Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Off to the Canary Islands

On Thursday Oct 27 we will depart Porto Santo in the Madeira Islands (Portugal) bound for the island of Tenerife in the Canary Islands (Spain). We will most likely tie up in Santa Cruz, the capitol city. We should be at sea for two to three nights and expect modest winds and moderate seas. From Tenerife we will depart for the USA sometime in mid November.

Compared to the weather in the Midwest US, this leg will be a piece of cake!

Yesterday we visited the island of Madeira and among other things we stocked up on some bottles of well aged Madeira wine. When we got back to the boat Pat found that they fit very nicely in a Rubbermaid carton in HIS berth. Gee, it's not like Rob is here and we have to lock up the wine...

This is what we see behind us as we head south -

Porto Santo in our rear view mirror
More later !

Monday, October 25, 2010

First leg going west

Our first ocean leg back towards the USA was devoid of vomit or drama so if that's all you want to read about you can stop now...

We left Oeiras, Portugal on Monday Oct 18 and reached the island of Porto Santo about 7 PM on Friday October 22. Here we are with Oeiras and Lisbon in the background as we leave Europe.
Pat steering with Lisbon in the background - Bye Europe !!!
We had smooth sailing with winds from 2 to 15 knots. We motored through our first night when winds were low to make sure we got clear of the European shipping lanes. We saw several ships each day and several each night. We stood fixed watches as a trial to see how that went. Tom had 7 to 10 pm - Pat had 10 to 1 am - Tom had 1 to 4 am- Pat had 4 to 7 am and then when Tom woke up (7 to 8 or so) Pat would nap for a couple hours and then we were usually up for the day. Sounds complicated, but it worked.

After our first day out we started to troll for fish during the day and on Wednesday we were alarmed to find we caught one! You know you have a fish because all of a sudden the line starts to run out and our audible warning is the clicker on the reel. Our first hope is that it is not a fish that is too big and our second hope is that is not something too creepy to eat. We were lucky this time - we caught a very common ocean fish - a Mahi Mahi also known as a Dorado. We estimated its weight at 15 pounds. This fish went from landed to our plate in less than one hour since we were getting ready for dinner anyway and had not yet cracked open any chicken or tofu...
Tom and Dorado - Tom is on the left
If there are any fishers out there here are some photos of our ocean gear.
Pat with our wire line fishing rig
Squid lure with a big hook hidden in the feathers
We're not sure why but we really didn't have many pretty sunsets on the way over here from the US. But we sure had some this week. Here are some.


And just to prove we were there - here is Pat
We headed toward the small island of Porto Santo in the Madeira group of islands. Here is what it looks like from a sailboat!
Looks kind of foreboding, doesn't it?
Here is what the island looks like from a hilltop bar - Ahhhh, that's more like it!
This bar is a converted windmill !

Christopher Columbus lived here around 1460
Christopher Columbus married the daughter of the governer of Porto Santo and his first son was born here on the island. This is the actual stone house he lived in, now a museum. Here is what 550 years of technology can get you: Here is Pat, just one block from the Columbus house reading his Kindle.
I hope he is reading about Columbus
Our marina is down at the end of the 4 mile beach. The wind comes whistling down those hills making lots of noise as it blasts through the rigging - like sailing only we are not moving...
Tonight we are taking a ferry over to the big island of Madeira for a couple nights. You can see the ferry at the marina. Why not just sail over? The marina at Madiera is full and the ferry serves beer.

For those of you who haven't been on this boat and would like a quick video tour of the cabins - here you are.We shot this in New York shortly before our departure - you will see a quick look around the boat, a view of Rob looking for wind so we can leave, and some of the other features. Mostly narrated by Skipper Pat, with comedy by Tom.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9zPSgt4Jfg

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

We Caught a Fish!

First fish of the trip!

We were under sail with the spinnaker up, going about four knots.We were using an artificial squid lure and had the line out maybe 30 yards. Pat was starting to cook dinner, although he had not yet opened the can of chicken when the clicks started as the line ran out. I went to the pole to see what was happening; Pat got the gaff hook. We brought in a 10 to 15 pound dorado (mahi mahi).

We pulled it in without incident and Pat gaffed it onto the deck where we quickly dispatched it. Dr. Courneya did the surgery and we had mahi-mahi for dinner with rice and the last of our fresh vegetables from Portugal - broccoli. It was a neat cap to a wonderful day!

We have had good sailing so far - scooting along doing about five knots in eight knots of wind - excellent for a boat like this. This morning, as we sat in the cockpit, Pat said this is what he thought it was going to be like all the time; yet coming over, we didn't really have one day like this. I said if he could guarantee this weather I would agree to head for South America and round Cape Horn and we could then ship the boat home from San Diego sometime about nine months from now...  ha ha!

Posted by Peggy, on behalf of Pat and Tom, aboard Remedios, Atlantic Ocean

Monday, October 18, 2010

Back On The Ocean !!

USA - Here We Come

Today (Monday Oct 18) around noon at high tide, we will take Remedios out through this gap, turn right (to starboard) and head southwest with Madeira as our first destination. Our plan is to make Madeira in about 4 days, stay there a few days, then head to the Canary Islands and make a couple stops there before the final leg from the Canaries to Florida. Here we are on the breakwall on Sunday.

We'll be sure our pants match next time
We had a great time with our spouses touring around Portugal. Here we are at dinner in Lisbon a couple weeks ago. It was great having Peggy and Michele visit us but the time went by way too fast!

Peggy and Michele got to fly home...
As we leave Oeiras, Portugal, Pat and Tom will be sailing and handling the boat, and our third crewmate, Rob, will be providing email weather advice and moral support from his home in St. Cloud, Minnesota. Rob also plans to meet us shortly after we land in Florida in mid December. We talked to Rob last night and ended our call with phone fist bumps and hugs. We will miss Rob but the fact is we have filled his cabin with other stuff; we are using his dog bowl to hold peanuts, and I’m glad I don’t have to sweep out his long gray hairs any more.
Last night at our farewell dinner we set a place for Rob and bought him a beer.

We have loved our time in Portugal and the marina here in Oeiras is a fun place and hard to leave. Here are the crowds that gathered yesterday, a pleasant sunny Sunday afternoon. I suspect they will all be gone tomorrow, but I am going to pretend they are here to see us off…
A beautiful day to be outside
Our latest friends from Norway (four young guys on one dad’s boat) left for Madeira this morning and we hope to meet up with them and other folks we have met along the way in either Madeira or the Canaries. If we get the right winds we might even catch the four Norwegians and then pass them since we have a spinnaker. Pat has promised if we both catch them and pass them that we can moon them as we go by. Please oh please…

We have a couple extra challenges on the return leg. One is that the night will be three hours longer and we will have to divide the night watches between two people instead of three. So, each of us will stand two three-hour night watches on the way back instead of one on the way over. Crossing the ocean with two crew members is often referred to as sailing short-handed. We plan to handle all the other chores and tasks with a mixture of grit and smarts (Pat) and perversity and stubbornness (Tom). And even though we both get along well, it won’t really matter because I think half the time one of us will be asleep. I bought a new pair of shorts in Lisbon and I’ll let you know how long it takes Pat to even notice…

We have lots of entertainment options for night watches. There really is too much going on to watch a DVD, but podcasts are a great option. We have the usual NPR downloads and interviews along with the New Yorker weekly commentary, Bob Edwards Weekend, and to balance all that out we have Savage Love, Dennis Miller, and Marc Maron with his weekly WTF web show.

We are done with our boat chores, fixes, and improvements – here are a couple we can show you.
Moving the antenna lead away from the backstay should improve radio performance
Two grab straps in the cabin for when we are bouncing around
A few straps on deck to tie off halyards and other lines
The blue thing is a bag to keep a smaller jib on deck for easy deployment
A pull-up bar because we plan to come back with muscles
The new splash cloth may keep some waves out of the cockpit

We’ll try to do some blogs from the ocean through our SailMail program and some help with postings from Peggy and the Courneyas.

Hey, what about the hurricane season? Good question. Here are two pictures that tell it all.

This picture shows all the hurricane tracks for the last 160 years. This graphic shows where they start and end. It also shows that when we leave the Canaries, that we have a couple extra weeks before we actually get into the hurricane belt. It also shows you why the people that build big expensive houses on the North Carolina coast have more money than sense.

This next graphic shows the monthly breakdown of hurricanes during the defined hurricane season. You can easily see that the historical chance of a late November hurricane where we will be is remote. And if you have a big screen TV, and have ever seen a man change channels, you know that remote is our favorite word.

So, off we go. We’re sure there will be drama and we promise to report and of course exploit it for our personal glory. We’ll let you folks vote on whether or not you want puke and weight loss stats or other fun facts.

And, if you were wondering when the heck we were going to get back on the ocean, the answer is now!!

Friday, October 1, 2010

Traveling up north

Over the last couple weeks Tom was traveling around northern Portugal and Pat was enjoying some peace and quiet and doing boat chores. Then we managed to mesh our schedules and Pat took a train to Viana do Castelo so we could do some hiking together and get out into less developed areas.


Viana do Castelo is a nice seaside town with an imposing cathedral overlooking the town.


You can see the church on the hill
 We thought it would be a good training exercise to hike up to the cathedral and then we took a VERY narrow stairway up to the top and then took a VERY narrow spiral staircase up to the very top of the dome. Pat was quite comfortable up there, I was a quivering mass of protoplasm so the picture you see here was probably shot by Pat. I do not like heights.

We were way up at the top...
Here is the city from the top of the church - what a view!


The next day we took a rental car off into Park Peneda Geres – the largest and first national park in Portugal. It is a great place to hike. We went to a small town and stayed in an old granite inn.

Here are some shots of us hiking and goofing around for a couple days. Our first day we climbed 2000 vertical feet up these kind of trails and through these kinds of woods and rocks.

I wouldn't walk under this rock until Pat agreed to help hold it back
Part of our hike was on this road which we shared with cars and goats
Here was a nice waterfall and pool
We made a hiking buddy - Joachim - an airline pilot
At the top I claimed the valley for, well, Remedios ...
Pat just never stops working. I sat down for a minute to have some water and a candy bar and before I knew it - look what he did!
Some of the terrain was very open and moon-like
Some of the trails went through the forest



Remember sharing the road? Pat told me he would go ahead and if anything happened - I should keep shooting pictures. I readily agreed.

Don't tell Pat, but my money was on the bull if it came to that.
OK, I am not making this up. We missed a turn on this hike and ended up in Spain. We kid you not. Just like those hikers in Iraq. Except we were smart enough to take a wrong turn in the EU so all we had to do was come back across the Portugal / Spain border.

Here is the border sign
Here I am coming back from Spain...

We had hiking sticks to fend off wild dogs if needed. They weren't...
The second day we hiked 18 miles up and down with a vertical gain of 1900 vertical feet. Part of that hike was on the path of an old Roman road more than 1500 years old.

Roman mile markers more than 1500 years old!
Our reward after four hours of hiking!
Now we are off to meet Michele and Peggy at the airport and then we will split up for some spousal re-acquainting and travel time. More in a couple weeks!