Oostende, Belgium). Wasn’t very likely in the middle of the day. We’ll try again tonight.
But the good news is, only the autopilot was affected and by simply engaging it again it works. No other systems got disturbed. That’s the difference of transmitting at the open ocean instead of near land: the HF energy can easily “lift off” from the ocean. While at an anchorage it gets disturbed and reflected by all kinds of obstacles.
And we can try to add some ferrite chokes to the cables of the autopilot computer and perhaps solve this problem…
Meanwhile, Dione IV steadily sails on. We’re almost halfway.
Dione IV breaks record after record: she’s further south than ever, further west than ever, further from land than ever and in deeper water than ever: 5000m here.
The color of the ocean is deep blue, almost indigo.
That’s why they call this “Blue water sailing”!
Plenty of solar power!
We use around 15% of our 13.5kWh battery bank per night. On a sunny day, that’s restored in the morning. On a cloudy day like yesterday, it’s restored to 100% by the end of the afternoon.
Making a delicious lunch 😀
Isn’t she cute, in her orca panties? 😂
Bon appetit! Spinach-cheese-onion omelette on flatbread 😋😋
We love our Zoleo device! Staying in touch with the family is great. It’s Wim’s mother’s birthday today and we can send congratulations by Iridium satellite 🙂
Our great Simrad/Jefa autopilot is steering Dione IV to her destination flawlessly. 👍🏻
We are exactly half way! 270 nm done, 270 to go. We start counting down now!
A beautiful sunset to celebrate that 🙂
No green flash… 🙂↔️
Yesterday afternoon Wim added a number of ferrite chokes at the N2k cables around the autopilot computer & controls. See if that helps when we’re transmitting on the shortwave.
We try after sunset. No autopilot issues! But, no connection with SailMail Belgium on all 4 frequencies.
Wim tries again during his watch at around 2400h. On the 16MHz and 12MHz bands no problem with autopilot but no connection with OSY. Propagation reliability should be 100%…
Transmitting on the 8MHz band makes OpenCPN crash: no data.
Transmitting on the 6MHz band makes the autopilot crash. No problem, we’ve perfectly balanced sails so the rudder is in center position and without autopilot she follows her 250° course.
After resetting the autopilot computer, the N2k system and OpenCPN everything works normal again.
But no SailMail connection. Bummer. Wim tried other stations like Nova Scotia and Trinidad (both with reasonable reliability of propagation) but: No answer.
July 30.
It’s a beautiful moonlit night with wind around 15 knots, broad reach. Dione IV does an average of 6 knots all night. We’ve put the second reef in the Yankee, for safety.
Before sunrise we try the SSB again. No answer.
No autopilot issue.
After sunrise another try. No answer. No autopilot issue.
Wim sends a message to his sister via Zoleo. She has a look at Windfinder: north-east around 15kn for the coming days. That’s nice.
A little squid on deck. How did he get there? The waves are not that high…
Wim flushes him back in the ocean with a bucket of water. Hopefully he’ll survive 🙄
Look at his beautiful blue eye! 🤩
Can you believe that some people fry and eat these beautiful creatures???
First time since crossing the traffic lanes near Cádiz that we see a ship.
An LNG tanker on its way to the Canaries, probably.
In the morning the wind shifts to the north-east. That’s almost on our stern. In such a situation the mainsail takes the wind and the Yankee gets in the lee. So, we put the pole in the Yankee. Dione IV is heavily rolling so that’s not an easy job on the fore deck. But in excellent cooperation we manage to do it safely.
Here we go, in our downwind sail configuration. 185 miles to go!
Sher is making flatbread with falafel but the falafel balls start playing 😂
Dione IV is rolling quite a bit in the downwind course…
That’s the way to keep them quiet 😂
In the early evening the wind increases to 19 knots, still from the north-east. We decide to reef in case it increases more. Second reef in the Yankee, first reef in the mizzen.
Just before sunset we do another test with the SSB. Wim found some rust on the cable that connects the antenna tuner to the back stay and cleaned that. Another thing is that we want to make sure that the antenna tuner is working. You can hear it clicking and buzzing when you change frequency. So, Sher operates the transmitter while Wim listens near the tuner in the lazarette. But he doesn’t hear anything. Maybe because of all the other noises, maybe because of the cabinet around it. We’ll have to check that when we’re at anchor.
Anyway, on all 4 frequencies no answer from OSY.
2150h. The sky on fire!
The wind is funny, it changes between 13 and 20 knots all the time.
The sea is funny, too. Most waves are small and gentle and make Dione IV dance a bit. But there are some very big waves, too. Even breaking waves. Some make us roll very heavily, some crash with a loud bang against our hull, spraying over the deck and sometimes even spraying against the windows of the decksalon.
Later in the evening the wind stabilizes to 17-18kn. The waves stay big, on the stern. We roll severely. 2 times a kind of freak wave hits us! First one in the cockpit. Cockpit full of water! We close the companionway for safety. The second one on the beam midships. It crashes with a loud bang on the decksalon windows, so powerful that it makes the boat shiver. Scary. Glad that we have such strong windows… (10mm hardened glass)
We have our 3-hour watches and we sleep reasonably well in between. Our bodies are getting used to the pattern and to the rolling boat.
July 31.
We’re passing some kind of shipping lane. These are the guys who came around South Africa from the far East and are heading to northern Europe.
How lucky are we to have such great software. It’s calculating the CPA (Closest Point of Approach) of a crossing tanker vessel. The yellow line is the CPA. Continuously updated on speed and course of the tanker and us. Like this, we can see well in advance how close we come and adjust our course if needed.
That is so relaxed!
Of course, we do a visual check to confirm. There he is.
And it gets even more complex when another tanker approaches. But no problem, he goes around our bow and we don’t have to do anything.
At 4 o’clock, Wim tries the SSB again. The autopilot and OpenCPN crash. After resetting everything is back to normal.
But no SailMail connection…
There must be something wrong with our equipment. We’ll have to find out what.
For the moment, the Zoleo is the solution. Wim’s sister and Nigel supply us with wind forecasts which appear to be pretty accurate.
In the morning we still have a nice downwind sail. But we keep rolling pretty much.
That amazing blue water!
60 nm to go to Porto Santo. It’s a beautiful day with a gentle breeze.
Since Porto Santo is Portugese territory we have to change the courtesy flag.
The Spanish one is totally used up since Hondaribia!
At 80nm from the island we get a cell phone signal. Not enough for a connection but that’ll be a matter of time.
1900h. A Russian fishing vessel passing close. 🤨
2200h sunset. Around 12kn of wind. SOG around 4kn. Second reef in Yankee, first reef in the mizzen. We have to be slow in order to arrive at daylight. 42nm to go.
August 01.
40nm from Porto. But no data connection yet. Hm. The signal is pretty good… Perhaps the SIM’s aren’t registering…
0730h. Sunrise!
0600h. 15nm to go. Land in sight!
Full speed internet connection on our phones but not on the router, although signal on the router is good. There seems to be an issue with the Vodafone SIMs. Neither the Portuguese one nor the Spanish one is registering.
Sunrise at 0730h.
Approaching the island of Porto Santo. Impressive!
There’s the town of Vila Baleira.
Entering the port.
And drop our anchor at 1100h!
540 nautical miles in 5 days and 5 nights + 2 hours. That’s an average speed of 4.4 knots. Not a fast passage but we had lots of light winds, we were on the safe side (reefed) during the nights and we spend only 7 engine hours.
We didn’t have any problem (well, except the SSB issue but that was covered by the Zoleo), nothing broke down, we weren’t seasick (despite a lot of heavy boat movement), had delicious meals and we had a good time together. Finally, after 4 days, we got in a rhythm of 3 hours awake, 3 hours sleep perfectly: not feeling sleepy during the watch and sleeping deep when off-watch, despite the severe movements and noise sometimes. We and Dione IV enjoyed the ocean sailing after almost 2 years of coastal sailing in day trips.
We are a good team. We already knew that but extraordinary conditions like these confirm it once again!
We send a message to Rui, the Orca-man. He maintains a website and Telegram groups about the Iberian Orca’s. We have been communicating a lot with him since we arrived in Hondarribia.
And we get this nice reply 😍
We’re very happy to be a this lovely island and we celebrate that with a tapas dinner with a delicious Dos Corvos 20-year old Port from Porto!
Leave a Reply