After being in A Coruna (or La Coruna as it is sometimes called) and with very little wind – and importantly no reported orca interactions, we decided to make our way around the corner to Muxia. It was a long motor, with a constant orca watch, but we were happy to arrive in the cute little marina safely.

Toilet troubles

Unfortunately we had another toilet blockage so had to do a big cleanup job and were happy that the marina was quiet – and there was a great little launderette across the road where we were able to take all our dirty towels!

Muxia Marina is interesting in that the marina office is also the local petrol station and we were able to fill up via jerry cans to ensure we had full fuel tanks, in case much more motoring was needed.

The next morning we had a quick walk around the town and went on a hunt for bread!  Typical Spanish time as nothing was open as it should be. We decided Jen would wait around for the bakery to open and Chris would go and get Yanula Blue ready for departure.

Eventually the bakery opened and Jenni used Google Translate to ask for the bread which would last longest.  The baker tried to give a reply which was incomprehensible and luckily an English speaking local was able to translate that he was saying to put it in the fridge!

Setting off on our next big voyage

We left in descending fog, hoping to stay ahead of it which we managed to for the greater part.  A funny fisherman proudly showed us his octopus catch and then we hit more fog.

The fog soon lifted and we were motoring as quick as we could with no wind to be found – as expected.  We did try the genoa for a while but there simply wasn’t enough.  Our mission was to get past 10 degrees west, as there had never been any Orca attacks beyond this point – and we didn’t want to be the first!!

We had been monitoring the excellent website Orcas.pt and during the lead up to our departure from Les Sables D’Olonne we had attended an online presentation by Rui, the founder of the website. He had mentioned, and we were able to see on his website, that the 10 degree west longitude was the line that Orca interactions had not been observed.

There were dolphins everywhere and we think we saw a Minky whale and lots of ships and fishing boats … just no wind!! When Jenni was on watch and Chris was sleeping, she saw some big black serious looking sails on the horizon – not pirates, but Boris Hermann’s IMOCA Melizia, out training – the dilemma … wake Chris or not! She did and we watched him sail very quickly past us!

We motored for 26 hours – possibly one of our longest and the engine did well – and eventually the next morning we found wind .. But it only lasted 4 hours until we had to put the engine on again – at least it gave us a great chance to check our fuel consumption which was running at about 3 litres an hour.

With 364 litres of fuel on board, and averaging 5 miles an hour, we calculate that gives us a motoring distance of about 600 miles – not bad at all, but not enough to get us all the way to Madeira so we were hopeful for the forecast wind to come back again!!

When the wind fills in

Day 3 afternoon … and the wind came back!!  Yippeee … for a few hours anyway until the autopilot broke again!!! No worries – at least we knew what to do this time, and were arranging for more spares to be made when we got to Madeira.

It was a bit squally and we both got tired.  It was rolling a lot, and the boat coped excellently, but it became wearing for us as it was difficult to sleep.  Life at this stage was food (tuna pots and casseroles!) sleep (ping ping roll roll aaggghhhh) and more food (egg on toast for breakfast – yum!!)

Fish on! We usually troll a lure as we’re sailing and Chris landed a Bonito, a small pelagic tuna.  It made for a lovely meal.

We enjoyed birds flying around us as we started eventually to get nearer land – always lifting the spirits.  The moon was high on the final night and we had the gennaker up and were flying along at last.

We were practicing sail trim with poles, as we knew our Atlantic crossing would be using poles, and watching for squalls in between sleeping and eating – with an occasional game of backgammon when Chris indulged Jen!

Land Ho

Its strange when we are writing this (actually 6 months later! Oops!) and we read the log to remember the passage… it all feels a little bit surreal and so easily forgotten! But we do remember that final sight of land for our longest passage to date – 5 days (2 – 7 October 2025), 751 nautical miles!! We did it!!

We arrived into Porto Santo, a small island to the north of Madeira and the usual first stop for sailors making this trip.  There is a small marina and a large anchorage and we were pleased to drop the hook, in a nice space quite close to the harbour entrance.

We had a couple of hours sleep and then prepared the paperwork to go ashore and check in. Porto Santo is known to be quite a strict port of entry and we had 4 different people to see – Customs, Immigration, Boat Immigration, and the marina office to pay – even at anchor there is a small fee, but it allows you to use showers and other facilities which were very welcome! We don’t mind paying to anchor when they support sailors and it helps keep places like this welcoming visitors.

As is the way with this cruising life, we met up with the crew of Starfish Enterprise, they were heading in to town to buy paint. The wall of the harbour is covered in painted emblems by visiting yachts and it is fascinating to see the amount, the nationalities, the boat names and the creativity.  A few days later we walked past them making their mark.

We spent 9 days on Porto Santo, walking to the town and finding our favourite little bar right on the beach front, and doing some provisioning. We also hired a scooter and had fun exploring the whole of the island and some amazing viewpoints (it is very hilly!) and windmills!!

Porto Santo was also the first time we met one of our fellow Viking Explorers. We were making our way slowly to Gran Canaria for the start of the Viking rally and as part of the lead up, we had been attending webinars where we had met, virtually, James the solo skipper of Oratavo. James arrived a few days after us and was pretty quickly hauled out as his saildrive had developed a water leak in to the oil at the propeller shaft.

James told us about a cousin of his wife who ran a restaurant up in the hills so we all went out for the most amazing meal up there and were very well looked after!

Madeira bound

Eventually it was time to move to Madeira – which has very few anchorages as it is so hilly – so we had booked into one of only 3 marinas there, in Calheta on the very West, which was the only one that could accommodate us and even then after a few communication attempts and being very flexible over our arrival date.

There was no wind again so we motored all the way.  Seen from the coast Madeira is a stunningly beautiful island of steep cliffs and banana plantations, with the occasional cable car to get to the beaches!  The water changed colour to the most amazing indigo we had ever seen.

The entrance to Calheta Marina was very memorable… Atlantic swell was crossing our beam, it was very rolly and very hard to see the actual entrance as there was a brick wall directly in front, and as you entered you took a sharp left.  With the swell and there only being enough width for 1 boat it took some concentration, so we were silent as we were getting nearer and looking for the markers.  Eventually they appeared and we made it in safely – well done Skipper!!

Calheta itself was very much a resort marina with lots of restaurants along it and a good supermarket nearby.  We could understand why it was so hard to get a place as there was only 1 pontoon big enough for a yacht of our size.  We hired a car and got on with the main job – getting spare parts (spigots) made for the auto helm!!

Hunting spigots

We had made contact with Frederico who lives on the island, via an Orca support channel – he was kindly paying forward the help he himself had received as one of the first boats to ever have had an orca interaction … and it had lasted some hours and fortunately only resulted in a bent rudder, but very scary!

He had found an engineering workshop for us and we arranged to meet him near Funchal, the capital city. We thought we would be getting the welding done within a day, but apparently not – it would take quite a bit longer!  We made the most of a hire car to explore the stunning island, with its winding roads, waterfalls and banana plantations – one of which even had an honesty box to help yourself to the crops.

Due to the spigot delay we decided to relocate to Funchal, rather than continue with the car hire.  The Funchal marina only allows ‘rafting’ and no bookings – you have to anchor outside and register your interest to enter. We decided to stay at anchor as we expected to leave early and as soon as the spigots were ready.  Funnily we realised we had been to the exact spot many years earlier whilst on a cruise with Jen’s parents on a slightly bigger boat!!

We provisioned a bit more and explored the city, whilst waiting for the spigot.  We went back to the welding shop at the alloted time … only to find they still hadn’t been made!  They said we could leave and return – or wait! We decided to wait to save taxis and also to keep an eye on things.

It turned out the main man’s son was keen to practice English and was a keen motorbiker so Chris spent a few hours talking about bikes until the spigots were done.  Mission accomplished, we had four spigots made. We returned to the boat and prepared to leave the next morning!

We weren’t checking out of Madeira as we were already in the Schengen zone and had calculated we had enough days until leaving to cross the Atlantic.  We were off … again!