Sailing Sea Dog: The Final Leg: Santa Maria to Lagos, June 10 2023

Our final leg of the Arc Europe 2023 Transatlantic voyage took us from Marina Vila do Porto on the island of Santa Maria, the eastern most island of the Azores archipelago, to Marina de Lagos in Lagos Portugal, the south western tip of Portugal. This leg, pretty much a straight line east, was approximately 800 nm. Sailing 24/7 with our intrepid crew, rested and ready, we finished this leg in about 5.5 days. We had a good weather window for the crossing and were greeting by a beautiful day as we set sail under a full main and our gennaker (or is it a asymetrical spinaker?, long story here).

We were joined on our departure by Norm the Storm, a beautiful and very fast catamaran, owned and skippered by Normand Jacques. We sailed together for a short while until we were left behind in his wake.

The light house, Goncalo Velho on Ponta do Castelo, the south eastern tip of Santa Maria was the last land we saw until we made landfall in mainland Portugal.

It turns out, after talking with our friends aboard S/V Ola, a catamaran from California, Santa Maria had more to explore than first met the eye. Karen and Steve aboard S/V Ola decided to take more time exploring the various islands of the Azores, leaving the Arc Europe flotilla in Horta, our first landfall in the Azores. In retrospect this was not a bad idea in that they were really able to take their time and experience many more of the islands of the Azores archipelago.

Two days into the passage we found a stowaway on board. Resting on the solar panel supports was a Eurasian Collared Dove.

He (or she) stayed with us for most of the day, moving about Sea Dog.

The next morning we awoke to more stowaways onboard, small squid. I am not sure how they got on deck during the night, The night was relatively calm and no one reported any waves coming aboard. We have seen flying fish, and found those on the deck of Sea Dog on several ocean passages, but flying squid? According to an article in ScientificAmerican, Fact or Fiction: Can a Squid Fly out of Water?, they can and do fly!

I spent the morning cleaning the squid from the deck, turns out we should have collected these little guys for a nice dish of grilled baby squid in garlic or at least bait.

Grilled Baby Squid in Garlic at Bahia Beach Bar

Well on our way to Lagos, we enjoyed spectacular sunsets and sunrises.

On one earlier morning watch, 4 am to 8 am, one of my favorite times, I got this picture of the sun rising as the new moon was setting. If you look closely, the bright star you see to the lower right of the moon crescent is the planet Venus.

Many of our fellow sailors had been reporting sightings of fin whales and we were a bit disappointed that we had not gotten the chance to see one for ourselves. Finally, we were treated with a somewhat close encounter of a fin whale.

Early on the morning of June 14, 4 days into the passage, our dolphin escorts showed up. We were glad to have these guys join us. They put on quite a show for us as they sped along in the bow wake. In addition, where there are dolphins, there are not Orca. As we were getting closer to Portugal, the threat and worry of the troublesome Orca was ever growing.

As we were motoring through the beautiful blue waters of the Atlantic ocean, we kept seeming these strange blobs in the water. We decided to slow down a bit to investigate and we discovered they were sea turtles.

We made sure that if we saw these "blobs" in front of us we would alter our course to give these guys the right of way. As we continued on, I was down below when I heard a distinct change of sound of the engine. My first thought was, yikes, we hit a turtle. Keith was at the helm, he heard it as well. He immediately shifted into neutral. We peer overboard looking for the remains of some poor turtle, but none was found, just the deep blue waters of the ocean. We shut the engine down and I went overboard to investigate. Now mind you, jumping overboard in the middle of the Atlantic ocean is not for everyone, but someone had to investigate. Luckily the seas were calm (we had been motoring) and the waters were incredibly clear. As soon as I swam under the stern I could see the problem, a green tangle of fishing net wrapped around the prop and prop shaft. This was not our first rodeo, Michele and I went into action. I grabbed my new knife, which was incredibly sharp, dove below to the prop and start cutting away the net. At first I would take a couple of swipes and resurface for air. Each time I was able to stay below a bit longer and do a little more damage to the net with my knife. After about the fifth dive, to give me a break, Michele dove under and worked at freeing the sections of net that I was hacking away at. We repeated this procedure several more times. I would dive under, cut at the net with my knife and Michele would follow attempting to free the net. Success!! We were able to completely free the net from the prop and shaft. We brought the net aboard, preventing someone behind us from running into the same problem.

The culprit, an extremely tough fishing net.

Michele taking a well deserved rinse with the stern shower

Michelle and Keith decided to take a dip as well

With the fishing net safely on board, it was time to crank up the engine and continue on our way to Portugal. After several hours, the winds picked up, we were able to shutdown the engine, hoist our sails, sailing once again. While the engine is a lifesaver when you have little to no wind, it is truly a much nicer (and quieter) experience once it is off, with just the noise of the wind filling the sails.

On the afternoon of June 15 we started to seeing more and more sea birds. Seeing birds at sea is typically an indication that you are getting close to a landmass. About an hour later we spotted land, Portugal. Looking at the chart, we were still about 14 nm from the southern tip of Portugal, and another 20 nm to Lagos. We were purposely aiming a bit north of the point. The plan was to get closer to shore before rounding the point and heading down, hugging the coast to Lagos, in hopes of avoiding any encounters with Orcas. As we got closer to land, we spotted Farol de Sagres or in English the lighthouse of Sagres. The lighthouse sits on the rocky cliffs on the southwest tip of Portugal in the town of Sagres.

Farol de Sagres

The coast is lined with sea caves

Our plan worked, we sailed due east staying within the 20 m contour line. The challenge here was to watch out for fishing boats and fish traps / nets along the coast while hopefully avoiding any encounters with Orca. We arrived at the harbor entrance in the dark. While I don't typically don't like to enter a new harbor in the dark, according to the charts, the entrance as well marked with a straight shot to the reception / customs dock so the decision was made to enter. We arrived safely at the dock and were greeted by a representative from the rally who caught our lines and welcomed us to Lagos.

We opened our celebratory champagne and toasted each other on a successful transatlantic crossing. This was the first crossing for Michele, Michelle and I, while Keith has several under his belt. It felt like quite an accomplishment for us all. We stayed on the custom dock overnight and woke to a spectacular day in Lagos.

Seadog safely in Lagos Portugal

The next morning we checked into immigration and customs and we were assigned our slip in the marina. Once securely tucked into our slip, we made use of the pool and bar at the Marina Club Lagos Resort.

Sea Dog crew enjoying the comforts of land

Once a majority of the boats completed the passage we were able to visit with each other, swapping stories of our adventures and share in the bounty of the seas.