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Madeira
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Madeira

After the visit to Porto Santo, we sailed to the larger island of Madeira. We got a place at the marina on the south-eastern part of the island, Quinta do Lorde, and arrived at about the same time as our Swedish boat neighbors on Aurora. This is the island of flowers! If you come here in the spring, it will be a spectacular scene of colors from all the flowering trees and plants. Now, at the begin ...

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Porto Santo
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Porto Santo

After careful studies of the weather and wind forecasts for the sailing to the Madeira archipelago, we expected to arrive after 3.5 days. Full of anticipation and well equipped for a multi-day crossing, we set sail one morning. The wind was supposed to come from the northeast and give us a pleasant crossing. However, after two days with a steady south-westerly wind, we began to despair. We had bee ...

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Lisboa
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Lisboa

Readers are warned of a slightly longer text than usual. Lisbon, like Porto, is a melting pot of old and new, poor and rich. Like Rome, Lisbon is said to have been built on seven hills and is one of Europe's oldest cities with a history that stretches back long before the birth of Christ. The various districts have basically merged with the city center and to facilitate access to higher, resp. in ...

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Figueira and Nazaré
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Figueira and Nazaré

Anastacia was reorganized after our guests had left Porto and the next stop was Aveiro. We anchored together with some other sailors next to the beach at São Jacinto where there was a military base with aircraft and infantry. Small fast motorboats shuttled with what we believe were command transports. We were also soon visited by the Portuguese Maritime Police who inquired about who we were and w ...

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Porto
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Porto

To avoid killer whales along the coast of Portugal, the recommendation for sailors is to stay within 20 m of depth. The only problem is that in these shallow coastal waters there are many fishing buoys and fishing nets which must be avoided and which are not visible at night. We left Vigo with the intention of stopping and anchoring halfway before reaching Porto as it was over 60 nautical miles di ...

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Galicia
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Galicia

After La Coruña we sailed further south. With almost no wind we had to motoring for a while before the wind increased and we could set sail. We saw different groups of dolphins greeting us and unfortunately, we also came across a dead, younger dolphin floating in the water. However, a slightly larger group swam for a long time by our boat and surfed the waves after Anastacia. A British sailboat g ...

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La Coruña (A Coruña)
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La Coruña (A Coruña)

Finally, we got away from Santander. We had beautiful weather but unfortunately too little wind and a very bumpy sea and had to go by motor a lot. The plan was to anchor at some river mouth or sheltered beach on the way west but all the places we had planned for, turned out not to offer enough protection from the waves. We had to rethink and instead prepared to sail also at night. Later in the eve ...

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Santander and Altamira
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Santander and Altamira

We left the Basque Country and sailed further west, along Biscay towards Cantabria. The next stop was Santander, which is well protected in a bay. We anchored outside the harbor, opposite one of the beautiful sandy beaches that lie on either side of the bay. On the Spanish election day, we disembarked and, as we had previously seen in Getxo and in Bilbao, the election campaign was in full swing. N ...

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San Sebastián and Bilbao
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San Sebastián and Bilbao

San Sebastián was our next stop after sailing on the hottest day we've experienced during our sailing so far. The city welcomes its guests from the sea with a statue of Christ looking out towards the city from Mount Urgul. Incidentally, the name Urgul sounds like it comes from a Tolkien saga... The statue is not as magnificent as the one in Rio de Janeiro, but it was still visible from afar. Once ...

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Basque Country
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Basque Country

The 24-hour sailing from Île de Ré was tougher, rainier and bumpier than planned and what the weather forecast had promised. We certainly got our fair share of Biscay's infamous waves! It was difficult to get any sleep between the watch shifts, but otherwise the crew was in good spirits and mightily impressed with how well the self-steering windvane worked. Now we could set it for a specific win ...

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" Only two sailors, in my experience, never ran aground. One never left port and the other was an atrocious liar. "