Gibraltar to Madeira
our longest offshore passage so far, 600 miles with no ports of refuge once we
leave the Straights of Gibraltar.
Exciting and a little scary.
We had been studying the long term
weather forecast and knew we needed to leave Gibraltar
with an easterly wind, but we also knew that an easterly would mean gale force
winds near Tarifa as the wind gets squeezed and accelerated past here as it’s
the narrowest past of the straight. We also had tides to deal with again and
the meeting of two seas.
We weren’t disappointed we left
Gib with a favourable tide and reached Pt Carnero, another English yacht
motored past us here but within about a mile they seemed to have stopped, as we
approached them we noticed the water texture changing and within a 100m we had
sailed from a favourable tide (+1knt) to a foul one (-3knt) the change was so
dramatic it was a fight to stop magnum spinning on the spot. Virtually all
forward motion stopped !!!
The 2 yachts further out were
hardly moving so we decided to re-cross the “tidal line” and keep close to the
Spanish shore to see if we could keep out of the tide. Sure enough once inshore
we picked up a favourable tidal eddy which we hung onto all the way to Tarifa.
The wind was now 25knts and we were speeding along at 7-8 knts, by the time we
reached the lighthouse at Tarifa the yacht that had past us near Gib was a dot
in the distance still fighting the tide, very satisfying !
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| The light house at Tarifa |
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| Tarifa sand dunes in the distance |
From here onwards the wind
increased to 30+knts and the ride got wilder, off the shallows at Cape
Trafalgar the water didn’t seem to know what to do, we had waves from all
directions.
The weather forecast showed that
even stronger winds would be howling out of the straights overnight (35+) so we
altered course to go north for 20-30 miles where we should have more manageable
winds.
In reality the wind dropped at
sunset and we were left wallowing in a heavy sea with only just enough wind to
fill our sails. I hate these conditions, and in no time at all we both
succumbed to mal de mare L
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| Pretty skies |
Overnight and the next day the
wind filled in again, but we had a miserable time in a confused sea, dodging
the shipping and feeling very rough.
We had made some good miles though
136 in the first 24hrs.
The next afternoon we finally
cleared the straights and picked up the Portuguese trade winds, the sea changed
and we now had regular Atlantic rollers racing down from the north.
The sailing was amazing, wind was
pretty constant at 15knts, we set full sail and surged off towards Madeira , the next 2 days we barely touched a rope or
altered course.
On the way we spotted a whale
(breeching) a turtle, dolphins and had a squid join us on deck !
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| ahh squid on deck! |
About a day earlier than planned
we had our “Land Ho!” moment, very exciting as Porto Santo reared up out of the
Atlantic .
600 miles under sail, what a
contrast to our Mediterranean sailing experience !
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| Wow we can see land |
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| Port Santo ahead |
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