Porto Santo

We left Portimao very early in the morning of Tuesday May 31, a day later than planned as on Monday the weather was still rather ugly and the wind right from where we wanted to go.
When we left the wind had moved on to Northwest and was still quite strong (25kts) once past Cabo Sao Vicente. Waves were still very confused from the changing wind direction and so we had a fast roller-coaster ride the first day.
What was a little bit more than needed on the first day, was a little bit less than ideal on the second, especially since the wind had moved to NNE and hence was coming more from behind. But it was lovely sailing with the sea matching the wind. Same on the third day (Thursday) on which we arrived at Porto Santo just after 6pm. First picture is approaching Porto Santo.

Found a place in the marina, but were told next day that we would have to move. With the alternatives not really big enough for our boat and the marina facilities pretty poor for the fairly high price, we decided to move out of the harbor again and anchor in front of the large sand beach. It turned out a great choice, with no swell and the boat lying much calmer as in Portimao. That all in front of a lovely scenery and crystal clear water over perfect sand.

In the second picture you see us anchored outside the harbor wall. The third shows the rest of the enormous beach looking west. The forth picture shows the beach looking east from the other end of the island - Taniwani visible a a small white speckle.

Yesterday we took a taxi for a two hour island tour and had a really lucky pick. Our 72 year old cab driver in his lovely maintained old Mercedes, told us a lot about life on his island, the changes it underwent and all this in quite good English.

Shopping is also quite convenient, driving the dinghy to town, more or less right in front of the well stocked Pingo Doce market. Much easier than walking two kilometers from the marina.

Only the weather is not particularly good. It is not raining and the wind is from the north, which is ideal for our anchorage, but it is rather cold and does not get more than 18C during the day. The water is 22C and swimming s fine.

Plan is to move on to Funchal tomorrow (Monday) or a day later.