Crossing From The Azores

It is surprising how quickly one becomes inured to the things that once were huge obstacles.  When Maggie and I first started sailing, a trip across the lake to Niagara was a big deal - 6 hours and 30 miles.  Once we left Toronto, we steadily became accustomed to longer trips until we got to the Magdalene Islands - 100 miles was the new hurdle, an over-nighter.

Then it was the trip to Bermuda from Florida.  That was 800 miles and over a week at sea, both daunting and difficult to grasp.  But when it was done, the 1600 mile tip to the Azores was "only" going to be two or three weeks at sea.  So we did not even blink at the 800 mile trip from the Azores to mainland Portugal. In fact, our new Japanese friends on Foxglove, Yoshi and Fumi, traveled for 72 days from Japan to Vancouver.

We were on our way, Sao Miguel to Portimao - the final leg that would finally get us to mainland Europe.  The culmination of a spiritual and physical journey that was already 9 years old.  At this time of the year, what are known as the Portuguese Trade Winds blow in a southerly direction once you get about 400 miles from the Azores.  The pilot chart determines the average wind to be 20 knots, so we were expecting to be on a brisk beam reach most of the way.  So it was when we left Ponta Delgada with a good forecast - that lasted about 8 hours,  then the wind died.  We drifted north under the gennaker for a day until a west wind developed and we sailed it for 3 days on a gentle broad reach - not fast but it was beautiful.

Our plan was to head slightly north of east, aiming for somewhere between Lisbon and Sines, in order to allow for a southerly current, leeway, and any adverse headwinds.  Headwinds have been a problem for us ever since we left Florida because we have not been able to rely on our mainsail due to the problem with the sail track, which is still not fixed.  Without it, we have trouble pointing into the wind and just go slower on any other tack.  At best we can only use the sail while triple reefed.

Well, once we got into the trade wind belt the winds were more from the east than from the north.  The Grib weather forecast in the morning was predicting 15 kt. winds from the northwest, but, as we noticed all the way ovver the Atlantic, the forecast was wrong.  Our Cape Horn wind pilot did a great job steering us on a close-hauled tack in northeast winds that were blowing in the 25 kt. range by the end of the day.  The next Grib file was not calling for any more favorable conditions, and I began to worry about missing Cape St.Vincent.  This would be a big deal.

The Cape is where the Atlantic coast of Portugal makes a turn to the east and becomes the Algarve.  Just off the Cape there is a traffic separation zone that all the shipping (and there is a lot of it) between the Med and the North Atlantic must pass through.  Pleasure craft must avoid this 30 mile wide zone, which begins 15 miles off shore. The plan was to reach the coast north of this zone then head south along the coast to round the cape 6 miles off shore.  Miss and we would be halfway to Morrocco before we could travel east and then beat northwards to Portugal or Spain once we cleared the zone.  "Beating" means sailing into the wind, which we could not do easily.

To further complicate matters, I had noticed while I was running the engine to make water that the seacock that supplies water to the engine was partially obstructed and there was a danger that the engine could overheat and, potentially, sieze.  Fortunately, I had plumbed in a second source of raw water from another thruhull that I could divert in just this case, but it was a smaller diameter hose.  I wasn't sure if I could rely on the engine to motor into the wind nor avoid traffic in the shipping lanes.

Then we were faced with a new development.  The 25 kt. northeast winds had increased and backed to the north so that the heavy seas were becoming confused and uncomfortable.  Added to the already cresting waves were now some breaking waves with the difference being that more water breaks off the top of a wave and tumbles down the wave face to slam into anything in its path - namely H2OBO.

We were regularly getting slammed by waves, which caused a loud thud to resound and a heavy spray of water to blow over the deck and pilot house.  If we ran off with the wind more to our stern we could miss the Cape and  motoring was out of the question.  To make matters worse, three slides that hold the mainsail to the mast had popped out, which was already triple reefed, so continuing on our present windward course was going to become unlikely it we lost our main completely.  At this point we were sailing only with our stay-sail and triple reefed main and were being over powered by the wind.  Anne wisely suggested exchanging the stay-sail for the storm jib, since conditions could further deteriorate, with which I was loathe to agree.  With only an hour to sunset, I donned my foul weather gear and ventured out onto the heaving bow.  I wished for a chameleon's eyes so I could keep one on any breaking waves bearing down on me and the other one on the task at hand.  The bow was bouncing and the wind was blowing and what seemed like 30 was only 10 minutes, but the storm jib was hanked on.

We were 30 miles away from crossing the shipping lanes.  Because we have an AIS transcceiver, we could see all the commercial vessels making their way on our chart plotter, and they could see us.  For those who don't know, AIS stands for Automatic Identification System, which all commercial vessels are mandated to have.  This system uses a dedicated VHF channel to pass transponder data among all vessels with AIS capcbility - it is  wonderful.  Course, speed, vessel name, call sign, size of vessel, type of cargo, destination and, best of all, the time of closest distance that we would be from any ship on our present course is displayed on our chart plotter.  Folks, the shipping channel on our plotter looked like bumper-to-bumper traffic.  On our present course and speed we would enter this busy channel at 3 am, in gale force winds, without an engine and limited maneuverability 

We were tired and stressed out, so we decided to heave to, get some rest and wait for day light.  So we hove to and were relieved by the calmer ride and less noise.  Frowns turned to smiles and we were high-fiving each other when out of the darkness we were slammed by something that caused the whole boat and everthing in it to shudder. What we thought for a moment was another vessel that had rammed us was in fact a rogue wave that caught us broadside.  My peace was shattered as I waited for the next one to rear up from the moonless night, and I held my breath with each twist and drop of H2OBO in the waves.  The wind was only just a gale but the sea was ugly.  The next rogue never did knock on our hull and although we got some spray over the top, we sailed like that until daylight; Anne managed to get some sleep.  In fact, Anne can sleep through practically anything.  Maggie and I did not fair so well.

At sunrise the wind had eased to around 25 kts and shifted to a more favorable north wester.  We began hand steering on a broad reach and after a while it turned out to be a lot of fun.  The girls were having a sing-along in the cockpit.  The whole afternoon turned out to be a pleasant cruise through the shipping lanes.  I made a securite call to alert traffic of our limited maneuverability.  We only had to call four ships to ensure that we didn't get run down, and we were through the shipping lanes.

It was now late afternoon, the wind had died, and we were adrift.  The gales from earlier that day and the night before seemed like a bad dream and we had awoken to a windless, gently rolling sea.  There was nothing to do but start the engine and motor at low speed for the final fifty miles to our first port of call in continental Europe: Portimao.  It is an all-weather, secure anchorage that can be made day or night.  We dropped anchor just after sunrise and were warmly greeted by Yoshi and Fumi with a warm breakfast and some beer to toast our successful first ocean crossing.

Looking back at the experience, it wasn't sooooo bad - sailing through heaving seas and 35 knot winds.  Now we know what it is like and what to expect the next time.  Nevertheless, now that we are here in the Med, we will call it home until we feel it is time to cross another ocean, and we hope that will be a few years away..

Branko