In preparing for my visit to the Cabo Verdes I got connected with a friend of a friend who had lived on the islands for several years. In our tennis match of emails, he claimed that per capita the Cabo Verdes had more musicians than any other country in the world. While a bit of a subjective measure, after a couple weeks in-residence I agree.
When I would tell landlubbers (i.e., non-transatlantic sailors) that I was going to visit the Cabo Verde Islands, invariably the initial questions would revolve around the where and what.
To address the “where,” the Cabo Verdes are off the West Coast of Africa, about 350 miles west-northwest of Senegal’s capital of Dakar. The city of Dakar is located on Cap Vert (Green Cape), the namesake of the archipelago. To get a sense of the Cabo Verde’s landmass and dispersion, imagine the United State’s smallest state—Rhode Island—at roughly 20 miles east-to-west and 40 miles north-to-south. Now divide Rhode Island into 10 islands and scatter them in a horseshoe pattern over 160 miles of otherwise open ocean.
The Cabo Verdes, 350 miles west-northwest of Dakar. (Hazel’s track also shown.)A closer view of the Cabo Verdes. Note the archipelago’s open-to-the-west horseshoe shape.
As to the “what,” unlike the Portuguese Madeira Islands or Spanish Canary Islands that Hazel and I had previously visited on this journey, the Cabo Verdes are an independent country. The previously uninhabited archipelago was discovered and claimed by Portugal in 1460 and would not gain its independence until 1975. To compare and contrast, although Brazil was claimed by Portugal roughly 50 years after the Cabo Verdes, but Brazil would win its independence 150 years before the Cabo Verdes. Doing the math, the South American giant was a subject of the Portuguese empire for 320 years, while the diminutive African archipelago for 515 years.
One of our sailing friends we had recently reconnected with in the Canary Islands had visited the Cabo Verdes several years previously on an east-to-west transatlantic sail. Over a tapas dinner, when I asked him what the islands were like, he responded, “Well, you will certainly know that you are not in the EU anymore.” I found that to be so true. While I don’t know what it was like prior to its 1975 independence, today it has a distinctly African feel seasoned with Portuguese and other European flavors.
That brings us back to the subject of music. While all countries and cultures have distinctive musical styles, it’s different in the Cabo Verdes. In these islands, the music infuses everything. It’s part of the air they breathe. While so many of us view music as nice to have in our lives, for Cabo Verdeans—like air to breathe—the music is fundamental to existence.
If you’re like me and tend to gravitate back into a rut of listening to the same-old-same-old music, try something new and search your streaming service for “Cabo Verdes.” Or, go Cabo-Verdian-genre-specific with one of these search words:
Morna – Generally considered the national music of the archipelago. It’s slower and melancholic, often focusing on love and longing. (Spotify suggestion here.)
Coladeira (or Coladera) – Loosely translated to English as “to dance” or “dancing,” and upbeat and lively as compared to Morna. (Spotify suggestion here.)
Funaná – Featuring accordion and percussion, it’s rooted in rural Cape Verdian traditions and reflects everyday life and experiences. (Spotify suggestion here.)
Tabanka – Is the traditional music of the Cape Verdian island of Santiago with intricate rhythms for community dances. (Spotify suggestion here.)
It’s worth noting that within the national genre of Morna is the sub-genre or thematic expression of sodade: ruminations of longing, homesickness, and nostalgia. Fitting for a people whose diaspora is larger than the population living “at home,” on the islands.
When Cabo Verdeans claim that a music venue is “on the water” they mean it littlerally.Another view of this music venue showing its on-the-water-ness. The Mindelo Marina where Hazel was waiting for us is to the left. (Yes, Max and I were both having particularly bad hair days. At least I had the sense to wear a hat to tamp things down!)
Most restaurants and bars have live music in the evenings.
When it comes to music, Cabo Verdians truly put their money where their mouth is—literally. Their currency, the Cape Verdian escudo, doesn’t feature images of political or military leaders but of musicians.
As a quick aside, “escudo” originally meant a shield or emblem. Late Middle Age coins were stamped with shields and emblems so the word “escudo” began to be associated with currency. Portugal brought the Portuguese escudo to the Cabo Verdes during the colonial period. With the Cabo Verdes’ 1975 independence from Portugal, the Cabo Verdean escudo and is used to this day. (Portugal contained to use its escudo until it adopted the euro in 2002.)
The reverse side of a 1,000 CVE (Cape Verdian escudo) note with a flute.The obverse of the 1,000 CVE note features B. Leza, a prominent morna and coladeira musician, with a button box accordion. (Don’t get too excited about “a thousand”—one CVE roughly equals a US penny, so this note is worth about 10 USD.)The reverse of the 2,000 escudo note.The obverse features the iconic Cesária Évora.
By introducing you to Cesária Évora I hope I’m telling you something you didn’t know, because—similar to me discovering Mustafa Kemal Atatürk on our visit to Istanbul last spring—I knew nothing of Cesária Évora prior to my time in the Cabo Verdes. If juxtaposing Atatürk and Évora—the two heroes, their heroes’ quests, and the settings couldn’t have been more different—but the paradigm was identical. They are national treasures and were penultimate bookends to our season’s voyage.
In the spring of 2024 after departing from the US, our second destination was a land-based month in Istanbul and Turkey (We first made a quick stop in Athens to check on Hazel James.) While straddling the European and Asian continents, we discovered the icon of Atatürk (1881-1938) his image and signature were everywhere in Turkey. Doing some quick study we learned that he is unquestionably the father of the modern Turkish state (see my initial post about him here). Several months later when Rhett, Sunny, and I visited Thessaloniki (Greece’s second largest city after Athens) I toured his birthplace and was again blown-away by his rockstar status (see post here).
Similarly, in my first couple days in the Cabo Verdes after I got over my initial culture shock, I began to notice that every tenth or so Cabo Verdean wearing a t-shirt with this image…
I was confused but I couldn’t immediately pinpoint why. After some thought, it occurred to me that the vast majority of t-shirt images are blunt and to-the-point. Regardless of whether it is advertising or a salty missive, the t-shirt’s emblazonment is meant to be recognized and understood in the few seconds it takes two human beings to walk past each other. What confused me about this shirt was the woman’s expression. Was it remorse? Agony? Deep meditation? Ecstasy? Or some combination?
I asked a stranger on the street about who was on her shirt and she looked at me as if I had two-heads and replied, “Why it’s the Barefoot Diva of course!” That retort served two purposes: first to pique my interest; and second, to give me a vital clue to solve the mystery.
Cesária Évora was born in 1941 in Mindelo (the largest town on the island of São Vicente, where Hazel was berthed). Her father was a violinist and died when she was young, her mother a cook and maid who struggled to provide for her children as a single parent. At 10 Évora was moved to an orphanage as it was deemed that her family could not support her. At 16 she began performing in local bars. Her residing in Mindelo was a lucky break given the abundant nightlife in the international port town.
As with Atatürk in Turkey, it’s hard to overemphasize Évora’s enduring presence in Mindelo and the Cabo Verdes. In a culture awash in music, she is the undisputed goddess of the waters. To this day, her 2004 Grammy Award for Best World Music Album is source of great national pride (the album was Voz d’Amor [Voice of Love], a great listen and Spotify link here).
It seems that her moniker of Barefoot Diva has both steadfast and shifting elements to it. While throughout her entire career she performed without shoes, in the early days there was likely a financial element to it as footwear would have been unaffordable. Over time, it became a signature element of her stage persona, demonstrating humility, a connection to the traditional Cabo Verdean ways of life and the struggles of her people—with a strong dose of social commentary.
Today she is probably the worldwide best known Cabo Verdean and in her country—like Atatürk in Turkey—is revered as a national treasure.
Have you ever stood really, really close to a Monet or other Impressionist work and tried to make sense of just one sliver of the gestalt? This is an up-close view of a building in central Mindelo with gouges (artfully) chiseled into the white stucco veneer exposing the darker underlying concrete.Stepping back and widening the aperture the dark patches of removed stucco resolve into the Barefoot Diva. The monochrome is reminiscent of a halftone newsprint image. (The close-up in the previous frame is from just above Max’s head.) …and this is just one of the many homages to Cesária Évora in Mindelo.When picking up my “nephcrew” Max from his flight into São Vicente. I discovered the airport’s official name is the Cesária Évora International Airport. It’s complete with bronze statue of her performing with microphone in hand……and feet connected directly to the ground.
She generally sang in Cabo Verdean Creole (or Kriolu)—a mixture of West African languages, Portuguese, and other influences. This choosing to sing in her native tongue both increased her stature in the islands and also allowed her lyrics to protest social and gender inequality without raising the hackles of international music producers.
The story above is as much of Cesária Évora as I had learned in my couple weeks in the Cabo Verdes. At the time, based on my limited data points. I had made the assumption that her musical career had traced a sweeping arc—from humble beginnings, to playing in local clubs at 16, to larger and larger in-country venues and audiences, to international recognition and a Grammy Award. However, in digging deeper for this blog post I’ve since learned that her path was a discontinuous journey of initial recognition, followed by retreat and retrenchment (nearly fading away into a pianissimo of nothing), then—in a classic hero’s journey—the coda of her career and life is an inspirational crescendo of redemption. Although well known in the 1950s and 1960s in the Cabo Verdes and with some international exposure in Portugal and the Netherlands, she found she couldn’t support herself and her three children as a relatively unknown singer. Gender inequality exacerbated her situation as the then-prevailing Cabo Verdean mindset was that music was a singularly masculine activity. Given those realities, in the 1970s she retired from music and she and her family were forced to move in with her mother.
In 1985 the Organization of Cape Verdean Women asked her to contribute songs to an anthology of women’s music. That break started her reentry into music and building the legacy that lasts to this day. She would later recall her decade away from music as her “dark years.”
There are a couple postscripts to this post:
First, what got me thinking of the parallels between Atatürk and Évora was a rather incongruous art and souvenir shop that I stumbled into. In the throughly African town of Mindelo, the Turkish-Cabo Verdean mash-up of “Istanblue” was eye-catching to say the least.
Istanblue’s storefront. In the upper right is a stylized painting of Cesária Évora singing. In the middle tier of the shop’s facade is the blue Cabo Verdean flag to the left and red Turkish flag to the right.The Turkish flag was complete, with a copy of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s unmistakable signature.From Istanbul, a popular tattoo amongst modern “Young Turks.”
Although I visited the store, I never found out the connection between Istanbul and Mindelo. However, had I not spent the time in Istanbul and Turkey last spring the references would have totally gone over my head.
Finally—and our second coda to this piece—Max and I took a couple guided tours of the Cabo Verdean islands of São Vicente and Santo Antão. As our very tall and excellent guide Rui walked us around the town of Mindelo, we visited the park of Praça Nova (New Square). The park was established during the colonial era (when the Cabo Verdes were a colony of Portugal). Rui commented that during much of the colonial era, the square was expressly off-limits to anyone who was barefoot—ostensibly for hygiene’s sake but the underlying reason was clearly to keep the poor people out.
Our very tall guide Rui to the right showing us Praça Nova. (Max is well over 6-feet!)A close-up of the square’s quiosque (kiosk).
I could have titled this post “The End of the World,” but it sounds so much better in French.
As a quick recap, January 9th (2025)Max and I arrived in the Caribbean on the island of Grenada. After saying my goodbyes to the decommissioned Hazel James, I returned to the US on January 15th via air (Max left the day before). Prior to that I’d been sailing and living on Hazel almost non-stop since May of 2024. Now, after a month’s break at home—relishing in Rhett and family and friends, fresh food, a dishwasher that isn’t me, provisioning in a car rather than a dinghy, hot showers, and eight hours of sleep a night in a bed that doesn’t move—I’m ready…ready to reflect on the voyage. As I think about it though, while the two-dimensional voyage at sea level is somewhat interesting, it’s the layers of the voyages, and the interstitial play between the layers, where the real magic happens.
Hazel as I left her on January 15. The four concrete blocks at her corners will help hold her down in a hurricane.
With that said, allow me to rewind to early December, 2024 in the Canary Islands…
My alarm was set for 4:00 a.m. and Rhett’s for 4:05…just in case. However, none of that mattered because I woke at 3:45 a.m. The security lights of Marina Tenerife filtered through Hazel James’s portlights giving her saloon a familiar glow. She surged gently giving anticipatory tugs on her mooring lines. “I wanna go, I wanna go.” she said.
In Rhett’s and my three weeks together on the Canary Islands we’d stayed in several hotels and I had found that after six months on Hazel, the tables were now turned. While I slept soundly in those hotels rooms, the waking up in a large, soft bed that wasn’t moving was unnerving; my first semi-conscious thought of the day was, Since I feel absolutely no movement, we must be aground.
I rolled over and looked at the still sleeping Rhett and imagined ourselves in an hour or so in our final embrace—she, flying back home and I with an ocean in front of me.
Earlier in our Canarian time together, Rhett and I had looked at the calendar, the nature of sailing and cruising in the Canaries, and the number of islands that we’d like to see and distance separating them, and concluded that it would be best to leave Hazel at Marina Tenerife in Santa Cruz de Tenerife and visit the northwestern islands of La Palma and La Gomera via ferry. Ferries are scheduled, fast, and reliable; and they run with a lot of wind or no wind, and with any wind direction. Better yet, we could take a car-ferry and only have to rent a car once (on the island of Tenerife) and then visit the islands of La Palma and La Gomera without the hassle and overhead of additional car rentals.
Island and city names on the Canaries are confusing—at least until you understand “the system.” While the phrase “Spanish system” might sound like an oxymoron, I’ve got to hand it to Canarians and their logic. As an example, Hazel was now berthed in the city of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, which translates as “Holy Cross of Tenerife” (the city of Holy Cross on the island of Tenerife). Saying Hazel was in “Santa Cruz” (without the Tenerife part) wouldn’t be all that helpful, as there is also a major city of Santa Cruz on the island of La Palma (and to boot, there are several other smaller towns and neighborhoods in the Canaries that carry the appellation). To add to this potential confusion, while the city of Santa Cruz de La Palma is (as you probably surmised) on the island of La Palma, there is a major city of Las Palmas on the island of Gran Canaria (which goes by the mouthful-but-logical name of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria).
For Rhett and me in our planning, this made for some frustrating but humorous “who’s on first?” banter. Our standard division of duties onboard is that I focus on the weather and sailing, and Rhett focuses on marina availability and shore-based excursions. When Rhett first rejoined Hazel and me (on the island of Lanzarote and chronicled here), and we were poring over sailing pilot books, weather forecasts, and travel web sites we found that several times we were chasing dead ends because, although were were saying almost the same thing, we were talking about two entirely different places.
Bottom-line, if you ever find yourself gloriously marooned in the Canary Islands, be specific with your nomenclature.
Zooming out for a moment: Hazel James’s track through the eastern North Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea. In yellow are four of the five North Atlantic archipelagos that Hazel cruised (the other being Bermuda to the west). As foreshadowing and in blue, note Cabo São Vicente (Cape St. Vincent) on the Portuguese mainland, and the westernmost Canary island of El Hierro (The Iron). For scale, the distance from the Canaries to the Cabo Verdes is 750 nautical miles (860 statue, or land-based, miles).Zooming in on Hazel’s northeast to southwest track through the Canary Islands with our ferry route in green. For scale, the Canaries are 260 nautical miles east-to-west and 110 miles north-to-south. The landmass to the lower right is the African mainland.
Rhett’s and my touring through the islands of Tenerife, La Palma, and La Gomera was a verdant contrast to our time on the parched eastern Canarian islands of Lanzarote and Fuerteventura. While the near-constant northeast trade winds wash humid ocean air over all the Canaries, the moisture passes over the low eastern islands without separating from the air. However, the dramatic elevations of the western islands force the humid air upwards causing a mar de nubes (sea of clouds) on the islands’ northern slopes. Local flora have been naturally selected and evolved to harvest the iluvia horizontal (horizontal rain), resulting in the archipelago having both desert and “mistforest” islands…all within 250 miles of each other.
To sharpen the point about dramatic elevation, while the Canaries make up just 1.5% of the landmass of Spain, the highest point in all of Spain is the 12,200 foot El Teide on the Canarian island of Tenerife. (If measuring from the surrounding seafloor it rises over 24,000 feet.)
This picture was taken from the island of La Palma. In the distance the imposing peak of El Teide rises on Tenerife. Note the beginnings of the mar de nubes (sea of clouds) below us.
Hazel was berthed at the northeast end of the island of Tenerife in Santa Cruz de Tenerife and the island’s ferry port to access the more-western Canaries was in Los Cristianos on the southwest of the island. While we enjoyed driving across Tenerife—especially surveying the rugged landscape surrounding El Teide, we were excited to get to the much less populated and more natural islands of La Palma and La Gomera.
Rhett waiting to board the car ferry from Tenerife to La Palma in our rental automobile. Or—compared to our neighbors—I should say “boring-mobile.” The Spanish flair is not restricted to the mainland.A few relaxing hours later, arriving via ferry in Santa Cruz de La Palma with a rainbow of good tidings. (Yes, all the sailing boats in the harbor made me feel like we “cheated” by taking the ferry.)
There were two “deep time” things that struck me about La Palma. First, were the observatories. Prior to our visit, I’ve always thought that high deserts were the only ideal locations for Earth-bound telescopes and stargazing. However, La Palma’s low level of light pollution and crystal clear atmosphere with relatively few cloud-covered nights produce unique conditions for optical and radio telescopes. La Palmans are rightfully proud of this and actively restrict extraneous lights and have a cellular blackout near the radio telescopes. We drove amongst the telescopes as if we were in a fiction movie-set. It struck me just how small we are (a drop in the ocean), and—at a Universe-level of thinking—how relatively small an Earth-ocean is.
Optical and radio telescopes on La Palma.
My second deep time thought was the level of very recent volcanic activity on the island. As we were preparing for our visit to La Palma, this paragraph in our sailing pilot book—written with some classic stiff-upper-lip British humor—caught my attention:
A theory has been advanced that it is only a matter of time before the entire western part of La Palma detaches itself from the rest and slides catastrophically into the Atlantic Ocean. While this may well be correct—and it appears that pressure is building within the mountain all the time—estimated dates vary from anytime now to 2515 or beyond. But as it is inconceivable that there would be no warning, it would be a pity to avoid La Palma on this account.
—Atlantic Islands Pilot Book, Imray
If I squinted long enough at the pilot book’s accompanying summary-chart of the island, I could almost imagine the the northwestern side of the island looking just a bit pregnant.
The Island of La Palma (25 miles north to south) with the observatories circled in red and the ferry port of Santa Cruz de La Palma in blue.
However, this all seemed a bit dramatic to me. We call it “terra firma” because that’s what it is, firm and unmoving earth. I think, all humans have a tendency to consider everything through the lens of a typical 70-80 year human lifespan. Anything longer—especially the deep-time of a geological epoch—is as tangible as a sea of clouds. However, as we were checking-in to our small family-run hotel I got the inkling that there was a chink in the armor of my human-generational thinking. In chatting with our hotelier (the gregarious yet very professional son of the owners), he said in broken English that he and his parents had “lost everything” in the eruption of 2021. While his English was far better than our Spanish, we didn’t quite know what to make of this statement—perhaps something had been lost in translation? We asked, “Everything?” He replied that yes, their family home was engulfed by the lava. It was still hard to believe, until the next day as we were driving around the island and suddenly the road transitioned from weathered and pockmarked concrete to silkly smooth, brand-new asphalt. It was then that we realized the road was new because the old road had been covered by lava in that very eruption.
Driving on a new road…laid down over fresh lava.
The next stop on our ferry-hopper excursion was the island of La Gomera. Similar to La Palma, on La Gomera moisture harvested by the island’s flora was the name of the game. Its mistforest park occupying the center-highlands of the island was a treker’s paradise and, although we did a little hiking in our several days on the island, we’re dreaming of going back to really go deep on it.
Rhett admiring the La Gomeran landscape along the trail. It’s dizzying to think that this vast vista is nothing but a tiny part of a tiny island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean—a drop, in a drop, in a bucket. Taken while hiking on a boardwalk. Looking closely, you’ll see the clover’s harvested mist……the same with these flowers……and ferns.From La Gomera’s heights looking north (with your face to the trade winds). It’s a great example of the mar de nubes (sea of clouds). If the clouds below us weren’t there, we’d be looking at the ocean.
30 seconds of stress relief courtesy of La Gomera. The Spanish have a saying, “Bean by bean the sack fills.” On the western Canaries, “Drop by drop the waterfall cascades.”
A final point about the island (and a foreshadow to this post’s seemingly apocalyptic title) is that La Gomera was de aquí partió Colón (from here Columbus left). The harbor of San Sebastián de la Gomera was Columbus and crew’s last stop in the Eastern Hemisphere before “discovering” the New World.
Rhett on the harbor-walk of San Sebastián de la Gomera reading the plaque commemorating Cristóbal Colón. (In the background, the red and white watercraft between Rhett and the cruise ship is the ferry that had brought us to the island.)A close-up of the plaque. (La Española is our Hispaniola: Haiti and the Dominican Republic.)Still on the harbor-walk but taken from the other direction, looking towards the town, Rhett admiring the stylized mosaic of Columbus’ voyage with Africa and the Iberian Peninsula to the right and the Americas to the left.
From a small but big world perspective, 36 days out of La Gomera Columbus made landfall on a Bahamian island that he named San Salvador (Holy Savior). Back in March, 2021 and 3,200 nautical miles west-southwest, Rhett and I toured a Bahamian monument commemorating his landfall.
Rhett and I in the Bahamas in 2022……and the stunning surroundings.
The inscription in the monument reads:
This monument is dedicated to gentle, peaceful and happy aboriginal people of Long Island the Lucayans and to the arrival of Christopher Columbus on October, 1492.
Two things of note in our Columbus-connection: First, if you believe in the aphorism “Nice guys finish last.” you’ve probably guessed what happened to the gentle, peaceful and happy Lucayans. Second, although this obelisk projects a monolithic carved-in-stone confidence—like so much of history—its a bit more murky than that. While this monument is on the Bahamian Long Island, 50 miles to the east is an island with the current and perhaps presumptive name of San Salvador…and of course that island has its own set of Columbus monuments. However, today’s Bahamian San Salvador was Guanahani to the Lucayans, and then—for a time—known as San Salvador until the British buccaneer George Watling named it Watling’s Island until it was re-re-re-re-named back to San Salvador in 1926. The bottom line is that the exact location of Columbus’ landfall and the island that he christened as San Salvador is still debated.
After our planned several days on La Gomera, Rhett and I took our last ferry from La Gomera back to Tenerife and Hazel James. As Rhett prepared for her departure back to the US, I started looking at weather forecasts in anticipation of of Hazel and my next long sail—700-800 miles (6-8 days) to the Cabo Verde Islands.
To me, the forecasts looked good for departure in the next couple days. However, my professional forecasting and vessel routing team thought differently and advised me against it. While out-of-the-box weather forecasts tend to focus on what is most likely to happen, professionals who serve the needs of small sailing boats also look at what may happen—and its implications if it does. As a simplified example: along an intended route covering hundreds of sea-miles over days of developing weather, imagine a 60% of chance of fine sailing, but a 40% chance of dreadful conditions. The out-of-the-box forecast would report the most likely fine conditions, but the professional would advise you to pass on this hand, and stay in port and wait for the next deal of the aeolian cards.
In the interest of the calendar, I had planned to sail directly from Santa Cruz de Tenerife to the Cabo Verdes. However, my Mediterranean sailing education had taught me to also look at my piano piano options (softly softly, or little by little). While I’d heard good things about the southwestern most Canary island of El Hierro from other sailors and it was somewhat on my way, I had figured that after visiting five of the seven major islands in the archipelago I would have seen enough. With this backdrop, the forecasts showed a couple days of high-confidence good sailing weather before the adverse conditions might set in and that gave me enough time for an overnight 110 mile sail from Santa Cruz de Tenerife to Puerto de la Estaca on El Hierro. The distance and configuration of land was perfect for the mini-passage as Hazel makes about 100 miles in a decent 24-hours of sailing so if we departed Santa Cruz de Tenerife in the morning, in theory we’d arrive at Estaca midday the next day. Furthermore that plan would have us sailing down the east coast of Tenerife in daylight of day-one and then at dusk we should be more into open water which is a lot easier and safer to sail in the dark.
The Canary Islands with Hazel and my 110 mile sail from Tenerife to El Hierro circled in blue.
Hazel and I had one of those mystery-meat-on-bakery-bread-sandwich sails, meaning that the beginning and end of the sail were good but the middle was challenging. After a perfect sail down the Tenerifian coast under spinnaker with the northeast trades behind us, we rounded Punta Salema (Point Salema), the southern tip of the island and entered the combined wind shadow of Tenerife and La Gomera, yielding light and shifty winds. A few hours before sunrise, and clear of the La Gomeran wind shadow, conditions improved.
Sailing south down the eastern coast of Tenerife with the summit of El Teide faintly visible in the clouds and above the ridge line. (That’s the starboard spinnaker sheet in the lower left of the photo.)
Late in the mini-passage something happened that I had never experienced. Or—better said—I had experienced frequently but never at this scale. In maritime radio communications, English is the lingua franca. In a non-English speaking coastal waters, while a lot of locals will converse with each other in their native language, official broadcasts are typically made first in the local language and then repeated in English. At dawn on my second day of sailing and with El Hierro at a range of 20-30 miles, I received a “pan-pan” call on the radio (pronounced pahn-pahn, from the French meaning “breakdown or “failure,” and—in terms of life-threatening urgency—one step below mayday). Next from the Guardia Civil (the Spanish Coast Guard) came the long Spanish broadcast of the details of the pan-pan call, followed by the same but in English. In the heavily-accented English I picked up that an over-crowded but unidentified boat had been sighted just east of El Hierro (in my waters). Unfortunately, this kind of radio transmission is common in the Mediterranean and off the coast of Africa (and also back home in Florida waters) and most always means one thing: human beings fleeing a desperate situation by any means possible. And at-sea “any means” is generally an unseaworthy vessel laden with way too many passengers. Obviously this is not a good situation anywhere…but especially so in the open ocean.
What caught my ear in the transmission was the number of persons onboard. I’m used to hearing the range of 10-20 persons (imagine a typical 20-40 foot motor vessel packed with as many people as possible). However, in this transmission I heard the number as an, “Estimated 160 persons.” I shook my head to clear my up-all-night-brain and heard it again…160. Even with hearing the number twice, I disregarded it as a translation error and surmised that the real estimate was 16. Even with that, I kept a sharp lookout as the last reported coordinates of the vessel were in my area.
Several hours later and in the hubbub of preparing for a single-handed entry to a harbor that was new to me in windy and moderately rough conditions, I forgot all about the pan-pan call. Once things had calmed down for Hazel and me inside the security of the harbor’s breakwall I noticed that on the ferry pier was a large line of people, many in seemingly matching fire-engine red outfits. My first thought was, How nice, they must all be part of a tour group or something. Then, as I got closer, I saw that the “matching outfits” were actually red blankets draped over the shoulders of 160 or-so rescued people. Unquestionably, the people I had heard about on the radio.
I don’t know what ever became of them, I imagine a ferry took them to one of the more-populated Canary Islands, and then from there…who knows? The population of El Hierro is only 10,000 so I can’t imagine it would have the services to accommodate 160 more people.
A picture of Puerto de la Estaca taken later from the surrounding heights as I was touring the island. The inter-island ferry circled in red, the blue circle is where the migrants/refugees were stationed when I arrived, Hazel’s eventual berth in green. Note that the harbor entrance is to the south and protected from the prevailing trade winds.As an aside, if you’re wondering about the constancy of the trade winds, this was the view 180º behind me from the previous picture. Look closely at the tree.My first view of what I thought was a uniformly dressed group (the ferry’s bow to the left)……part of the group upon closer inspection. By the way, the shortest distance to the closest African coast is 200 miles…and I’m sure they didn’t travel in a straight line.
Although El Hierro was not on my original port of call list, almost immediately upon my arrival I was so glad that the weather gods conspired for me to visit. Having just come from the most populated Canary Island of Tenerife with a permanent population of 900,000, El Hierro’s population of 10,000 was a totally different experience. Back to our 160 African refugees, if their strategy was to land on a Canary Island, blend in, and then make their way to the EU mainland—I’m sure they would have preferred to make a undetected arrival on (say) Tenerife where the group would not be nearly as noticeable.
After getting Hazel and me settled in the harbor of Estaca and a good sleep to make up for my sail through the night, I set about renting a car for a couple days to tour the island. Fortunately, there was a local Canarian car rental agency in the harbor who clearly took a lot of pride in their archipelago’s heritage. It turns out that the artist César Manrique (1919-1992), a native of the Canary Island of Lanzarote, had also spent time in, and was captivated by, El Hierro. (For a refresher on Manrique, see our previous post: The Fire Island.) While Manrique was deeply committed to environmental causes, he also recognized the power of the ubiquity of the automobile and partnered with BMW to paint “art cars” with the vision of bringing art to an indispensable part of everyday life and thus changing the way we all see the world. In his words, “…unite in one single object the perception of speed and aerodynamics with the concept of aesthetics.”
One of Manrique’s original BMW art cars. A little out of my price range for a rental!
To make a long aside short (or at least a little shorter), on my way into the local car rental office, I walked down the row of potential cars for me and noticed that, in the last space (the space closest to the office) the agency had an art car on the lot. Ok, ok…so it wasn’t a real original art car, but still it was cool and looked like a lot of fun. As I walked into the agency I crossed my fingers that the knock-off art-car was slated for my rental.
What I saw walking into the rental car office.
In 10 minutes I was out of the office with paperwork signed and keyless remote in-hand. I stared down the line of cars like a crime victim behind a one-way mirror, examining a lineup of the usual suspects. In my situation “the perp” was no mystery to my remote in my hands. My task now was the big reveal: After one more quick survey of the row of otherwise boring cars, I took an in-breath, clicked the remote and hoped. The art car’s lights flashed, confirming that we were destined for each other.
A creepy loner in a remote and tiny out-island pumps his fist in the air in a rental car parking lot—confirming that it’s often the little things in life.
In studying descriptions of the island’s sights and reviewing driving maps, Ensenada el Golfo (Gulf Cove) on the northwest side of the island was noted as particularly picturesque and decided that I had to visit. I glanced at my nautical chart and noticed the depth contours in the gulf indicated it was relatively shallow and I surmised that something geologically interesting had happened there.
Depth contours surrounding El Hierro (depths in meters). Note that, as with most Canarian coastal waters, the depths drop-off quickly and uniformly around the entire island…with the exception of Ensenada el Golfo.As comparison, the aforementioned island of La Palma with its relatively regular coastline surrounded by very consistent depth contours.
A 40 minute, mountainous drive later I was at the made-for-selfies village of La Frontera (The Boundry) on the shore of El Golfo. While looking out over the beach and sea around El Golfo was captivating, the fascinating thing to me was that the whole area behind me was a titanic amphitheater. If the water of El Golfo was the stage, the high surrounding half-bowl were the rows of seats. I decided to take a drive to the top to survey the scene from the cheap seats.
Even with a 10-second delay timer on my phone I had to move quickly. The sea around La Frontera……and another view.“My” art car parked in front of a good looking mural on the seaside of Ensenada el Golfo.Although this panoramic shot makes the concave bowl appear convex, it gives a sense of just how high the surrounding ridge is. Note the “La Frontera” selfie installation to the left.Another looking up to the cheap seats, truly “in the clouds.”A chapel along the switchbacks halfway to the rim……the view from the chapel’s parapet.Finally, we’re at the top.The view from the top give me another level of appreciation for the “sea of clouds” effect of the mechanical lifting of the humid ocean air and the condensation and the harvesting of the mists by evolutionarily adapted flora.A great close-up of a plackard at the rim of El Golfo (the overall plackard was in Spanish first, then English, then German).
However, wasn’t until the next placard along my drive that I started to understand the natural history I was seeing in the half-bowl amphitheater of El Golfo. Approximately 15,000 years ago El Hierro was much more uniformly shaped (think of the island of La Palma), then this entire side of the island calved off and into the sea, filling in the seafloor to make the relatively shallow El Golfo that I noticed on my nautical chart’s depth contours.
Reflecting back to Columbus’ transatlantic voyage (and my upcoming voyage) it’s estimated that the resulting tsunami (a.k.a., tidal wave) could have ranged from tens of meters high to hundreds of meters high. The wave would have raced across the entire ocean and had some ancient impact on the Americas.
As I took in all this information I involuntarily took a step back from the precipice, just in case the next landslide was imminent. A couple minutes later, it occurred to me that here on El Hierro, I was seeing a “preview of coming attractions” of the prophetic (and, to me, seemingly overly-dramatic) warnings of the eventual fate of La Palma. Again, so much for the “firma” in terra firma. For me personally this is emblematic of the kind of discovery that makes thousands of miles of open ocean sailing all worthwhile. The icing on the cake is to be able to share it with you.
I suppose for others who are better students, there are far easier methods to learn a lesson, but I doubt those lessons are as memorable.
The placard up in the “nose bleed seats” that opened my eyes. Note far below the sea and town.A close-up of the before-and-after diagram. A good relief view showing the crater left behind.
The last intended destination on my day’s drive was to be Punta Orchilla (or-CHEE-yah). It’s both El Hierro’s and the Canary Islands’ westernmost point. In addition, for Europeans during the Age of Discovery it was the entire world’s westernmost point—la fin du monde.
Determining one’s north-to-south latitude on the globe is a relatively easy process and well-known by the ancients. In the Northern Hemisphere, the height of Polaris (a.k.a., the North Star) in the night sky gives a relatively accurate latitude. In addition the three cardinal, latitudinal reference points of the North Pole, the South Pole, and the Equator are real and fixed places on the globe. Conversely, determining east-to-west longitude is impossible without accurate timekeeping. While mechanical timekeeping is challenging on terra firma, it’s much more difficult on a rolling and pitching ship. Also, as opposed to the fixed Poles and Equator, there is no Earth-defined starting point for (or Prime Meridian) for measuring longitude—it is truly all relative, a human convention and nothing more.
With all that being said, during the “Age of Discovery” (a Euro-centric term describing the 1400s to 1600s), on many nautical charts El Hierro’s Punta Orchilla was the starting point for rough estimations of eastward-only longitude. I say “eastward-only,” because westward longitude didn’t matter. As some early-cartographers noted, “Thar be Dragons!” Prior to Columbus’s embarking from La Gomera, Punta Orchilla was la fin du monde, the end of the world and El Hierro was nicknamed Isla del Meridiano (Meridian Isle).
The primary road in and out of Punta Orchilla was along the northwest coast so I figured it would be simple business to continue driving anti-clockwise from El Golfo and I’d reach Punta Orchilla—easy peasy. However, poetic justice reared its lyric head and the road was blocked due to a “minor” landslide and wouldn’t reopen until after I was planning to embark on my way to the Cabo Verdes (another reminder of our terra not being so firma).
Undaunted, I thought I’d try driving back up to the rim of the crater and see if I could find an unpaved back-road to Punta Orchilla. (Let the art-car’s security deposit be damned!) Alas though, not only were there no open back roads to the point, but as I drove through the hinterland I was stopped by El Hierro’s version of a traffic jam.
It all happened as I gained altitude on my drive and the guardrails that had previously been spotty (even along the tortuous, small-radius switchbacks) became continuous on both sides of the narrow roads. It seemed like a bit of overkill to me until I drove into the first wisps of sea mist. As I drove higher-and-higher on my attempt to reach la fin du monde the mist became thicker-and-thicker. Eventually, although it was mid-afternoon on an otherwise sunny day, I was inching along, hunched over the wheel and happy for the frame of guardrails disappearing into the misty infinity. Without warning, the hypnosis of the guardrailian convergence was snapped by a woman materializing out of the gloom like some deus ex machina in a Greek play. If you imagine how an appropriately grizzled, wild haired, late career, out island female Spanish farmer might be dressed—that’s how she was dressed. However—and good for her and me—in addition to farmer’s duds she was draped in a semi-official looking yellow, reflective safety jacket. With her arm out and waving up and down, she signaled me to reduce speed further (although I was creeping along at that point). Soon after I passed her a low, variegated but all-natural colored, seething mass resolved itself out of the endless whiteness like a little plastic snowman resolving itself from a shaken snow globe. Dodging this mass would be a fool’s errand as it stretching from guardrail to guardrail. While I did the most natural thing and stopped completely, the surreality of the situation was compounded when the distance between me and the road blockage continued to close.
My view soon after I passed the yellow-jacketed woman who signaled me to slow down.
Although it’s often said, “Don’t just stand there, do something!,” in reality sometimes the, “Don’t just do something, stand there!” approach is better.
This was in early-December, and as my “what the flock?” moment passed, I hoped that on the night of Christmas Eve, this modern-day shepherding couple would behold a heavenly host of angels bringing them good tidings of great joy.
Although I never made it to Punta Orchilla—la find du monde—I was happy for the attempt. Maybe it was all for the better anyway, a poignant journey-versus-destination reminder that one generation’s end is another’s beginning. Later that evening, after returning my art-car and prepping Hazel for our passage to the Cabo Verdes archipelago, I reclined on one of Hazel’s settees, played a little music, and considered the day’s adventure and my life’s adventure. As Hazel’s oil lamp burned casting dancing shadows, I remembered back to July of 2022 when Rhett, Sunny, Hazel, and I sailed around Cabo São Vicente (the “chin” of the Iberian Peninsula).
The chin. From July, 2022 Hazel James approaching Cabo São Vicente from the north on starboard tack under spinnaker. Getting closer to Cabo São Vicente. We’d gybed over to port tack at that point (with the spinnaker on the right or starboard side of the boat). We look pretty happy for being so close to an end of the world.
Prior to El Hierro having the moniker of la fin du monde, Cabo São Vicente was known to Europeans as the end of the world. When I first acquired Hazel James in 2017, I’d “venture” out into the coastal Florida waters on a daysail and gaze eastward towards the Bahamas with a mixture of yearning and trepidation; at the time, the Bahamas were my fin du monde. Months after Colleen’s death in 2019 I’d sailed to the Bahamas (shattering my first end of the world myth), through the Bahamas and to its easternmost islands. In the nervous days before I set forth from the Bahamas on my first sail to the Caribbean, I’d walk the Bahamian beaches and look eastward at my next “end of the world.” At that time and to me, the concept of me crossing an ocean was inconceivable.
Back in Hazel’s saloon on El Hierro, I thought about the prime driver for my upcoming attempt to westward-sail the Atlantic: I wanted to be home to witness the birth of our first grandchild, for welcoming a new generation. What storms and adversities will he face? What ends of his world might he discern—only to discover for himself that those boundaries are illusory? I finished my final song, took one last look at the weather to make sure it was still good for our morning departure (it was), climbed into my berth and dreamt of putting another end of the world behind me.
I’m awoken at 0330 local time by the call of nature on our eighth and likely penultimate night in the Marina Mindelo on Ilha São Vicente in the Cabo Verdes. In the dim light from the marina’s dock lights I see Max sleeping peacefully on the settee. Hazel is too small for any kind of private “guest room” (or let alone private master stateroom) but no matter—we will be at sea soon enough and out there, privacy and who-sleeps-where are trifles.
The marina and Mindelo Harbor are rather open to the sea and we’re in the middle of the the Atlantic Ocean in the breezy trade winds so there’s a lot of surge in the water which causes a lot of surge to the moored boats (movement forward and backwards that is limited by the hawsers or mooring lines). As I work my way aft from the forepeak to the head I have to use Hazel’s handholds to steady myself with the surge. It’s kind of like one of those funhouse rides that’s not really a “ride” because your walking through darkened passages with strobe lights, wavy mirrors, eerie sounds, artificial fog, and—at one point—a section of the floor is moving back and forth. As I walk into the head I look out the companionway at the amber streetlights of Mindelo in the haze and notice that something is off. Hazel’s angle to the town has perceptibly changed…odd.
After my business, I look out the port portlights in the saloon (the windows on the left side) and that the big catamaran that’s moored next to us is also much closer. Hmmmm…odd.
Up on deck, the middle-of-the-night mystery is solved. Sometime after we turned flukes, the days of stretching and releasing from the incessant surge was too much and Hazel’s starboard bow hawser (mooring line) chafed through and ruptured. After it broke Hazel’s bow moved to port and the remaining bow line and closer to the other boat (that’s what fenders are for).
While I thought about waking Max to help me sort it out, I elected to let him sleep. While it would be good experience for him to see, he too needs his pre-passage sleep. Especially tonight as earlier in the night he’d been hanging out with another Max. This other Max is also a young man but from Germany and he and his father Jan are sailing across the Atlantic as well. To the concept of reuniting with fellow sailors and following breadcrumbs of islands from our last post, I met Max and Jan in Almerimar Spain this fall when Hazel and I were on the hard for a month. Their boat Sirenas was also in the yard, a few boats down from us. While I always liked their style and spirit—father Jan with the heel of his hand to his forehead while explaining yet another boat problem, happy-go-lucky son Max pursing his lips and audibly exhaling with a dismissive hand wave at the problems (and just wanting to get to the Caribbean as quickly as possible)—we only said hello and chatted quickly between our various boat projects. Although we were friendly neighbors for a month in the yard in Mediterranean Spain we never shared a meal as our foci was getting our respective boats back in the water. A month or so later Rhett and I ran into them briefly in the Canaries when they were anchored outside a marina and we were going into the marina but—again—we never got together. Finally, we reunite in Mindelo (totally unplanned) and a couple nights ago we shared a meal of cachupa (the emblematic Cabo Verdeian dish) and talked about our sailing plans. It’s ironic that with our various and uncoordinated routes and dates out of the Mediterranean at Gibraltar and through the other Atlantic Islands, our planned date to depart Mindelo bound for the Caribbean is the same—Saturday, December 21…the shortest day of the year. After dinner Jan and I said our gute nachts and our good nights, but Max and Max stayed back at the marina’s waterside bar to talk a bit more.
Max and I out to dinner with father Jan to the left and his son Max next to him.
As I drifted off to sleep that night I thought about how good it was that Max and Max were hanging out. It’s so valuable to have friends from other countries, to me it reframes one’s mind from the citizen of a country to a citizen of the world. As the rising tide of sleep started to wash over me, I think about breadcrumbs, migrations, and the chance and fate that introduces me to Jan and Max first in mainland Spain, then in the Canary Islands, and finally here in the Cabo Verdes.
Back to the remains of our night and our broken hawser: half an hour later I’ve got the port hawser re-rigged and it should be fine until we depart in a few days. Once we’re sailing, I’ll cut out the chafed line and short-splice the two halves of the hawser together. It will be a good chance to introduce Max to the craft of splicing.
Regarding the title of this post, perhaps a few sticklers for language, or grads of the US Naval Academy of veterans of the Navy may nitpick with, That’s a typo Dan…the fight song is “Anchors Aweigh” not “Anchors Away.” However, in this instance I truly mean anchors away.
Hazel’s bow with her anchor mounted and secured in the lower left…and a pod of dolphins surfing her bow wake! This picture was taken on our shorter sail from the Canaries to Cabo Verdes.
In nautical parlance, to “weigh” anchor is to pull the anchor up off the bottom and start sailing. Thus “Anchors Aweigh,” meaning that sailors are preparing to set forth on a voyage from an anchorage.
For Max and me one of our preparations in Marina Mindelo is to remove Hazel’s anchor off her pulpit and store it away—specifically below decks in the quarterberth (affectionately called “the garage” given all the random stuff that’s stored there).
Hazel’s bow with anchor removed and the town of Mindelo behind. Note the haze in the atmosphere.Hazel’s quarterberth (aka, garage) with stowed anchor circled. This will be a little more organized when we sail…just a little.
“Why bother removing her anchor?” you say. Or better yet, “What if you want to anchor for a night on your sail?” For starters, just 10 miles west of Ilha São Vicente we’ll be in 1,000 meters of water and it only gets deeper from there. Hazel carries 50 meters of rode (anchor chain) so there is no anchoring for the next 2,000 miles or so. Secondly, while the foredeck and pulpit can be a magical place on the ocean when sailing downwind in good weather, it’s brutal and unforgiving when the weather turns and when sailing upwind. In those cases the anchor takes the brunt of the ocean’s pounding and all the securing in the world won’t stop it from starting to work loose and bang around. Going forward to secure a loose anchor in a blow is not fun. For short sails the anchor is generally OK up there. However for 15-20 days of sailing, better to have it stowed safely below. It’s kind of ironic that in the quarterberth the anchor (designed to get to the bottom of it all) is wedged in next to the life raft (designed to keep us afloat in any conditions).
As we were working on the anchor together, I got philosophical and told Max that whenever I’m doing a final-prep job like this, my mind wanders to the question, So…where and when will I un-stow the anchor and bring it back up to the bow in preparation for landfall? Although I’m planning for the Windward Caribbean Island of Grenada, I’m not 100% sure. At the end of the day, who can be honestly 100% sure of anything? Max and I muse about that thought as we go about our work and I realize how good it feels to talk to someone about something that’s not just “news, sports, and weather” rather than have that thought just rattle around in your own head.
Hazel and I arrived in Mindelo on Thursday, December 12th and I wasn’t sure what to expect. Our Welsh sailing friend Martin (also highlighted in our previous post) had advised me that when you’re in the Cabo Verdes, you know you’re not in the EU any more.
I’ve spent a lot of time in the EU and never once saw someone there carrying anything on their head. This woman is setting up her vending stall for the day.
Once I’m back in Florida I’ll post more about the Cabo Verdes and Mindelo, but for now I’ve got to wrap this up and get some sleep as we are sailing tomorrow. The spoiler alert about the Cabo Verdes is that it’s been and excellent visit—just what we needed.
Please, stay tuned to our home page and, as with other passages, we’ll do our best to make daily posts as to what’s going on onboard Hazel and in the captain’s head. Who knows, maybe I’ll turn the micro-blog helm over to my “nephcrew” Max. If I do, you’ll know by the quality improvement in the posts.
Fair winds and following seas!
As a Christmas gift, we’ll leaving you with some final images of the Cabo Verdes in roughly chronological order…
My arrival after 6 days of averaging 130 miles per day.The berthing in the marina is a little complicated so when marinaros Stan found out I was singlehanded, he jumped aboard to help me.Stan took the wheel temporarily while I tidied up some lines in preparation for berthing.Hazel tucked in the Marina Mindelo (center of picture, between the two catamarans).After a nap, my first meal of cachupa (ka-chew-PA). Left to right, grilled fish, chorizo sausage, spiced mixture of hominy and chickpeas, and—of course—topped off with a fried egg.Picking “nephcrew” Max up from the Mindelo airport a few days later.Touring Ilha São Vicente with Marina Mindelo to the left.On the highest point on São Vicente looking down into Mindelo harbor. Ilha Santo Antão to the north and in the background.A few days later Max on our early morning ferry to Ilha Santo Antão for a day trip.Touring the stunning Ilha Santo Antão. So different than São Vicente: bigger, higher, greener.This round fertile valley is the caldera of an extinct volcano (on Santo Antão).Nice load of bananas.With our excellent tour guide Danny.Amazing vistas.Another.Same view of HJ as above, but the “haze” in the air is a Saharan dust storm blowing in.Max climbing the mast for the first time for him and doing a pre-passage check of the rigging.Take it to the top baby!Max brought some replacement o-rings from the US that weren’t to be found in Europe. It made the captain quite happy. Max studying his sailing and marine maintenance during a quiet time.
Someone told me that the Cabo Verdes have the highest number of musicians per capita of any country in the world…and I believe it. It’s everywhere and incredible talent and a unique sound.Provisioning on our last day at the Municipal Market.Birdseye view of the market.Another view of the organized chaos. It’s as if the African Continent and Pittsburgh’s Strip District had a baby.Max and Max shopping at Mama Africa’s stall in the African Market.Buying some bracelets that won’t make it home in time for Christmas.Max and Max and more shopping.Buying our hand-sewn Cabo Verdian courtesy flag from Mrs. Mercy Cole in stall #127.Just half an hour earlier Mrs. Cole was sewing our flag on the sewing machine in front of her stall. She sews all day and when someone comes by to look at her wares, she pauses to help them and chat. Saying what I thought would be my last adeus to Stan on our last full day…But then we saw him out later with his girlfriend.Feliz Natal to all, and to all a gute nacht.
Although the real Reunion Islands are in the Indian Ocean, on my last night in the Canaries as I think back about my time here, I realize that this archipelago will always be my personal “Reunion Islands.” Not only for Rhett’s and my reunion but for our reunion with sailing friends.
It reminds me of the fall of 2021 when Rhett and I found ourselves returning to Florida after a sailing summer in Maine. Working our way down the Atlantic US East Coast, we rolled in to Cape May, Delaware at the peak of the fall bird migration. What makes Cape May so great for fall bird watching is that the migratory birds follow the land south until there is no more land, then they rest up and eat as much as they can before making the long over-water flight to Cape Henlopen. Thus, Cape May becomes a natural focal point for the birds.
Cape May circled and Cape Henlopen near Lewes, Delaware, 10 miles to the south-southwest.
Sailors migrate in a similar seasonal fashion. We tend to follow bread crumbs of islands until there are no crumbs left, then we rest, eat, and embark on the next long passage.
Tomorrow morning I’ll be doing just that. Soon after sunrise, I’ll depart Puerto de la Estaca on the southwestern most Canary Island of El Hierro and sail about 750 miles south-southwest to the Cape Verde Islands. After visiting nearly all of the Canary Islands (either with Hazel or via ferry with Rhett) I’ve gone as far as I can go—there’s no more land until the Cape Verdes.
It’s a long way, 6-7 days I’m estimating but the seasonal trade winds seem to have established themselves and I’m hoping for consistent 10-20 knot breezes out of the east-northeast and northeast which would make for ideal sailing.
The Canaries and Cape Verdes, like Cape May, are focal points. Several months ago while in Almerimar Spain, I started occasionally meeting other sailors who were preparing for a transatlantic crossing. Then, with each port-of-call further west and south, the percentage of sailors who are headed for a crossing keeps increasing. Once we reach Mindelo in the Cape Verdes we’ll basically be at 100%—100% of the sailors we meet will be crossing.
At this sailing focal point of the world, Rhett and I had the opportunity to serendipitously connect with two sets of our dearest sailing friends: William and Nicole, and Martin and Hilary.
For long-time followers of this blog, I met William when we were locked-down in the British Virgin Islands in the winter of 2020. Then in 2021 a month before Rhett and I reached Cape May, we sailed through Sag Harbor (Long Island), New York and I had the chance to introduce William and Rhett. Since then William and Nicole teamed up, and we’ve had other chances to get together in Ft. Lauderdale. Several weeks ago, and without a whole lot of planning, the four of us ended up in the same marina on the island of Lanzarote at the same time. When Rhett and I entered the marina, the harbor master directed us to the marina’s reception pontoon and found the big catamaran that Nicole and William were helping deliver across the Atlantic to the Caribbean was temporarily berthed on the same reception pontoon. We stepped off Hazel and there they were!
Early 2020, during the height of the pandemic with my BVI bubble. William to the left and some creepy ZZ-Top looking guy to the right. Dear friends Rachel and Ben behind us.William and Rhett meeting in Sag Harbor in 2021.
Common in Hot! Just a month ago and our reunion on the Lanzarote reception pontoon.Bustin’ it up during our tour of the island.
I met Martin in a similar focal point but on the other side of the Atlantic, St. George’s Harbour Bermuda. In the spring of 2022 I anchored in St. George’s Harbour after completing the first leg of my west-to-east transatlantic sail. As I was cleaning up Hazel after the sail, I heard a friendly, English-accented “ahoy!” from below. I looked around, then down and there was Martin, clearly destined to become another best friend. We made plans to meet on shore later, and as Martin rowed away, he said, “You might want to bring a long painter (bow line), it’s a bit of a bun fight at the dinghy dock.” Rhett and I still laugh about the phrase “…a bit of a bun fight….” Since Martin and I were both single-handed sailors we palled around in Bermuda, kept in touch via satellite email during the crossing, then in the Azores his wife Hilary came to visit him and the three of us had wonderful hikes on the islands. In December of that year, Hilary and Martin graciously hosted us at their beautiful cottage in Wales and we enjoyed the best of the Christmas season with them. While not attempting a crossing (this year at least), Hilary and Martin were on the island of La Palma on their slightly-bigger-than-Hazel yacht Chardonnay of Solent when Rhett and I visited La Palma via ferry. We had just one overlapping night but made the most of the rainy evening in a leaky-roofed tapas restaurant.
On the island of Horta in the Azores in 2022. Martin and Hilary in the background hiking toward a lighthouse nearly buried in volcanic ash. Our Dutch friend Jos in the foreground. Minutes later, Martin, Hilary, and Jos climbing the lighthouse.2024 La Palma, Martin and Hilary to the left. Martin and I felt cyclopiean that night with our tiny glasses. Note the beer mug between Martin and Hilary with an inch or so of water in it. We requested it to collect the rainwater dripping from a broken tile above. (Good sailors don’t waste water!)
So, it’s my last night in the Canaries. As with Porto Santo and Madeira, I’m so happy that I dug deep into the islands and just didn’t make it a quick pit stop as I hurried through. While it’s a little sad when I think back fondly of Rhett’s and my time here and of our reunions with friends on this focal point of the world, I’m happy about moving on and our next set of adventures.
As with other long passages, I’ll be making daily updates on Hazel’s satellite tracker. You can check out how we are doing on our home page and also read-up on what’s going on, on-board and in our heads as we continue southward. As a teaser, we’ve got some exciting “trade deadline” news to share.
As a lot of people know, I’m not nearly as prolific when Rhett is onboard so please excuse the timing on this post. I started it when Rhett and I were on the island of Lanzarote (blue star in the upper right below). I made landfall there on November 6, sailing from Madeira and Rhett then met me on Lanzarote a couple days later. Since then, after going deep on Lanzarote we sailed overnight 130 miles from Lanzarote Santa Cruz de Tenerife (circled below) and have done ferry and car touring of the western islands of La Palma and La Gomera. Rhett is now preparing to return home to the US and I’m preparing to sail 700-800 miles to the Cape Verde Islands (either directly or via the southwestern-most Canary Island of El Hierro).
Map of the “eight” Canary Islands. Seven of them are obvious. The tiny Isla Graciosa (just off the north coast of Lanzarote) was recently upgraded from an islet of Lanzarote to the eighth island in the archipelago. (I’ve heard that the “dwarf planet” Pluto—who was demoted from full-fledged planet in 2006—is still miffed about the whole affair.)
As our time the Canary Island of Lanzarote grows short, I’m struck by the assumptions that I had made that have been dashed against the rocks of reality.
As an artist-appetizer and speaking of Isla Graciosa—this is a view from César Manrique’s Mirador del Rio (Mirador=Viewpoint and Rio=River) looking north from Lanzarote and 1,600 feet above sea level (more on the artist Manrique later).“The river” refers to the channel in the foreground named Estrecho del Rio (Narrow River) that separates Lanzarote from Isla Graciosa.Another from the mirador……and another. Note the artistry in the ironwork sign and how it works with the vulcan terrain, clearly the work of César Manrique.
The assumptions…
First—zooming out to the entire Atlantic Ocean—whenever I had imagined an arcing line that connects the Azores, Madeira, the Canary Islands, and the Cape Verdes, I assumed all these islands were part of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.
Second—zooming in to the Canaries—as I prepped for landfall, Isla Lanzarote (lan-zah-RAH-tay) was the obvious choice when sailing from Madeira since it’s at the extreme northeast of the archipelago and closest to Madeira. Seeing how the island was situated and that it is arid and relatively barren compared to the lushness of other Canary Islands to the southwest, I assumed the archipelago was growing towards the northeast (in geologic time) making Lanzarote the newest island and there just hadn’t been time for plant life to establish.
Third—and a refreshing palate cleanser in the midst of all the US politics—think about what profession is most likely to have a true, positive lasting effect an entire culture? If your head is anything like mine, the knee-jerk assumption is of a politician, scientist, or military leader.
Fourth and final—and on to the fraught-with-peril topic of relationships—Rhett and I hadn’t seen each other in over three months. In that intervening time even though we had had great talks via video most every day I wasn’t at sea, it was undeniable that we had temporarily headed off in complementary but different directions. I had been consumed with sailing, all things Hazel, and moving our adventures out of the Med and (eventually) to the Caribbean—while Rhett had been home focusing on family, upcoming grandchild, and upgrades to our house in Florida. While modern communication was the gravitational field that kept us in orbit with each other, we were truly in different worlds. On my three-day sail from Madeira to Lanzarote and in my first couple days alone on Lanzarote (before Rhett’s arrival), I had thought long and hard about the potential friction of reentry that we could experience (and how our reunion could go awry).
Now for the assumption busting…
Since I’m not at sea (where I am blissfully unencumbered by fact-checking), I was forced to learn a bit more about the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. The ridge is part of the longest mountain range in the world and it separates the North American, Eurasian, and African Plates. However, while the Azores occupies a prominent spot on the Ridge—at the tectonic triple intersection of those three plates—immediately south of the Azores, the Ridge takes a distinct western turn leaving Madeira, the Canaries, and Cape Verdes hanging. While all three are volcanic and in the misty past may have been on the ridge, in the Holocene (the geological modern epoch) they are not.
The S-curve Mid-Atlantic Ridge with the Azores, Madeira, Canaries, and Cape Verdes highlighted. Note the depths shown are in meters and the deepest is the close-to-home Puerto Rico Trench at 8,380 meters (27,500 feet or 5.2 miles). Also note that about halfway through my sail from the Canaries to Cape Verdes, I’ll cross into the tropics.
My second busted assumption was about the arid Lanzarote landscape indicating it was the youngest of the Canary Islands. While I had done a bit of pre-reading about the island, I was under-prepared for the enormity of the Martian landscape and the jarring juxtaposition of a desert rising from the sea. I found myself humming America’s song Horse with no Name.
A large tour bus in the center of the photo dwarfed by its surroundings and looking like a Mars Rover. That’s the Atlantic Ocean in the background.Lanzarote loves a camera.The sea meets the desert.Another of the booming surf and the volcanic basalt.Here’s a picture of Rhett and me getting that previous booming-surf picture. Note the lotta-leg-Instagrammer who wandered off the path for that perfect shot. It was comforting to know that if she fell off the rocks and drowned, at least she’d die doing what she loved. At the end of the day, that’s the most any of us can hope for—right?With our sailing friends Nicole and William (on the ends), and our guide Angela in the middle. (They’ll be more about our reunion with William and Nicole, and other sailing friends, in an upcoming post).
On our driving tour with our most-excellent native guide Angela, she busted my assumption about Lanzarote’s age by telling us was the oldest of the Canary Islands. It turns out that its barren landscape relative to the other Canary Islands has nothing to do with age and everything to do with altitude. While Lanzarote’s peaks are impressive, they “only” rise 2,200 feet out of the sea. The five western and greener islands average out at 7,300 feet with Tenerife having the highest peak in all of Spain (El Teide [el TAY-deh] at a whopping 12,200 feet). Air blowing over the sea naturally accumulates water vapor. When it encounters an island, it has two choices: go over or around. The air that goes over the island is mechanically lifted by the land and if it’s lifted high enough, the water vapor will condense into rain. On average, Lanzarote receives a meager 6-8 inches of rain per year, while La Palma (the wettest of the islands and 200 miles west of Lanzarote) receives 31-47 inches per year
Have no fear though, although Lanzarote is the eldest child in the family, it certainly hadn’t lost its volcanic spark. In relatively recent history on September 1, 1730 it began a six-year eruption that increased the island’s landmass by 25%. Given the Canaries first emerged from the ocean around 20 million years ago, this eruption (300 years ago) happened in the geologic blink-of-an-eye past. Fleeing residents rightfully assumed the literal fire and brimstone was the work of El Diablo (The Devil) and throughout the island you’ll see the El Diablo motif.
An angel and a devil.
In telling this story as she drove around lunar-looking craters, Angela added that the first mayor of San Antonio, Texas, Juan Seguín (who also fought alongside Davy Crockett at the Battle of the Alamo) was a descendent of Lanzaroteños and Lanzaroteñas who emigrated because of the eruption. Of course as soon as Angela recounted this, Rhett pumped her fists in a gesture eerily similar to the picture above and blurted out in her southern drawl, “I lived there!” The Brits and Dutch in the tour van with us chuckled.
Although the last eruption on Lanzarote was in 1834 the “thin spots” within the Parque Nacional de Timanfaya are amazing. Temperatures just 8 feet below the surface are almost 1,000º F. As a demonstration, park staff have a long (and I mean long) pitchfork and they shove dead and dried tumbleweed-looking bushes into fissures which immediately burst into flames.
By this point, I had stopped humming America’s Horse with No Name and switched over to Johnny Cash and Ring of Fire.
In the park lodge, lunch is cooked over the heat. Angela got us there early, well before the crowds, so we were able to tour the lodge’s geothermal barbecue.
The grill itself is enclosed in a giant beehive shaped structure of dry-fitted volcanic basalt. César Manrique designed and oversaw the construction of it and the entire park lodge.
Rhett and Nicole entering the cooking area. The sign says, “¡ATTENTION! HIGH TEMPERATURES (FLOOR AND GRILL)” I suppose that’s a polite way of saying, No Bare Feet!Entering the grill, from another angle.Angela explaining about the grill.
Speaking of “No Bare Feet” in another demonstration, park staff had us stand outside a circle drawn in the red, pea-sized gravel (we were sternly warned to not step into the circle). A ranger in insulated boots stepped in the circle with a flat bladed shovel and carefully poured a little bit of the gravel into each of our hands. While not burning hot, the gravel was way too hot to hold in your hands without tossing it from hand to hand like an inpatient child pouring hot hot-cocoa from mug to mug to cool the drink.
Rhett and Nicole with geothermal hand warmers.
A final demonstration from the rangers was of water being instantly vaporized by the energy…
The ranger’s timing was impeccable.
The only other actively volcanic places I have been were Yellowstone National Park in the US and Mount Etna on Sicily. While both are fantastic and fascinating, what struck me about Lanzarote in comparison was its intimacy and subtlety. The Yellowstone caldera is 30 miles across and Mount Etna rises 11,000 feet from the Mediterranean Sea. Conversely, on Lanzarote it seemed that everywhere you looked there was another micro-caldera. It reminded me of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince and how he would rake out his volcanoes every day on his tiny planet, even the extinct one because “…you never know.”
A tiny, and hopefully extinct volcano cone. Probably about 50 feet across at the base.
Continuing on the subtlety theme, from a distance the landscape looks almost entirely black and burned. However, when studying the most-volcanic areas up close lichens cling to the igneous rocks eking out an existence.
Typical landscape from a distance (note the whitish cast to some of the rocks that looks like a dusting of snow).Narrowing the aperture, the “whitish cast” becomes life.
Speaking of “eking out an existence” If I could travel back in time and meet the first Lanzaroteño or Lanzaroteña who said, “Gee, our island seems like a good place to grow grapes.” I’d both admire their perseverance and optimism, and question their sanity. If my opinion saddened my ancient Lanzaroteño friend, I’d provide comfort by explaining that they are not alone—I have the same questions of the Greek Santorinians. Before Rhett’s and my visit to that Greek island with the Italian name last summer, the term “vineyard” immediately evoked images of endless rows of head-high trellises intertwined with lush, verdant vines. However, the Santorinians (with volcanic soil and a windy, semi-arid climate similar to Lanzarote) learned to grow their grapes low. They trained the vines into what appeared to be grounded Christmas wreaths. With minimal rainfall, the doughnut shape guided the nightly dew that formed on the grape leaves to drip into the vine’s roots.
A Santorinian vineyard from our travel there in the summer of 2023.A close-up of one vine trained into the shape of a wreath. If you look closely, you’ll see some grapes drying into raisins.An even closer view of the desiccating Santorinian grapes.
The Lanzaroteños variation on the viticultural theme is to plant each grape vine in a zoco (THO-koh), a shallow pit surrounded by a low horseshoe-shaped wall. The pit funnels sparse rainwater to the roots. The wall points north, into the prevailing wind, protecting the vine.
A grape vine in a zoco. The harvest was in July and the plant is now trimmed back for winter.Zocos stretching up the mountainside. While an immense vineyard, there’s only one vine per zoco.This is me taking the previous picture and surrounded by zocos.The granular volcanic soil.
If you think this seems like a difficult way to grow grapes—you’re dead right, it is. However, in the days before cheap and ubiquitous transport if you lived on Lanzarote and wanted wine this was your only option. Today, the certification of Lanzarote wine is very strict. In order to label as such, not only do the grapes need to have been grown and transformed into wine on the island, traditional methods must be employed and the grapes only irrigated in times of severe drought (when a vine’s life is at stake).
For the third assumption about the type of person likely to have a positive impact on an entire people and culture, we come to the story of César Manrique (1919-1992) (say-SAR mahn-REEK-ay)—painter, sculptor, architect and landscape architect, environmental activist, and all-around visionary.
People who live in cool-looking underground lairs carved out by molten lava are usually, in Bond movies at least, hellbent on global destruction.
But on the wild, volcanic landscape of the Canary Islands, one man used his subterranean hideaway, complete with open-air pool and striking artwork, to plot something far better: the preservation of paradise.
—Barry Neild, CNN Travel Writer
Showing an early interest in art, he studied at the Fine Arts School in Madrid, and lived in New York City in the late 1960s and early 1970s—hanging out with Andy Warhol and Jackson Pollack. While his education in Spain and seasoning in the US developed him as an artist, it’s when he returned to his native Lanzarote in 1970 that he truly blossomed.
Examples of Manrique’s work.
While Rhett and I had read a bit about Manrique prior to our touring the island, we thought—as with most artists—we’d visit a museum or two with his works exhibited, look at each painting up close and then step back and cross our arms and cock our heads and “hrumph” a bit…to make it look like we know something about museum art. Heck, I was even considering wearing my beret for added effect.
We weren’t prepared for the ubiquity of Manrique’s installations throughout the island. It was literally impossible to drive more than 15 or 20 minutes without passing one of his sculptures.
An ordinary Lanzarote traffic circle made magnificent by a Manrique wind sculpture.
Another wind sculpture at Manrique’s home.Referring to the earlier quote, Rhett in front of one of the “hallways” in Manrique’s home, carved out by molten lava……and the open air pool.The dining area of the Timanfaya National Park main lodge.
While there are artists more famous than Manrique, I don’t know any that have had such a positive impact on a people. Prior to Manrique’s heyday, Lanzarote residents had an inferiority complex. Perhaps it was the minimal rainfall compared to the lush Western Canaries or the far distance to the bustling “main” islands of Gran Canaria and Tenerife. Regardless, Manrique recognized that collective outlook and wanted to change it.
Through a combination of grit, coalition building, artistic genus, political connections, and activism. Not only did he move the island from obscurity to a major tourist destination, he saw the direction of tourism on the other Canary Islands and foresaw the perils of over-tourism. With that foresight he helped arrange a more sustainable tourism model on Lanzarote that, even today, seems to be fully embraced by the island’s residents and visitors.
Manrique’s Cactus GardenThe Cactus Garden from another angle.And up close.And even closer!
About 4,000 years ago the La Corona volcano erupted on Lanzarote and its aftermath bored a series of lava tubes just below the surface of the Earth flowing from the volcano to the sea. In places the lava tubes have collapsed, creating jameos (volcanic caves or tunnels). Shortly after Manrique arrived back in Lanzarote after his time in New York City, he proclaimed that he would make the Jameos del Agua one of the most beautiful places in the world. It was a bold statement considering that—at the time—the Jameos del Agua was a literal hole in the ground and its enormous size and depth had made it a convenient garbage dump. It’s now a world-recognized cultural and artistic space.
The cafe at the Jameos del Agua.Another view of the tables stretching into the cave.Another of the swimming pool.The concert space that utilizes the cave’s natural acoustics.Just down the road from Jameos del Agua (and part of the same lava tube) was another Manrique installation at the Cueva de las Verdes (Green Cave).The views inside the cave were incredible. The bottom half of this picture is a reflection from above in a mirror-still pool. While the pool appears bottomless, our guide later shined a flashlight into it, revealing that it was less than a foot deep.Black volcanic sand beach in the midground with Lanzarote dwellings in the background. Note the population concentration (leaving open spaces elsewhere on the island), the all-white motif, and low-rise heights—all part of the artist’s vision. Rhett in the foreground with her new favorite Manrique T-shirt.
Given all the strife in the world, it was a refreshing reminder that—somewhere—peace, artistry, and sustainability can win.
On to the fourth assumption that I had made: because Rhett and I had been apart for three months and doing very different things, our reunion would be bumpy. Was that me being pessimistic or me being a sailor? I guess both are true. Do I want and hope for fair winds and following seas?—sure. Am I going to have a plan-B to weather the storm if it comes?—you bet.
To get to Hazel and me, Rhett had some arduous travel: a drive to Miami (perhaps the most dangerous part of the voyage), a flight from Miami to Madrid, then another flight from Madrid to the Canary Island of Tenerife and a hotel overnight, then finally a short-hop flight from Tenerife to Lanzarote where I met her in the airport.
Our days together started great, almost so great that, for a while, I forgot my going-in trepidation of the situation. The most poignant reminder for me came on our tour of the national park. We were marveling at how the lichens not only survived but thrived in this harsh environment. Here these living things made their stand, with no topsoil and perched on volcanic basalt, exposed to the full brunt of the subtropical sun, with minimal rain and no source of ground water. Not only do they make something from apparently nothing, the thing they make is the most precious thing in the world—life. It’s pure magic.
As I pondered this it occurred to me that somewhere I had read that a lichen wasn’t one thing. The way lichens perform this animating magic isn’t by being hearty and solitary pioneers, but by being together. Each lichen is a symbiotic pair, one partner delivering structure, protection, and moisture retention—the other providing sustenance through photosynthesis. I like to think of myself as the first partner in the pair (providing structure and protection) because, not only does the story work a bit better, but that partner happens to be a fungus and something tells me that Rhett wouldn’t appreciate being analogized by a fungus. The other partner—Rhett if you will—is a green algae or cyanobacteria (depending on the type of lichen) and produces the sugars—the sweetness of life—that nourishes both (we all know that’s not me). Sure, with our human adaptability each of us could probably survive independently, but who wants to merely survive when you can thrive? And that’s the symbiosis that Rhett and I re-experienced in our reunion after three months. Yes, we’ve had a few bumps: I had reconfigured Hazel’s storage from short-hop day and overnight two person sailing to long distance solo passages. In her first 24-hours onboard I can’t tell you how many times Rhett asked, “Where did you put my…?” When Rhett explained what she had done and was doing to our house back home, a couple details seemed excessive to me and caught me off-guard. But I supposed that’s the normal turbulence to be expected upon reentry. Looking out across the lunar landscape of Lanzarote and seeing the symbiotic lichens reminded me that together we’ve achieved something that neither of us could do alone.
Fair winds and following seas and Happy Thanksgiving to all in the US!
Given I’ve got limited time but near unlimited bandwidth (a rarity lately), I’ll make this post text lite and photo heavy. It’s 1100 local time in Madeira and I’m waiting for the squally cold front from the remnants of subtropical storm Patty to pass so I can start sailing the 275 miles to the island of Lanzarote in the Canary Islands. Provided the weather breaks after the front and I can get out of here, should be a 2-4 day sail. Hopefully, I will beat Rhett there by a couple days but we’ll see what Poseidon and Aeolus have to say about that. I’ll keep micro posts going on our passage to Lanzarote so please tune in (on HJ’s. home page).
From Cadiz to Porto Santo
I was so impressed with Cadiz. Big enough and historical enough for sustained interest, but off the tourist trail. Especially in October. The 600 mile sail to Porto Santo was challenging but good. I felt great about my sailing and decision making.
Capo Trafalgar on my way to Cadiz.Roman ruins to the left, and to the right and deeper are older Phonecian ruins.Theater in Cadiz.Oysters in the market!Cadiz’s Cathedral of the Americas HJ in the industrial port of Cadiz (note container ship underway in background).Departing Cadiz at sunrise.If you want to know what modern-day pirates look like, this is it.Mountainous waves on our sail.Big seas in the background and me having Pulp Fiction fun with a tangerine in the foreground.
Porto Santo
There are two inhabited islands in the Madeira Archipelago: the smaller Porto Santo, and the much larger Madeira. Porto Santo is northeast of Madeira and therefore first on my route. It’s much lower than Madeira, more arid, and blessed with a “real” beach.
After my first night anchored off the beach in Porto Santo, I moved into the protected harbor. HJ is to the lower left. Note ferry from Madeira moored on the far wall of the harbor.Close up of HJ.Lil’ Dinghy at the dinghy dock (a thoroughbred amongst draft horses).Wall paintings similar to Horta in the Azores.Boarding my bus trip of the islands.Excellent views.Beautiful beaches.There’s a joke in the Mediterranean that any coast with stones that are golf ball sized or smaller is “a beach.” We’re talking real sand in Porto Santo!The north and windward coast of the Atlantic Islands are foreboding.Small unlit islet off the north coast.High vantage point looking down on the town of Vila Baleria.Endless beach on the south coast.Beach walk.Checking out the Norwegian ship Christian Radich from Lil’ Dinghy.I bet she’s seen some spray.
From Porto Santo to Madeira
Short 30 mile daysail from Porto Santo to Madeira. Given wind predictions, I elected to start sailing at 0100 and arrive at sunrise before the wind died.
About 20 minutes out from Porto Santo (and at 0200), this bird hit me in the face. We were both a bit stunned. I’ll write more about it someday.Approaching Madeira.Cool natural arch on the approach.The Madeira airport having into view. It’s built out over the water.A picture taken later of the Quinta do Lorde Marina where HJ was nestled in for several nights.
Tour of Madeira Island
I took a great group jeep tour of the island with guide and driver Pedro.
Tour started at a small fishing village. Note the terraced used of every space for agriculture.Chapel in the fishing town.Beautiful scenery.Stopping for a break and our guide Pedro stepped behind the bar to help.Everybody loves Elvis!Some off-roading on the tour.Pedro had to hop out and move a boulder or two.The last bit of off-roading. Note in the background on the horizon is Porto Santo.Beautiful coastal town under a rainbow.Another of the town.Black scabbard fish lunch with banana.Stunning coast.Lots of waterfalls.If you look closely you’ll see climbers rappelling down this waterfall.Driving under the airport runway.The tuna can rainbow (not very talk but wide around)Looking toward Funchal (capital of the Madeira Archipelago).Banana plants tucked into a road curve.
Funchal
Pronounced FOON-shall. The capital city of Madeira Island and the Archipelago.
The famous painted doorways in Funchal.Good painting for a dentist office!
Ponta de São Lourenço Hike
Our marina is on the eastern end of the island and just east of us was an excellent hike. Sunrise was at 0730 and I left HJ at 0600 to be on the trail for sunrise.
Making great vantage point just in time for sunrise.Magnificent.A grotto icon on the hike. Very Greek (to me).Looking back to the “mainland” of the island. Not the “small” round fish farms in the bay.Another view looking west.I liked the signage, “What do you seek?” I’ve been thinking about that question a lot ever since.Rock formations.There’s the weather adage, “Mackerel sky, mackerel sky, not long wet and not long dry.” Close up of the fish farm with a 20-30 foot boat tending them. Note how small the boat is compared to the pens.The Portuguese take their wayfinding cairns seriously!Looking to the Ilas Desertas to the southeast, where we hope to be sailing today.
Hazel’s ready, the Captain’s ready, the weather looks good, no orca encounters or sightings over the past several days—we are ready to roll.
It’s about 2130 here (9:30 p.m.) and I’m just about to “turn flukes” as Melville would say in Moby Dick. Tomorrow morning about sunrise, we’ll return our marina access card (and get our €15 deposit back!), cast off Hazel’s slip for the past three days, bunker at the fuel dock (take on diesel), and start sailing west. It should be pretty stiff breezes, 25-30 knots but an excellent direction, from the northeast allowing us to sail on a fast port-tack broad reach. We’ll sail due west for 30 miles to the 7º West line of longitude and then head for Porto Santo, Madeira. I’m thinking it will be a 4-6 day sail. You can track our progress and get my daily updates on the chart on our home page.
I’m so glad I stayed in Cadiz and had 2 days to tour the city. It’s a beautiful Spanish town…especially in mid-October and well off the season. Many Spanish seaside towns have fully (and recently) constructed marinas (without the break wall there would be no harbor). However, Cadiz has a natural harbor so it has been an important port city literally from the beginning of civilization.
Fair winds and following seas.
One interesting tidbit on Cadiz from the old town (Barrio Populo). A Roman theater was discovered there in 1980…virtually yesterday in archeological terms. Archeologists were excavating the old town’s Medieval wall and, underneath the wall, discovered the theater. I’ve seen a lot of Greek and Roman theaters out in the middle of nowhere, so fascinating to see this in the middle of the city where people had erected modern buildings over it without ever knowing it was there.
…of course I could have just as easily titled this post “Navigate the Orca-Strait” because we’re doing both at the moment. On one hand there’s the hour-to-hour, degree-to-degree and minute-to-minute navigation, but without high-level and mid-level sailing plans—the “orchestration” you might say—the navigation is pointless. As the Cat said, “If you don’t know where you want to go, then it doesn’t matter which path you take.”
Speaking of straights, I think it was our Greek friend Euclid who pointed out that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. However, Hazel and I are not in Greece anymore and it appears that that rule does not apply around the Strait of Gibraltar. Perhaps I would modify it to: “The shortest distance between two points, that also minimizes the risk of an orca encounter, is not necessarily a Strait line.” But alas, my amendment lacks Euclid’s laconic pith.
Looking at the overall chart and orchestrating our path to Madeira, it’s pretty obvious that once clear of the Strait of Gibraltar and its busy commercial shipping lanes, Hazel and I should immediately alter course to port (left) and head west-southwest (roughly midpoint between due west and southwest) towards Madeira.
Our current location is the red chevron. A bit confusing but the “Madeira Islands” consist of both the big Island of Madeira and Porto Santo which lies 30 miles northeast of the Island of Madeira (plus a smattering of islets). The Island of Madeira appears on the chart above but much smaller Porto Santo does not (zooming in would show it). Porto Santo is roughly where the purple pin is located.
The only issue with Euclid’s solution to the problem are those pesky pods of orcas and their tendency to gnaw on sailboat rudders. As a quick aside (and a Google search will tell you a lot more), the current leading theory on why orcas do this is that underwater, sailboat rudders resemble tunas (locally, the orcas primary food source) and the intelligent mammals are using the rudders as “target practice” to train their calves. A straight line from the Strait of Gibraltar toward the Madeira Islands would take me directly through the heat of the heat map.
Gibraltar, where Hazel and I are now is just to the right (just off this chart). Tarifa, a major landmark and rough midpoint of the Strait is to the left (west) of Gibraltar and circled. Barbate (pronounced bar-VHAT-tee) lies about 20 miles northwest of Tarifa, and Cadiz (CAD-ease) lies 30 miles north-northwest of Barbate (both circled).
Rhett and I have joined and been following the orcas.pt website. (In case you are wondering, we did “Buy Me a Beer” for Rui the webmaster.) Per the website, “Iberian orcas’ swim profile is (between) 20 and 350 meters of depth (60 to 1,100 feet).” Rui’s general guidance for my situation is near “the red zone” to only travel in daylight hours and travel along the 20 meter (60 foot) depth contour all the way to Cadiz, then turn due west for 20-30 miles before laying in a course to Madeira.
While I’m sure the advice is well-intentioned, my belief is that risk is an inherent part of life and following the guidance to the letter comes at a cost. It’s another 70 to 90 miles of “sailing” and also a couple extra days and nights since night-travel is not advised. (“Sailing” in quotes because following a countour like this likely requires all motoring.) Yes, in case you are wondering, when our friend Theo lost two-thirds of his rudder to the curious cetaceans it was at night. (See previous post for the remains of his rudder.)
With all this laid out, I had also been tracking recent orca encounters and had seen a clear trend northward in the Atlantic and away from the Strait (ostensibly the orcas following the tuna migration). Before Tuesday of this week (two days ago), the last encounter in the Strait of Gibraltar was back in mid-September. So, until the other day, I had in the back of my mind that I could cut some corners when it came to the orca avoidance protocol. (Mind you, that was in the back of my mind and not the collective Rhett’s and my mind…but keep that between you and me.) I figured, somewhat hazily, that once I made Tarifa if I was “feeling good” and we had plenty of daylight, I could “Damn the torpedos” and head right at Madeira. Heck, I’m the captain and by the time I’d be begging for forgiveness (because I certainly hadn’t asked for permission), Hazel and I would be well clear of the hotspot and all’s well that ends well.
However, and as I said in my last micro-post on our home page (titled “Ox to the Rescue”), there was a sighting of orcas in the Strait of Gibraltar just the other day. While I got the information on our VHF radio, Rhett received more detail through the orcas.pt site…
“15/10/2024 13:00 Sighting N 35° 55.027′ W 5° 38.662′ Sw Tarifa #orcas. For those near the straighta. We were just surrounded by a pod of Orcas who followed us for about a mile. Luckily we were able to pour on all speen under power and make 12 knots and they left us alone.
Personally, I think the typos are endearing. I can just imagine the sweaty, trembling fingers trying to get a cogent report on the wire. I don’t know what kind of “sailboat” these sailors were in, but I can waterski at 12 knots. That’s more than twice the absolute best speed that Hazel can achieve while motoring.
So, I’ve decided to throw my secret corner-cutting plan—which is of course now no longer a secret—out the window. I’m going to stand up straight (Strait?), be a good Boy Scout, salute the flag, and follow the recommendations. Frankly, if we were staying coastal and this were the last sail of the year, I might just keep my cavalier approach and damn those torpedoes—any teeth marks on the rudder could be buffed out by a boatyard during a winter haul out. However, with the upcoming Atlantic crossing in mind, if Hazel were to suffer an encounter anywhere near as severe as Theo’s, we’d have to postpone the crossing attempt by a year, which would cause a whole cascading series of events. Besides, I’m feeling really good about getting back into the Atlantic and about the transatlantic crossing with its solid tradewind sailing.
So, the plan you should expect to see from Hazel and me is:
Friday October 17 – Depart Gibraltar area before sunrise to make the optimal tidal current and get daylight for transiting the Strait. Motor, sticking to the 20 meter depth contour through the Strait and once clear of the Strait continue to follow the coast to Barbate. We should reach Barbate in mid-to-late afternoon and have a reservation at the municipal marina in Barbate (Rhett and I stayed there for a night on our way into Med and—LOL—Barbate markets itself as the “Tuna Capital of the World.” Just what I didn’t need!)
Saturday 18th -Depart Barbate in the morning and continue motoring to Cadiz. Similar to Barbate, stay the night at the municipal marina in Cadiz.
Sunday 19th – Assuming the current weather window holds, set sail in the early morning, course 270º (due west) for 30 miles of daylight sailing, then turn to port and head right at Madeira which will be at a range of ~520 miles. (Hazel covers ~100 miles in a good day of sailing.) If the weather is not conducive, we can wait in Cadiz until it becomes so.
I’ll be busy the next couple days since costal navigation takes a lot more navigational attention and energy than offshore sailing. I’ve got no sea room to play with. I will do my best to stay on daily micro-posts (on the chart on our home page) and keep you apprised of what we’re seeing. Or—hopefully—not seeing.
Who knows. I’m probably spending a lot more time “orca-straiting” this whole thing than I need to. If I step back and look at every possible risk that Hazel and I regularly encounter, I still don’t think I’d put orcas on the top-5. However, I’m the guy who also thinks that driving a car on South Florida’s I-95 is more dangerous than sailing an ocean solo in a small boat, and I stand by that assessment. Still, there’s something about the beast that stirs the primordial soup of our human nature. After all, without a beast, Jaws wouldn’t be the movie that it is. And of course, the name of Quint the fisherman’s boat? Orca.
Fair winds and following seas.
PS: Full credit to my great friend Kevin who came up with the “orca-strate” pun. I chewed on it for a while as I hunch there was more there, there. Then, serendipitously, I came up with the “orca-strait” enhancement. Go team!
From Tuesday this week (2 days ago), the unmistakable bulk of the Rock of Gibraltar looming in the mist.Hazel safely moored later that night with the Rock of Gibraltar in the background. If you refer to the previous picture Hazel is now behind and to the right of the Rock (as seen from the previous picture).Although our first day in Gibraltar/Alcadesia was blustery. We had a warm day today with beautiful sun to dry out Hazel after several wet days.Moored in the marina here…. interesting decoration on this rather homely catamaran’s hull.A close-up. I just love the countenance. It seems to be begging for forgiveness (perhaps for intruding on the real orcas’ domain?) Or, maybe like the cars with “Student Driver” placards, this logo identifies the boat to the orcas as a trainer for very young calves. Perhaps—so as to not damage their baby teeth—the boat has rubber rudders? I could go on and on with this one… Bonus for anyone interested: This is the ebb and flow of the currents in the Strait of Gibraltar. It is keyed off of high water at Gibraltar (second row, rightmost panel, “HW”=high water). Gibraltar is that little peninsula to the right in every frame. On Friday morning, high water Gibraltar occurs at 0415 (4:15 a.m.) and our trusty pilot book recommends departing Gibraltar at 2 hours after high (third row middle panel) to catch the best tidal current. We’ll slip our moorings at 0515 to have an extra hour of cushion. At 6 hours after high water (lower right) the cycle repeats in the upper left (it then being 5 hours before the next high water).
Tomorrow we sail! I pulled out my ship’s log and see that we arrived in Marina Almerimar on Saturday, September 14th. At the time, I was expecting a visit of 10 days that could reasonably stretch into 2 weeks. If you had told me then that we would be here 4 weeks, I would have laughed at you.
Almerimar is an interesting town and marina in that the two are integrated. While most marinas consist of piers or pontoons that stretch out into protected water (like a dock into a lake), Almerimar also has canals like you’d see in Florida that work their way through the town. It makes for a nice atmosphere when strolling through the town to walk along the canals with all the moored yachts.
A marina canal in the town surrounded by attractive apartments and residents out for a walk.The faux lighthouse at the marina entrance with marina pontoons and the town behind.
Given the quiet canals, reasonable marina rates, proximity to airports, and milder winters than the rest of the Mediterranean, the marina and town are popular for sailors to winter-over in the water. They’ll often go “home” for a month or so to visit family but their real home is on the boat. With that being said, I’ve been here long enough this autumn and made enough friends that they’re starting to ask if I’m planning to winter on HJ here. I reply, “Nope, just passin’ through.” I’ve said it enough that I’ve started to think about what I’ve said and have realized that that’s all that any of us are doing on this spinning globe.
I like my girl when she’s loaded with food, her water and fuel tanks are full, sail covers off, and she’s tugging at her bow lines telling me she’s ready. That’s what she’s doing now as the sun sets this Saturday night and we’re preparing to sail before sunrise on Sunday morning.
Our next destination is Alcadesia Marina in Spain, very close to Gibraltar. It’s about 130 miles and if we catch a fair breeze should be there Monday or Tuesday (knock on wooed and full prostrations to Poseidon on that projection). From there, my professional weather routing team is telling me that a promising weather window to start my 650 mile sail to the islands of Madeira looks to be opening Thursday or Friday of this week. That would be ideal to give us a couple days to rest up and sort out any unforeseen problems with Hazel’s new equipment and rigging changes that made over the past month. I’ll start making daily updates to the satellite tracker on our home page tomorrow (Sunday, October 12th).
Fair winds and following seas.
As Hazel was lifted in preparation for launch this past Wednesday, David put final touches of antifouling bottom paint under her keel where her keel had been resting on wooden supports. She then began the short trip from the yard to the launching slip.Over the past couple weeks I had been making non-perishable provisioning trips to the specialty shops in town and to the big grocery store. Today’s final provisioning run focused on perishables. Sure, Rhett might have bought her wedding dress in Paris and had it sent home for our wedding, but Hazel had a new sail made for her in Palermo, Italy and sent to us in Almerimar. After we launched she tried it on for me. In case you are wondering about the beautiful Parisian wedding dress on the most beautiful bride!Back to today’s provisioning…the first stop was to the baker Nicos.I went in “just” for bread, and then saw the Halloween pumpkin cookies!“I’ll take four…actually…make that an even half dozen.”Then to the Jamoneria.Hazel ready to go. Sail covers off, tanks full, well provisioned, rested and ready for the Atlantic.
It’s an instant of clarity when I happen to experience the core of a metaphor, the sinews of a simile—when a figure of speech animates itself and dances on the stage. I find it happens more frequently in my sailing life than in my other life. This week, as Hazel’s spa time continues, I had dinner with my marine surveyor Theo and, amongst other things, we were talking about the pros and cons of installing a swivel between a yacht’s anchor and anchor chain. On one hand, reducing twist in a chain is helpful. On the other, the swivel and associated shackles and pins are just more complexity and more things to go wrong and—as we all know—the strength of any system is defined by “its weakest link.”
In regular life, when speaking of something boring, we say “it’s like watching paint dry” and that’s sort of our situation on Hazel James at the moment. In last Saturday’s post when I talked about life in the shipyard and on the hard, I thought we’d be ready to launch this week but that’s not the case. Yesterday, as my hands worked on Hazel and my mind wandered to the topics of this post, the first title that came to mind was “I’ve Been Hard for Three Weeks.” However, I went with “Watching Paint Dry” as I had a hunch that maybe…just maybe…it could be misconstrued by a very small minority of blog readers (I’m sure that’s other people and not you though).
On Thursday of this week, the yard workers finished most of Hazel’s bottom paint redo. An arduous task of a complete sanding of the hull below the waterline, applying two coats of reinforcing epoxy, one coat of primer, and finally two coats of antifouling paint. In addition, in a properly done bottom-paint job timing is critical. Each successive coat needs to be applied when the previous coat is “tacky” (i.e., set but not fully cured). This allows a strong chemical bond between the layers.
The only problem now is that on the hard Hazel’s hull is supported by eight blocks that look like angled sawhorses. The areas of the hull beneath the blocks are inaccessible so to complete the bottom painting the blocks need to be moved. But, before this can happen, the new antifouling needs to sit for a few days to fully harden so that the blocks when moved do not mar the paint. In short, this weekend we’re waiting for paint to dry and on Monday, the blocks will be moved and the process repeated for the stripes that are currently under the blocks and we should be ready to launch this coming Wednesday.
Starboard side fully sanded. Note the four wooden supports (blocks) holding Hazel upright.Finishing touches of antifouling being applied to port side. Again, the four blocks on this side.A closer view of the sanding and painting to be done once the blocks are moved.A close-up of the labeled layers.
While the “like waiting for paint to dry” simile is somewhat apt, life aboard Hazel is anything but boring. At times, as I’m working away on preparing her for our upcoming transatlantic crossing, I wonder how in the world I would have gotten all of this work done without the three weeks we’ve been given in the yard on the hard. I’m sure we would have gotten by, but we wouldn’t be nearly as prepared.
Also, prior to this whole experience bottom paint was a bit of a mystery to me. Now I know more about it than I ever thought I would.
Sometimes I’ll refer to our Mediterranean travels as an odyssey and compare ourselves to Homer’s Odysseus. And yes, some of the challenges that Odysseus faced—like the dangers of Scilla and Charybdis in the Strait of Messina—are modern-day challenges for us too. However, while Hazel and I haven’t had to deal with alluring Sirens or giant one-eyed Cyclops or bags of contrary winds, Odysseus never sailed outside the Mediterranean and thus never had to deal with orca encounters.
Whenever we make landfall (approach land) after a long offshore passage, as my phone picks up a cellular signal, messages start pouring in and I’m ambivalent (part happy and part sad) that the solitude is over. In July 2022 as Hazel and I approached mainland Portugal near the conclusion of our west-to-east Atlantic voyage, one of the messages that downloaded was from our dear friends Donna and Steve. Rather than a congratulatory message thought, it was a warning about orca “attacks” in the area in which I was sailing. My first reaction was, “Lord, these people way too much time on social media.” I surmised that they picked up on one highly exaggerated encounter that had gone viral. Then, a couple days later as I was walking around the Lisbon marina, I noticed posters describing the orcas recent and peculiar interest sailboat rudders. It included details of where to report encounters. At that point I suspected that I had surmised wrong.
Even if Odysseus had sailed outside the Mediterranean he might not have had these problems since its recent phenomenon. I believe 2022 was the first year it was noticed, and since then encounters have gotten more frequent around the Strait of Gibraltar and up the Portuguese and Spanish Atlantic-coasts.
I’ve got to tell you that it’s one thing when you read about these encounters de-personalized and from a distance, and it’s another when, over a tapas dinner, my yacht surveyor Theo mentions—somewhat offhandedly—that he had a three hour, middle of the night, “encounter” with a pod of four to six orcas while sailing Periwinkle, his Hazel-sized sailing boat. Prior to this discussion, I had always thought that the word-choice of “attack” versus “encounter” was somewhat academic. However, Theo was quick to point out that it was an “encounter” because, “If they had wanted to attack and sink my boat, they could have done so in five minutes.” Theo considers himself fortunate that he only lost part of his rudder.
Theo’s boat Periwinkle being hauled from the water after the encounter (at least most of Theo’s boat).Another view of the rudder. Only about one-third of it remains.
Long story short, like commercial shipping traffic, cruise ships, and stray fishing nets, the orcas are something that Hazel and I need to concern ourselves with that had never crossed Odysseus’ mind. (I’m sure though that if Homer knew of orcas, he could have woven and excellent yarn about them.) Therefore, both Rhett and I have joined the orcas.pt website and Telegram group to understand where the roguish pods are hanging out and the best routing to minimize risk.
I chuckled when first perusing the orcas.pt site because when I worked as a consultant, about the only thing I needed to scrape by was a “heat map,” any kind of graphical view of good vs. bad or probability. Just show a heat map, talk confidently and wave your arms around, and people tend to think you know what your doing. I should have seen it coming that Rui who runs orcas.pt would have a heat map and that dead-red would lie directly in my ideal path from the Strait of Gibraltar to the Madeira Islands.
The heat map on the orcas.pt site. Spain and Europe above and Morocco and Africa below. The channel of water to the right is the Strait of Gibraltar. The Madeira Islands lie 500 or so miles to the west-southwest (left and slightly down).As I looked at Hazel’s bottom fully sanded, I wondered if this “orca-flage” pattern might allow me to sail by the pesky toothed whales undetected.
So, in a week or so when you see me sailing out of the Mediterranean on our satellite tracker you’ll likely see me hugging the Spanish coast until around the town of Cadiz, then sailing due west for 20-30 miles before arcing south and toward the Madeira Islands. It’s probably a couple more days of sailing but prudent given the conditions. It’s well known that orcas don’t like shallow water so I’ll doing my best to stick to the 20 meter depth contour (about 60 feet) when in the highest risk areas.
Leaving no stone unturned, I’ve burned all of my Shamu and Sea World tee shirts and Rhett is express mailing me Free Willy replacements.
Meanwhile the town, people and professionals of Almerimar continue to be wonderful hosts to Hazel and me. I’ve got my favorite tapas restaurant and I’ve learned what “real” tapas is. In the US, it’s just small plates. In Spain, you order a drink (alcoholic or nonalcoholic) and you get a tapas included in the price of the drink. Order another drink, and you get another tapas. Sure, if you want to make a meal of it you can order additional tapas but the classic paring is with a drink.
The menu. Note that most items have no price since they are included with a drink. The only prices are up-charges for specialty items. Google translate was somewhat helpful. It told me that “Secreto” is “Secret.” I would tell you what it is but then it wouldn’t be a secret anymore would it? Honestly, I don’t know what was in it, just that it was delicious. The “Creepy” was pretty good too (perhaps a Halloween special?).
Stay tuned. As I said we’re hoping to launch on Wednesday and then will be looking for a good east wind to blow us the 130 or so miles to Gibraltar. We’ll probably call on the town of La Línea de la Conceptión, Spain (sister city to Gibraltar) and look for more east wind that coincides with a favorable tide to take us out of the Mediterranean and into the Atlantic. From there it’s a sharp right turn to skirt “orca alley” before pointing the bow towards Madeira.
While the prevailing wind here is from the west, we do get some east wind so I hope we’re not waiting too long before we can sail. I will alert everyone with a regular post (like this one) when we start sailing and will do daily micro-posts while underway that, as always, will be shown with our location on Hazel’s home page.
