Arquipeligo da Madeira: Porto Santo – Painting boat name

Well we have ‘hunkered down’ and survived some high winds here on the island.

Everyone outside the harbour moved in and we all ‘battened down the hatches’ and got ourselves ready for the storms to come, and they came!

Everyone survived them and, except for some broken sleep, not a boat suffered any more damage then warp (fancy name for mooring ropes) chafe.

Although the harbour walls blocked most of the storms waves, some still came in the entrance and bounced around in the harbour, reflecting off the walls and making everyone roll about.

Those boats tied on at the tiny Marina complained the constant noice of the pontoons heaving up and down and their lines snatching kept them up for the night.

Those of us on anchor did not have the noise, except the howling wind, but instead had the ‘roll’.  The refracted waves rolling the boat about.

I call it the ‘rock a by baby’ syndrome, but basically if the waves hit the side of the boat it can roll back and forth uncomfortably.  It is not that bad in a harbour, but we have had it really bad on anchor off a beach before.  Go back and see all the stuff we tried at Audierne.

Looking at the faces of those in the Marina, after 5 days of high winds, I am glad we are on anchor.  Mind you, we have had a few bumpy dingy rides to the Marina for my walks.  Got to keep the humans fit!

The weather looks to break tomorrow, so we are going off to see the big island Madeira.  Sadly many of the ARC boats are too worried about deadlines and will not be joining us.  They need to use the 2 day weather window to get to the Canaries.

We have made this MONSTEROUS ocean passage (at least for us) to get to the Arquipeligo and they have to rush off with out seeing everything.  Is that not the reason we sailed here?  The ARC fleet have to be in Las Palmas: Grand Canaria, by the beginning of November.

Unfortunately there are a set of low pressure systems set to hit us.  And with them comes strong winds and unsettled weather.  We will be weather bound in Madeira for at least a week.  Fine for us to go sight seeing, but no good for the poor ARC boats.

Before we leave Porto Santo we must paint the boats name on the wall.

It is a tradition, in just a few ports in the world, to paint the name of your boat on a wall near the Marina or anchorage.  The Azores is the only other place we have seen it, but some one told me there is a place in Finland that people also do it.

Well if it is part of the tradition, we best follow suit.  The humans got me some paints, brushes and some rubber gloves and away I went.

Hope you like it!