We are now in Madeira, but before we tell you about that, we need to finish our time in Vigo.
On Sunday 15th, we went for a walk up a mountain. The path which we were going up was blocked and overgrown so we turned around and went up a different route. We walked up a rocky track which we followed as far as some big boulders with really steep scrambling which Mummy found too steep, so we stopped there and had our snacks. We looked at the view for a while, then headed back down to the car.
In the afternoon we drove to a beach and had a swim in a freshwater pool. Then we had lunch at a nice beachside cafe. On the way back to the boat we drove to a castle above Vigo with views over the city. We saw several small lizards and one big lizard. There was a nice garden surrounding the castle and there was a fountain in the middle.
On Monday, we did home school in the morning and in the afternoon we went shopping and bought the food we would need for the trip to Madeira. On Tuesday, we hoped that the vang would arrive, but the vang was still in Madrid so we knew it was unlikely. After home school, we fuelled the boat and took on extra fuel, then we chilled on board for a bit as it was very hot In the evening we went to a barber to get haircuts.
On Wednesday, when we woke up, the sky was a really funny colour and full of smoke and haze. The sun looked weird, a dull red circle through the smoke. It felt very weird! We think it was because of sand from the sahara and smoke from wild fire in Portugal.
Eventually, just after lunch on Wednesday, the vang finally arrived. We left as soon as we could so that we didn't miss the weather window. As we motored out of Vigo the haze made everything look very weird. Even the sea looked odd, as there was oily calm water with green froth!
The sail to Madeira took four days. Mummy and Daddy did four hour watches and we helped out with some of the night watches.
The moon was full and bright, and there were lots of stars.
Me (Archie) and Daddy talked about space and how close the nearest star is. Daddy said that Proxima Centauri is about 4 light years away, and we worked out that was about 38 trillion kilometers (Actually, I looked it up on Wikipedia, and Daddy wasn't quite right, it's 4.25 light years away).
On the first evening we saw some more fin whales, and on the second day we saw dolphins. Fortunately we didn't see any Orcas! We went fishing, using our new trolling rod for the first time, and within about half an hour we caught a tuna which we cooked for dinner.
The day before we arrived, a warbler landed on the boat. It tried to shelter downstairs. We think it must have been blown out to sea and got tired. We left some water out for it to drink. The morning we arrived at Porto Santo it left and flew towards land.
On Sunday morning we arrived in Porto Santo. It looked very dry and barren with no trees.
We anchored off the beach for about an hour, then we got a message from the marina in Madeira to say that a space had become available (Daddy had put us on a waiting list). We left Porto Santo and motor sailed to Madeira.
As we approached we could see lots of dramatic cliffs, and we were really excited to arrive.
We filled up with fuel on the way in, then came to our berth, got our passports stamped, and went to the marina for a drink and a shower.
It took almost exactly 4 days from Vigo to Maderia, and we felt proud of doing our longest voyage so far.
Today we explored Madeira a bit, but we'll write about that soon.
