UPDATED Porto Santo to Santa Cruz, Tenerife.

We had a really nice week at Porto Santo. I called it my weeks beach holiday.

The marina is quite small, but well run. The office is a good trek away abut ¼ mile. This is where the wi-fi was accessed from. Toilet and shower facilities were pretty basic. We did not use the laundry facilities, but did like the rest of the boats in the  marina and washed by hand using the bucket method!

We went on the tourist bus around the island, and with many of our pontoon neighbours along as well it was quite a social occasion. It was a good way to pass an afternoon. The driver stopped at viewpoints along the way to allow photo opportunities. At the end of the trip a beer seemed in order!

  

We also went swimming in the sea. Haven’t done that for years. Lots of surf about and big rollers, enough to drive the yachts previously anchored in the bay, into the marina.

The trips to the supermarket were always a trek. The ‘Pingo Docie’ was big and well stocked. It had a good supply of fresh meat and vegetables which came in daily on the ferry from Madeira. The wine and beer was cheap, the quality hit and miss! Steve bought his Madeira wine, but then had to open it to make sure it was ok.

So the week passed in a flash. There were a lot of ARC boats all flying their 2012 flags. Steve had the idea of using our signal flags to fly N A R C. New friends Richard and Rowena on Galena did the same. We became known as the narc boats.

The wind turned southerly which meant most boats stayed put. We were all heading south. By Tuesday Steve was getting stir crazy and needed to be on the move again. We left mid morning with very light NE winds  and motored over to Bai D’abra in Madeira, a mere 30 miles, It was good to get away. You can almost feel the glue holding the boat after being in a marina for a while. We anchored overnight in 7 metres of water. There were another 5 boats there with us. The next day we moved a further 4 miles down the coast, anchoring again, this time outside the harbour at Machico.
 We had no neighbours this time. We were under the flightpath for the airport and they were quite noisy on take off. However, they either stopped at night or I slept through so it can’t have been that bad.

We left Machico 9am on Thursday morning  knowing it would be quiet windwise for a few hours. We had 255 miles ahead of us to Santa Cruz, Tenerife.

En route to Tenerife 11/10/12

We left at 9am under full main and genoa With a NE 4 and a cool 22.5 degrees. We had a good sail with the wind lightening around 15:00. We got the cruising chute ready for flying but then realised the snuffer was coming apart at the top and the lines were twisting. At this point I remarked that I was glad he knew what he was doing as I would not know how to start untangling the cord, sail head, and plastic tube all around and inside the snuffer head which was just gathered and stitched together. How many sailors out there have ever turned the snuffer bag inside out to see how it works? However, Steve grinned and said he had no idea what he was doing either. Either way, a quick  repair soon had us on our way again.  The cruising chute has performed very well since so the problem had probably been developing for a while.

We had a couple of hours of light winds and at around 7pm we put the genoa back up and reefed the main sail for overnight. Reefing the main seems to be common practice among cruisers, especially couples. A slower overnight trip, but safer if the winds pick up. It was a beautiful starlight night with the reward of a few shooting stars.

After breakfast the next morning we were visited by some Spotted Dolphins. We have Mark Carwardine’s “Guide to Whale Watching” on board and covers all the species of dolphins and whales seen in Britain and Europe and has been invaluable for identifying the different types of whales and dolphins seen.

As the NE 3 continued we put the engine on for a few hours battery charging. There had been no sun for 18 hours and not enough wind for the aerogen to do its job.

At 1 o’clock on my watch the light pollution from Tenerife was visible on the horizon. We now had something to focus on. We had seen no ships / boats / canoes etc since we left Madeira. We had full sail up slowly sailing in our NE 3.  At 7am I was back on watch – still dark.  We were approaching the the NE corner of Tenerife. I had been reading the pilot books and scared myself reading about the acceleration zones around the islands. The pictures and tales of 5 knots increasing to 25 knots of wind in 200 yards kept me wide awake. I spent 3 hours worrying. However, nothing happened and we had an uneventful trip down to Santa Cruz. You have to call Tenerife harbour control for permission to enter the harbour, which is a huge area, and then the marina after that. I’m getting quite good as radio operator. Glad I’ve done the VHF course.

We stayed in Santa Cruz for 2 nights; got the laundry done and visited the excellent food market hall, painted a conspicuous bright terracotta colour. This has the added advantage of having a supermarket underneath. We needed a taxi back to the marina.

Leaving Santa Cruz, we travelled south staying close inshore. With a variable 1 wind we motored all the way. The advantage was that we could sightsee the island as we travelled down. Interestingly, the reported SW current became a strong head current of 1 to 1.5 knots which made our journey slower than expected.

  

Steve also tried his hand at some fishing but there were no bites that day.

Our destination was San Miguel Marina, on the SE coast. This was just 10 minutes by taxi from Tenerife South Airport, where Paul and his family were flying into to visit with us for 1 week. The marina is part of the Amarillo Golf complex and as such is no where near towns or other urbanisations. The apartment complexes are huge. The advantage is that there are many restaurants and bars to choose from, 2 minimarkets, that we found, and the usual gift shops. As always in Tenerife there was a large British presence including an Irish Bar.

The marina is exceptionally well sheltered from winds that have any North in them. It was meltingly hot when we arrived. Washing the boat down in 32 degrees is something I just can’t get used to. However, I don’t mind being sprayed with the hosepipe either.

Our visitors arrived Tuesday16th at lunchtime and in typical 10 year old fashion, James wanted to be on the go straight away. That meant a visit to the small beach for a swim, and a paddle for the grown ups!

I’m going to write about our 1 week holiday another time and skip straight to Tuesday 23^rd October the day they left us. After doing 1 load of washing [5 euros] we packed up the boat and headed north towards Santa Cruz leaving at about 14:30. The forecast was a SW 3. When we got out there it was a SSW5 a good genoa run.

After an hour and a half we realised the trailing dinghy was full of water. Hm. The wind was increasing touching on a 6. We tried heaving too to bring the dinghy on board to no avail. After a quick think, we rolled the genoa away and ran under bare poles whilst we retrieved the dinghy. With lifejackets on [I’m the health and safety officer] we went to the back of the boat and pulled the dinghy along side. We had previously put the painter on the winch and wound it in as close as we could. After tipping out the water it was a relatively easy task to haul the boat out and on to the aft deck. We won’t be trailing the dinghy again in a following sea. Climbing back into the cockpit we were amazed to see we were doing 4 knots under bare poles.

The wind was increasing steadily, and we decided to round the headland and anchor overnight in Bai d'Abona. A bottom of sand meant that the 60LB CQR dug in nicely and we were going nowhere. Just as well really as there were 4 other boats in the anchorage before us so we were not as tucked in as we would have liked. We still had 25knots of wind over the bow but the sea was flatter and the wind in the bay was better than along the coast. Overnight the wind died away and we left the next morning for a 20 mile motor into Santa Cruz!

In Santa Cruz we were on a mission; to source a new bigger dinghy engine, to repair the 2.5 Suzuki, to get shopping from the Carrefour supermarket, and to sort out the sat phone.