Our first sail of the season was a quickie with dock mates Ross and Lisa (s/v Betsy) – just out and about around Lagos. Allowed us to remember some stuff – and realize that we’d forgotten other stuff. Ross quickly learned the boat and had her self-steering in no time! I need another lesson from him!!!

So we headed east and made it all the way to Portimao – 8 miles away – and anchored off Ferragudo where we stayed for a couple of nights to catch our breath! We enjoyed a gathering aboard Toodle-oo! with Lagos dock friend Martin and his crew aboard Topaz Rival one night and then we started discussing our Mediterranean cruising plans for the season…

The unexpected outcome is that we are now anchored in the harbour at Porto Santo, some 450 miles south west of mainland Portugal!!!  Plans never last on Toodle-oo!

We decided on visiting the Madeiran Islands before venturing into the Med for three reasons: 1. It would let the whole Covid entry regulations sort themselves out, 2. because I’m a resident of Portugal, it wouldn’t impact our stay in the Schengen area – since Madeira and Porto Santo are part of Portugal and 3. with 90 days in Schengen, our clock will now be running out as the weather deteriorates – so we can head south to Tunisia or east to Turkey, both outside Schengen…

We had a good passage to Porto Santo – 64 hours and arrived to find our sister ship Horizon – with Anette and Anders – were still here, along with Franz aboard Skellig – so we had friends to play with too!

On the way down, our new chart plotters gave us grief – alarming with failed AIS or GPS every few minutes. However, I knew that with Anders close by, I had a real shot at getting the bloody things sorted out as it was inevitably a Billyism that screwed them up. (Fortunately that turns out to be the case and they are now operating beautifully – thank you Anders!)

What a lovely place Porto Santo is!  It’s a very dry climate and rocky with a superb beach running all the way down the eastern shoreline. We had a lovely couple of days touring around on a scooter and walking up 3 peaks along the way. We’ve also been treated to some wonderful food – considerably more flavorful than the offerings on the mainland.

We had a lovely first walk – to lunch:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We toured a bit…

Then we climbed Pico de Ana Ferreiro

Then we climbed Pico Branco

Day two on the scooter we climbed Pico do Castelo which was really just an exercise in stair-climbing… and then Pico do Facho which was very frustrating since we couldn’t find a way to the actual top which didn’t require climbing gear!

Today is a recovery day!