Sao Martinho to Madeira

Passage distance = 560M
Passage time = 3.5 days
Wind speed & direction = mainly NE, 8 - 35 knots
Rhumb line course = 220 degrees
Packets of biscuits consumed = 6

The passage indicated by the pencil

We made a safe and very enjoyable passage to Porto Santo, Madeira’s sister island 21M away to the Northeast. In fact the passage was magical. The seas were initially lumpy and uncomfortable departing Sao Martinho do Porto. Once we crossed the shipping lanes (never a pleasant experience), the waves became longer and deeper with the great Atlantic swell.

Crossing the shipping lanes

The first night was fast and furious. The night was so black it was scary. All that I could see beyond the boat were ghostly white explosions of wave caps. With the swell on our stern, at times Impulse was lifted up and hurled down the face of the wave, a flash of frothing white sweeping ahead of us. During daylight, this felt exciting, like surfing, but in the blackness of the charcoal night it felt more akin to the terror of bungee jumping. I confess to shedding tears of fear and, travelling down the waves at 13 knots as the wind gusted to 32 knots suddenly I experienced mental and physical paralysis. Only Casper’s kind words from the open hatch below helped me overcome this and give me the edge to reef down considerably.

The sea was an extraordinary colour during the daytime. Was it Prussian blue? Electric blue? It’s so hard to define. It was a blue of such intensity that I believe only comes from the immense depth beneath us, at times in excess of 2000 metres. The water was thick, its surface leathery and timeless like a sunbaked face. Waves broke in whispering crests often leaving behind a crisp turquoise patch in the water. The sun made a fan of rays through the clouds like the picture on the cover of the Good News Bible I had as a child.


The second night with the wind a steady 20 to 25 I was able to appreciate the magic of it all. The jet sky spattered with stars. I think I have never seen so many. The brilliant phosphorescence - fireflies, a million small tinkerbelles dancing in our wake.
On the third day the clouds hung low and pregnant, the colour of a fresh bruise. We thought they would bring us the rain that was forecast but it never did.


The air gradually got warmer and warmer. The salt crystals that lay in drifts on the boat got fatter and fatter. The wind eased and at first light on the fourth day we traded the genoa for the spinnaker. We lazed on deck watching a merry turtle paddle by. They swim so very strangely with funny asymmetric circular motions that it’s a wonder to me that they make it so far. We mused that, its little flipper in the air, it was waving at us so, naturally, it was only right to wave back. No dolphins but we did see the spray, far off, of what we believe must have been a whale of some considerable size.
In the late afternoon we caught sight of the very faint shadow on the horizon that was Porto Santo. We were very excited as it felt like we were arriving at a proper foreign port, neither of us having ever been to this volcanic island. How incredibly exciting this would have been for the explorers who, after days at sea, found this unexpected landmass rising up before them.

Porto Santo at sunset

Another few hours and we were ghosting in just after sundown to the island’s only harbour.
Impulse is now in the game with the big girls as we have entered serious cruiser territory now. Every boat is set up for long distance sailing and the sailors themselves have the sun and the sea etched deep into their skin.
I can’t get over the fact that we are out in the Atlantic. It feels so strange. I can’t quite put it into words but its something like awe at the tremendous space surrounding me - that if I swam out to sea I would be lost forever.
Today we visit the island and then we will move off to Madeira itself. Love to you all my friends. I can’t believe that Totnes has had its first frost. What a large world this is!