madeira at last

Although we could see we were approaching Madeira from the charts, we didn't catch a glimpse of her until we were a few miles away as she was completely shrouded in rain clouds. The rain has been coming down for over a week and continues. The locals blame it on Hurricane Sandy.

While exchanging war stories with another cruiser on the pontoon here in our new port in Madeira yesterday, I said that the only easy passage we’ve had to date was crossing the Bay of Biscay which everyone said would be the worst!  Since then it has been one battle after the next and even the short passage from Porto Santo to Madeira was a trial, but I have gotten ahead of myself here.

We arrived in Porto Santo last Wednesday planning to leave for Madeira the next day.  Engine trouble and the weather, our capricious friend, or foe I should say, kept us there four days.  We took advantage of our enforced stay to explore the island which, truth be told, has little to offer except for a beautiful rugged coastline, one long idyllic beach and some very charming locals. 

Sunday morning, conditions began to improve for crossing over to Madeira and so we left around noon, knowing that we might have a bit of a rough ride, but  for what should’ve been a fairly straight-forward 5 hour cruise nevertheless.  Ha! With 20+ knots of wind more or less in the nose, we were forced to motor-sail fighting large swells and squalls most of the way.  NOT pleasant!  About three miles from the marina, we thought our torture was almost at an end when the engine failed.  In fact, our torment had just begun.  

Night was falling and of course at this point the wind died, so at an excruciatingly slow pace we inched our way under sail towards the entrance of the marina in increasingly fading light.  I prayed up a storm and Patrice contacted the marina on the VHF to let them know what was happening.   Our prayers were answered with the arrival of Orlando, the harbor master here, who came out himself in a zodiac and calmly talked us through the maneuver, directed us towards the entrance and then towed us inside the narrow harbor.  

Before coming out to help us, he had alerted some of cruisers in the port that we were coming in without power and so there were about 15 people were waiting for us on the pontoon ready to take our lines and buffer our arrival--a most welcome sight!  It was dark at this point, but with their help, we were eased into our berth without a bump or a scratch.  I kissed every person on that dock and gave Orlando an enormous hug with grateful tears.  

Another very welcome sight on the dock was our friends from pontoon K, Anne and Luc, with their three young children.  We left Cascais at the same time as them and although we stayed in contact by satellite phone, we quickly lost sight of them and they did not stop in Porto Santo like we did, but went straight to Madeira after a horrendous journey. That long-awaited bottle of champagne was finally enjoyed with these now dear friends over laughter and tears while sharing our respective war stories.  We were amazed, but somehow not surprised to learn that our little bird went to visit them after leaving us and yes, they were sorely in need of a boost in morale!

I am eternally grateful to God for bringing us safely to Madeira at last!  Patrice and I have agreed that we will not leave for the Canaries until all is repaired and we have a perfect and pleasant weather window.  Meanwhile we have a new island to explore.