Time to lose our land legs and get onto the high seas again. We decided to break up the long sail to the Canaries by visiting the Desertas Islands and the Savage (Selvagens) Islands, if the weather allowed. With our permits in place for the national park we were on a keen look out for whales and monk seals.

The islands are stark volcanic rocks with amazing geology with only a warden in a hut keeping watch. As evening approached we were treated with a rare monk seal sighting (one of only 26 seals in the Madeiran archipelago) playing in the shallows behind our yacht. We were all delighted.

The boys loved exploring the palace botanical gardens and the Japanese garden. Felix and Hugo were impressed with the warriors and also the huge gem collection.

Well worth a meander through in between our school lessons. The boys have started their new “school year” in 1M and 3M (aka Mummy). They have made lots of friends from so many nationalities, playing together doesn’t seem to need any translation.

Whilst relaxing in the lovely Quinta do Lorde Marina we noticed that flags were being put up and a crowd was gathering playing music and looking very smart (we’ve not seen suits for awhile!). It turns out that an amazing woman was swimming all the way from Porto Santo to Madeira (over 50km in very rough and tidal water)! We duly cheered her on as she swam right past our yacht in the marina.

Nicola – you will be pleased to know this has inspired the boys swimming no end and Felix is determined to be the first to swim the Atlantic!!😂 We will start with the marina resort lovely pools first!!

There is nothing like being a true tourist and trying the famous Funchal 2km downhill basket ride, which seems to be a 100 year old tradition. The boys and I squealed as we zoomed down ultra steep streets missing cars and kerbs by inches!

A short sail to Madeira and we made a base at the east end of the island (Quinta do Lorde Marina) and hired a car to explore the volcanic hills that tower up from the sea. There are great walks enabled by the Levada routes, drainage channels made 300 years ago to take water from the highlands to the rain-shadow south coast. The engineering feats of carving these through dense rocks, steep mountain slopes with only hand tools makes the mind boggle! We recommend PR10, even Felix managed the 11km walk!!

Porto Santo’s harbour has a tradition for visiting yachts to paint the sea wall with their emblem or house flag. Russell last sailed here in 1994 and we managed to find his previous yacht painting albeit somewhat faded now. So we set too to paint our flag for this trip/yacht. Everyone had a go at painting (yes with oil paints 😳, what can go wrong with a five year old??). If you are visiting do look out for it! (The dinghy was kept well out of reach this time! 😂) Being on the seawall was a bit like that scene in ‘Local Hero’ where a random scooter/bike/car goes speeding past every 5 mins. There is nowhere to go on the seawall!

It was also time to crack on with school work. We are in the middle of a project on Christopher Columbus and his voyages and discoveries, so it was great to visit his house on Porto Santo. I gave the boys a lesson in the museum much to the amusement of passing tourists. We will continue to follow his sailing route soon and the boys are learning about his navigation techniques such as “dead reckoning” as we set sail for Madeira island itself.

The island has volcanic hills and Hugo was determined to climb a volcano. So whilst Felix and I did the laundry and supermarket errands, Daddy and Hugo cycled and climbed up the steepest looking volcano. They returned triumphantly and somewhat hot and sweaty. Time to swim on the lovely beaches.

We also seemed to arrive in time for a local festival, where the church and streets were decorated with flowers (seems to be a theme in Portugal) and a small procession took place. All exciting for the boys to watch. They befriended two elderly gentlemen whilst watching the parade and merrily talked nineteen to the dozen at the poor chaps who didn’t understand a word of English. It didn’t seem to matter!

We set sail on our longest passage yet, 500 nautical miles from Lisbon to Porto Santo, part of the Madeira archipelago, in the Atlantic Ocean. I think I bought half the supermarket in my panic preparation of a) what will everyone want to eat whilst sailing for so long and b) what can I cook in the galley whilst being hurled around with the waves. We then filled up with water and diesel to the brim and set sail. The first day seemed very long, there is nothing like starting the first night shift knowing that not only is there no harbour in sight but that this is the first of three, potentially four nights of broken/no sleep. Russell and I took shifts day and night, cap napping when “off-duty”. Looking after children whilst doing shifts doesn’t seem to feature in the Arc handbook funnily enough! It’s hard, tiring and you start to move into a sleep deprived fog. All parents of young children will know that feeling, and it’s not great when you need to have your wits about you. There are shipping lanes off the coast of Portugal and the tankers seem huge compared to sailing yachts and move somewhat faster. Not that we saw another yacht at all in four days! The first two days we battled against a large and rolling Atlantic swell, which even had me feeling wretched. A cloudy night with no moon meant pitch black darkness whilst rolling around in big waves. Where were all these amazing starry nights I’d heard about?! It was two very long and miserable first nights!

Luckily the boys thought endless stories (thank goodness for audible books), Lego and permanent access to the snack cupboard was all great fun. Felix even had a go fishing, to no avail though.

Whilst sailing off the coast of Portugal, Russell spotted the most amazing sight. We kept seeing fountains of water appear from the ocean. There was a pod of whales swimming past. They started a fair distance away and then two inquisitive whales came within 25m of us!! They were huge, utterly massive and you could see their long black bodies and small black fin appearing. We looked them up later and discovered they are fin whales, the second largest species in the world. It was truly a magnificent sight, although I was also slightly scared having read the back cover of “117 days adrift”, where let’s say seeing whales didn’t exactly end very well. Luckily this pod wasn’t into Beatrix Potter booming from our speakers and gracefully swam off into the stunning blue of the ocean.

Finally on the fourth day we spotted land, the volcanic peaks of Porto Santo rising from the sea, a most welcome sight as we sailed the last stretch to the enormous NATO built harbour. The marina is tucked into one corner, is tiny (don’t believe the pilot book) and was full, so we anchored in the harbour in crystal clear water. Time to relax and explore island life in the Atlantic. I feel like we need a reception committee and balloons to celebrate our achievement…(the auto helm did stop working just before my night shift which had me in panic!) but I am a newbie to these long distances, and looking round the yachts in the harbour, they are well travelled and battered. Long distances-r-us from here on in I guess. We have completed our first 2000 nautical miles in our sailing adventure and there are a fair few more to go!

We sailed to Cascais as a base to both explore Lisbon and drop Chloe at the airport. The marina at Cascais is gorgeous and a welcome sight after the previous ones. Cascais was also a delight and a great place to explore old summer palaces and great parks. We said a sad goodbye to Chloe and hope she will visit us again soon!

In Lisbon we explored the castle with its stunning views of the huge city, watched the trams wiggle through the old streets and spent many happy hours in the superb science museum (if you have children in tow, do not miss this, we practically had tears when we needed to leave at closing time!) You name it, it has it, cycling along a tightrope (even our five year old did it despite my panic attack!), rock climbing with Velcro, creating your own illusion tricks, build your own robot and numerous science novelties in a get-involved-and-see-it scale. Well worth the Uber cost back to marina!

There’s nothing like taking a guest onboard and then logging just over 100nm in one days’ sail to the home of the biggest waves in the world at Nazaré. It was quite a day with a large Atlantic swell and wind too, but we safely made it into the harbour crossing the (in)famous 230km long submarine canyon which funnels Atlantic swells with abnormal speed into the headland. The waves hit 100ft in winter!!!!! Yeeks! The marina was full and we arrived late but moored on the fuel pontoon overnight and they found us a tight spot the next day. (If heading here do ring and book, it’s a small full marina despite what the pilot book says).

We explored the headland and surf beach the next day, admiring the world record making surf boards of the brave few in the museum and footage of 100ft super waves crashing onto the beach. Great surfing poses boys!