Day 1: Departure Day
Thursday, July 4 2024
Distance sailed: 23 nm
Distance to Cascais: 800 nm (along our expected route)
Distance in last 24 hours: 23 nm
Wind is E at 13 knots; sunny
Off we go! We cast off the lines and left the dock in Ponta Delgada this morning at 8 am. The winds have been better than expected and we’ve been enjoying a good sail tacking upwind along the south side of São Miguel. The weather is nice and sunny though it’s a bit cool in the breeze.
The sail along the island has been a nice chance to take in a last view of these beautiful islands with their volcanic features, rugged shoreline, and lush green vegetation. The Azores really are a special place. We’ve even been lucky enough to have dolphins drop by the boat along the way, saying goodbye, I guess!
This afternoon we’ll round the east end of Sao Miguel (see photo) and head north, then into our watch rotation after dinner as we settle into the routine of being on passage. At that point we’ll also lose our cellular connection, so future updates unfortunately won’t have photos.
Day 2: Is it only Day 2 ?!?
Friday, July 5 2024
Distance sailed: 146 nm
Distance to Cascais: 677 nm (along our expected route)
Distance in last 24 hours: 123 nm
Wind is NNW at 10 knots; skies slowly clearing to sun after a grey morning
It’s possible that the secret to good crossings is leaving enough time between each crossing that you forget all the bad parts. Here we are on day 2 yet it could easily be day 32 of the last passage.
We are, of course, still in the hardest days of this trip. We are out of practice with sleeping on a rolly sea, and against the background cacophony of the creaky boat, the engine, the autopilot, and the grinding winches – the exact combination varies by the hour. Perhaps the one benefit of our overall lack of sleep is that by tonight, I should be tired enough to sleep regardless of the noise. Plus, we’re only out here for a week this time – so just as we get used to it, we can start looking forward to spotting land again!
But I digress. After tacking up São Miguel yesterday, we motored north in search of the generally westerly winds that will carry us over to Portugal. The coastal currents push south near Portugal, so it is easier to gain extra northing now and ride with the current as we sail down to Cascais. We had several dolphin visits as we sailed along, although the dolphins seemed more interested in the fishing than swimming along with us. We were even lucky enough to spot a number of whales (we think they were sperm whales) just before Mike started his watch at 8pm. I’m hoping that these aren’t the last of the whales we will see this week – except for the pesky orcas, of course.
For this passage I have pre-made most of our meals, which makes things easy in the galley. We had chicken stew last night, and egg and cheese breakfast sandwiches this morning. This keeps things easy as we readjust to the rocking boat, and gradually nap our way back to feeling alert.
The wind filled in this morning after dawn, and we shut the motor off with the wind behind us. We seem to be done tacking upwind for now, so our days can go back to eating, sleeping, trimming sails, and looking out for fun sea life (and freighters, of course).
Day 3: Traffic, wear and tear
Saturday, July 6 2024
Distance sailed: 268 nm
Distance to Cascais: 553 nm (along our expected route)
Distance in last 24 hours: 122 nm
Wind is WNW at 6 knots; skies are clear with a few clouds around.
The winds held steady all day yesterday and last night. We enjoyed good sailing, making a lot of miles down the course towards Portugal. As of late this morning, however, the winds have slowly died and what little wind there is is coming from further behind us. We had the spinnaker up for a while, trying to make the most of the light winds, but the flopping and repeated shocks as the sail fills can take a toll on gear. After the shackle holding down the tack of the spinnaker (the bottom front corner) snapped, we doused quickly and replaced it with a spare soft shackle. (Side note: it was naturally while I was on the foredeck wrestling with the spinnaker that Glenda called out: “Mike, there’s a dolphin on our port side!”). We tried sailing with the spinnaker again, but there just wasn’t enough wind. It is down now, and we are motoring again. Hopefully the winds will pick up again later this afternoon, but in the meantime, hot showers are on the agenda.
After a very empty ocean since leaving São Miguel, late yesterday saw our first traffic: a passenger ship (small cruise ship or ferry?) bound for Ponta Delgada. Maybe as a taste of what’s to come later in the trip as we approach Portugal, the night saw us pass close by two freighters (one bound for New York, another for Europe), and a sailboat on its way to the Azores. Nighttime encounters are always interesting! We run with radar on and have an AIS transceiver, and, of course, navigation lights. The radar helps us see and track the freighters at long range, sometimes as much as 25 miles away, and it’s also handy for seeing rain squalls in the area.
The AIS (automatic identification system) is a beacon system that all commercial ships must carry, and nowadays most pleasurecraft also have installed. There’s really no reason not to have AIS these days… it’s not expensive, simple to install, and adds a lot of safety. Like radar, AIS lets us see nearby vessels and tells us their location, course, and speed. This allows us to determine whether we are going to pass too close to them or not, how soon we’ll come together, and whether we should adjust course to give ourselves more room. Unlike radar, AIS also tells us the type of vessel, name, size, and destination, making it easier to know what we’re looking for visually and easier to know who to call on the VHF radio if needed. AIS is also a 2-way system, so equally important is the fact that the boats around us can see all the same information from Innisfree.
And since we’re small, even with our navigation lights on and a radar reflector hanging in our rigging, our AIS signal may be the first thing another ship detects, especially in bad weather. That helps ensure both boats can alter course if needed while still miles apart. Out here, if we see our path is are going to bring us within about 2 miles of another boat, we start thinking about a change of course. If it’s within 1 mile, we are definitely adjusting our heading to avoid getting any closer.
On rare occasions we’ve actually called up one of the bigger ships on the VHF. Usually the situation is one in which they are coming up behind us, and we we want to make sure they can see us and to confirm which way we should steer to stay out of their way. I called up a cruise ship on our first night out from Nova Scotia on our way to Boston for this reason. The ships don’t mind the call. Usually, they have already spotted us and tell us not to bother changing course… they’ll adjust a bit and tell us which side they’re going to pass on.
But all this technology is not a substitute for good watch keeping. We try to do a horizon scan by eye every 15 minutes or so when on watch. It’s surprising how with the big ships it’s still their lights poking up over the horizon that you see first.
Day 4: Halfway Day!
Sunday, July 7 2024
Distance sailed: 390 nm
Distance to Cascais: 444 nm
Distance in last 24 hours: 122 nm
Wind is WNW at 12 knots; sunny skies with a vague hint of the expected clouds to the north
When we left Ponta Delgada, our projected course had us traveling 817 nautical miles to Cascais. As I start this post, we have 448.5 miles left, meaning that in 40 miles (7-8 hours from now), we will hit the halfway point – and that makes today Halfway Day. It’s a bit of an anticlimactic halfway day though, partly because we haven’t traveled far enough to earn the traditional 700-mile buns for breakfast, and because we are only a few days into the passage, and are only now starting to lose that zombie-like exhausted feeling during the day. Usually, we are well into the swing of things before this day arrives.
The last 24 hours have brought rather mixed sailing weather. After fixing the tack shackle, we flew the spinnaker until mid-afternoon, dousing it when a raincloud moved in behind us and brought the potential for higher winds. The rain was more drizzly than gusty, so we continued sailing until evening, gybing a few times as needed. It feels like we have already done more sail changes and adjustments than we did on our entire 22-day passage to Horta! By 8pm, an unscheduled yet long-lasting wind shift to the WSW convinced us to set the whisker pole and sail wing-on-wing through the night. So, of course, barely an hour later, the wind shifted back to the predicted direction and dropped, and Mike ended up dousing the sails and motoring instead. He left the pole up since I was already asleep and because it’s difficult to take down in the dark. Flash forward to 2am, the end of my shift – as Mike came up and prepared to start sailing again, we noticed that the whisker pole extension line had come uncleated and had retracted, and the pole was waving back and forth on the foredeck (it was still attached and not damaging anything, but the guy lines were now loose so the pole was no longer being held in one place). As we turned on the engine to steady the boat while taking down the pole, we also noticed that the tachometer was no longer working, and alternator was not charging the battery. Ugh. But we got the pole down, shut off the engine, and we sailed through the rest of the night – better to deal with these things in daylight, and with a better-rested head.
Both of these issues have now been fixed, but they are a good reminder that on passage, something will always go wrong. You just have to be ready to make adjustments on the fly, and hopefully have the tools and/or spare parts available to repair what goes wrong, or at least find a workable solution.
On the animal front (my favourite part!), yesterday we had three loggerhead turtles swim past the boat! I didn’t even know they lived in this part of the ocean – I only found out they were here by way of the ‘recent sightings’ board at a whale watching company in Ponta Delgada. How odd to see sea turtles hundreds of miles from any land, in an area where the ocean is several kilometers deep – but they do feed on the Portuguese Man-of-War, so I guess it kind of makes sense? Aside from the whales, the only other creature on the sightings board that I have yet to see is a sunfish – those big, blobby, 200-poundish fish that float at the surface with a fin that looks like floppy shark. The last time I saw one of those was in Cape Cod, so I am on the lookout now to try and spot another!
Day 5: The end of the nice weather
Monday, July 8 2024
Distance sailed: 534 nm
Distance to Cascais: 301 nm
Distance in last 24 hours: 144 nm
Wind is WSW at 16 knots; overcast with occasional rain
It has to be said that the weather up to now on this passage has been pretty darn nice. Sure, there have been a few periods of light or fickle winds, but overall, the sun has been out, the temperatures warm, and the sailing pleasant.
It was in the last of those conditions that we celebrated halfway day yesterday evening, with a (sadly somewhat crisped) apple strudel, and a wee sip of Canadian whiskey, one each for Glenda, myself, and of course Neptune, to see us safely the rest of the way.
Overnight, the winds built steadily as a low pressure system passed us to the north, and a storm band crossed over us. With the winds eventually gusting up to 28 knots, we gradually shortened sail: first one reef in the main, then furling the jib, then a second reef, then partially furling the genoa. All along, our boat speeds continued to climb, peaking at over 8 knots as we ran down the waves. The rain was the worst early this morning, but manageable. Our cockpit enclosure doesn’t keep all the water out, but it stops most of it, and one can always find a dry corner to sit while on watch.
The good news is that we made lots of miles and the boat comfortably handled the conditions. The breeze is now starting to ease, and the clouds are brightening, though the waves are still high, making life on board a bit tricky.
Tomorrow we’ll have to start planning our approach to the coast on Wednesday. It looks like this passing system will leave light winds in it’s wake, so our last day may be a motor sail. If so, having an easy run in to a busy coast would be just fine by us.
Day 6: Are we there yet?
Tuesday, July 9 2024
Distance sailed: 658 nm
Distance to Cascais: 182 nm
Distance in last 24 hours: 124 nm
Wind is SW at 17 knots; overcast with occasional rain
In our 22-day journey to Horta, I never once felt bored. There always seemed to be something to do, even if it was just staring out at the ocean, looking for whales. But yesterday, I was actually bored, only 6 days into the trip.
Part of the problem is that I didn’t download enough new movies and podcasts, so I’ve seen everything on my phone at least twice. My books aren’t appealing, and I’ve already listened to my podcasts. And it has been raining, which means that we have part of our cockpit enclosure zipped up, and the rain-coated vinyl windows limit our visibility and makes it harder to look for wildlife in the big waves (the only thing we saw was a few birds, and the poor little squid who got washed up on our decks :disappointed:).
In the late afternoon, Innisfree solved our boredom by creating problems for us. We started the engine as the winds died off, and found that the tachometer/alternator problem from the other day had apparently not been completely fixed. Troubleshooting ensued, followed by Mike replacing the alternator with our spare (thanks, Susan!); we can take the broken one in for service once we get to Portugal. That took us until 7, leaving just enough time for dinner and then my bedtime… at least I wasn’t bored anymore?
This morning we crossed into Portuguese waters, delineated by a pink line on the charts, 200 miles off the coast. We had to be careful not to snag our prop on the line as we passed over it :rofl:.
Approaching the Portuguese coast is going to be a bit like the old Frogger video game (nephews: before your time… look it up). We have yet to see any ships, although we are expecting to encounter considerable shipping traffic as we approach the coast. In particular, there are two distinct shipping lanes that we’ll have to cross: one for traffic going north, one for traffic going south. Our job is to stay out of the way of the commercial ships in those lanes as we cross. But even outside the lanes, this is a busy area, and we expect to see more and more boats as we get closer. Then there is the fishing gear, denoted by many small buoys with little flags, unlit. Charlie, our weather router, described it a bit like flags on a golf course. We’d really rather not snag a prop on those.
Lastly, and really a low but non-zero risk, are the orcas. People may have read stories in recent years of orcas attacking boats in the area, and it is a real issue. There have been hundreds of attacks and encounters, many broken rudders, and even a few boats that have been sunk. No one is really sure why, but a number of animals in the small (endangered) population of orcas that live near the straights of Gibraltar and prey primarily on the tuna there, have taken up the habit of attacking boat rudders in the last few years. We’ve learned a lot in that time, and there are now good websites that track the incidents. The recommended actions to take if you are approached by orcas have also evolved. Read online, and you will also find lots of speculation, as well as fiercely debated yet unproven countermeasures. Most of these, like emptying your holding tank during an attack (yuck, poor orca), are almost certainly ineffective.
The best strategy is avoidance, which is what we are attempting. First, there have been almost no incidents near Lisbon this year, and none recently. This was a factor in our decision to head to Cascais. Second, the orcas tend to hang out in the medium depths off the coast, which is where the fish are. So our plan is to transit that area as quickly as possible, moving from deep waters offshore into the shallower waters near the coast. Again, the geography of the area here helps that. Lastly, we’ll try to time our approach to arrive in daylight, so we are a little less likely to be surprised; if orcas do approach us, we’ve got a set of actions we’ll take to minimize the risk to the boat and get away from the pod as quickly as we can. While we certainly can’t outrun an orca, the individuals apparently tend not to want to stray too far from the group, so if you can move away quickly, they may lose interest and return to the pod.
Despite the news, it’s important to remember that there is a large number of boats that are active in these waters every day. The likelihood of an incident is still really low, and we are looking forward to seeing the shores of Portugal later tomorrow!
Day 7: Peering into the mists
Wednesday, July 10 2024
Distance sailed: 806 nm
Distance to Cascais: 40 nm
Distance in last 24 hours: 148 nm
Wind is N at 3 knots; sun with fog
There’s land out there somewhere, right? Yesterday we talked about many of the different challenges inherent in approaching the coast. Well, we left out a big one: fog.
Throughout yesterday afternoon, the sailing was fast. We made a lot of miles, and before long we were faced with the decision of whether to press on quickly to make landfall before dark today, or slow down and drift our way in sometime after dawn on Thursday. Sure, we are keen to arrive, but we try and make these decisions primarily based on safety. Slowing down and avoiding the risk that we wouldn’t be fast enough, and thereby end up entering an unknown anchorage in the dark, might seem like the obvious answer, but that’s not necessarily the case. Going fast to arrive today would mean crossing the shipping lanes and fishing areas mostly during the day. Slowing down would mean doing so in the dark. Pick your poison.
We decided to go for it, and have been carefully watching our speed and comparing our progress against the distance remaining to make sure we will make it in time.
Enter the fog. All day yesterday, the weather was damp and grey, with featureless clouds all around. As night fell we were still sailing fast, but the winds were slowly starting to ease, and to shift from the SW to west, forcing our course under sail to veer further and further southeast of the rhumb line. The fog settled in quickly after nightfall, and that’s when the shipping traffic showed up. The only way to see the ships was with AIS and radar. At one point we changed course to go behind a tanker (no playing chicken with tankers!). From the AIS we know it passed about 1.2 nm away, but despite being lit up (I’m sure) and nearly 200 m long, you couldn’t see it at all in the fog. Thank goodness for modern instruments.
Not long afterwards, we finally gave up sailing, turned on the engine, and turned the bow directly towards Cascais. We’re on schedule, but half a day later we’re still surrounded by fog, and still using our instruments to pick our way, frogger style, across the shipping lanes. Come on sun! Burn off the fog! At this rate we may not see land until we enter the anchorage.
Landfall!
Wednesday, July 10 2024
We made it!! Innisfree is safely at anchor in Cascais, Portugal.
Total distance sailed: 845.5 nm
Time: 6 days, 12 hours, 5 minutes
Average speed: 5.4 knots
