On the following day Catnap and her family from Devon joined us. They too were heading south but unlike us they planned to leave their boat in Lagos on the Algarve and return home to England for a while. We decided to travel down the coast with them until we had a fair wind for Madeira.

The balmy sunshine and lazy swell made it difficult to believe the weather predictions from Catnap. Bad weather and strong winds from the south! No, that seemed too unlikely. Besides if there were a strong southerly we would be caught on a lee shore with no place to shelter. We would have to move from this lovely place! It seemed unthinkable and yet, maybe, maybe. We've played safe up 'till now so why should that change? Catnap was making plans to move further down the coast and we decided to follow.

Early next morning the weather was just as before; if anything calmer; not a breath of wind - from any direction! However, we were up and about making our preparations for departure and could see Catnap's crew going about the same business. We weighed anchor together and because of the lack of wind motored due south away from Cascais and across the mouth of the Rio Tejo.

Our destination was planned to be Sesimbra, a small fishing village about twenty five miles away. It also is south facing but has a sturdy seawall to protect its fleet of fishing boats from bad weather. The course is simple and in two legs. First we must sail for the distant headland, Cabo Espichel. On rounding the light, some 460 metres above us atop the cape, we must sail east close in to the steep-to coastline rising sheer from the seafloor. Conifer trees, their foliage dark green in sharp contrast to the sandstone crags, cling to every nook and cranny along this rugged shore of age-old crumbling rock. The relentless sea undercuts the lonely cliffs as if intent upon toppling the giants into its watery depths.

As Sunseeker lay to her new, easterly course, Sesimbra's seawall hove into view in the afternoon sunlight. With still not a breath of wind, Sunseeker's diesel pushed her along at five knots, rising to the still lazy swell. Catnap led us into the harbour and made fast in the inner harbour alongside a trot of smaller workboats.

"Over here, Sunseeker. Tie up alongside us. We should be safe here when that southerly arrives." Graham and his pretty, Austrian wife Ushi welcomed us as they took our lines to make us fast.

When, a little while later, we were joined by Kylie, who tied up alongside Sunseeker, we took a long line ashore and tied it to a handrail by a set of seasteps on the harbourwall. The trot of boats was being pulled well out of line because of the extra weight of three more boats.

Kylie is an attractive twenty-six feet Contessa sailed single-handed by her owner Nick from East Dock in London. He had spent a number of years fitting her out before setting sail on his adventure.

A little while later the crew of both Catnap and Kylie went shoreside, leaving Rene and I to keep an eye on the three yachts. No sooner were they out of sight than a wizened, obviously local, fisherman hove into view in a rowing boat. (Expand to describe the encounter including the knife and the setting of a bower anchor).

After a couple of nights in the harbour of Sesimbra we were ready for the next hop. Sunseeker’s crew was awaiting a weather window to make the crossing to Madeira. A nice steady northerly would be just fine. Each morning though brought only more calm, sunny weather. Even the strong southerly, which we were supposed to be sheltering from, never materialised. In early morning sunshine we sailed in company with our buddy yachts Catnap and Kylie, leaving behind the steep, lush, tree-covered coastline. Heading for the seemingly commercial harbour of Sines with the whole day stretching before us, we leisurely ticked off the miles, closing once more with the coast around teatime.

The approach to Sines was quite dramatic as the huge Atlantic rollers hurled themselves at the oil terminal's massive breakwater. Gigantic fountains of snow-white foam leaped high into the air before cascading once more down the tiers of weatherworn concrete blocks. Enormous oil tankers were manoeuvring into and out of their allotted berths through the calm waters of the outer harbour. Rounding the harbour light Sunseeker settled to the altogether gentler motion within the embracing harbour walls and we strained to see the entrance to the fish dock. About a mile in front we identified the two light structures, red and green, that mark the outer ends of the two inner breakwaters. With Sunseeker's red sails stowed her motor carried us along the fairway with fishing boats surging past and seagulls squawking raucously in their wake, ever intent on sweeping up every morsel of fishy waste flung, seemingly carelessly, from the fishing-boats' decks.

Approaching the quickly widening gap in the inner seawalls we were amazed to find that the area marked on the chart as the fish harbour is, in fact, a large bay bounded to shoreward by a beautiful, sickle-shaped sandy beach. Late evening sunshine bathed the cliffs beyond and lit up the imposing citadel and white, stuccoed church perched, all seeing in their commanding positions overlooking the entire harbour.

Catnap and Kylie were already anchored in a spot which, to us, appeared very close to the cliffs flanking the bay. We cautiously dropped the hook well out from the shore but still sheltered from the worst of the swell by the breakwater. Made up of many tons of large boulders seemingly just dumped into the water to form an all-embracing arm the massive structure effectively calms the waters of this side of the bay.

A few days later we were waving goodbye to our friends aboard Catnap and Kylie as they sailed out of the bay to head south for Cape St Vincent and the harbours of the Algarve, there to spend the winter. Sunseeker and her crew were left to contemplate the weather forecasts waiting a suitable day for their departure to the Madeiran archipelago some four hundred odd miles out in the Atlantic Ocean.

The latter half of October was upon us and we really should be making a move. The benign weather stubbornly refused to provide us with either a northerly wind, or, indeed any wind at all. The sun shone warm and the swell rolled into our little bay to hurl itself half-heartedly at the golden sands. Each day we made the journey in the rubber dinghy, landing in a quite corner, to make our way up the hill into the town. Our purchases included a local newspaper that carried a colour weather chart. Using our, very, limited knowledge of Portuguese we deciphered the weather forecast, confidently predicting that 'Tomorrow there will be a wind'. Some days, as we returned from our shopping trip to town, we would sit at the beach bar making a glass of chilled beer last for an hour and make believe we were rich tourists.

The 19^th October dawned bright and warm just like the previous day but today the papers were forecasting a light northerly breeze. We rushed back to Sunseeker with high hopes of leaving this lovely place. But still the sun shone and the blue sky remained devoid of clouds. Each day we remained cost us more money at the shops. Each day we remained put us back a day on our supposed schedule for crossing the Atlantic in early December.

So Rene stowed our shopping and I fired up the engine. With the still lazy swell rolling in we raised the anchor and motored across the vast outer harbour making our way to the ocean. Our course would be southwesterly on a line drawing us gradually away from the Portuguese coast and out into the Atlantic.

Throughout the later afternoon an onshore breeze developed allowing us to set main and genoa closehauled on the starboard tack and shut down the engine. This westerly stayed with us throughout the night and by daylight the breeze had veered and become a light northerly so that we now had the benefit of a following wind together with the south-going Portuguese current of just less than one knot. Twenty four hours out and we had covered eighty four miles. Not brilliant considering the twenty four free miles due to the current! Still, we were moving in the right direction and we still had a breeze. By the time the sun had fallen into the ocean in the west our breeze had us wallowing in a lumpy sea.

Rene and I always maintained a three hours on, three hours off, nighttime watch system whilst at sea. This passage was to be no exception. As our horizon disappeared with the coming of the night and our world shrank to the confines of Sunseeker's cockpit we fired up, once again, the noisy engine to push us through the dark night. Rene volunteered to take the first watch and after well hot meal I retired wearily to my bunk.

It was not long before I was deep in sleep and Rene had the ocean to herself. Sunseeker was sailing over a calm sea, only the tiny flashes of light moving from fore to aft along Sunseeker's water line betrayed her forward movement. The night was very dark as the Moon had not yet risen and the brightest stars hurled shimmering slivers of light deep into the ocean depths. When steering we both favoured the seat to port of the helm and this is where Rene passed most of her watch. About an hour into her watch, as she was gazing into the depths of the ocean, it seemed that a million lights moved up to the side of the boat. She watched in wonder as the form of a giant manta ray was outlined by the lights of millions of tiny phosphorescent animals.

"You could see its whole body lit up, even the horn shaped things at each side of its mouth" she told me later. "It was fantastic! I never thought they were so big! It was so beautiful and graceful. It seemed to be flying in the water and all the time keeping pace with Sunseeker. Maybe it was lonely and wanted company. Anyway it was with us for about half an hour."

The next day we had more company. A large fish about six feet long with a pale blue body and a purple stripe running along hits back joined Sunseeker and stayed with us for a couple of days. Rene wondered if it was edible and worth catching. She prodded it few times with the boat hook before she decided that its skin was very rough and must be very thick. Many days later after we had pondered the shape of the fish and in particular its tail, we realised, with not a little horror, that Rene had been prodding a shark!

Eventually the wind filled in. Unfortunately its direction was from the south-west, which was, surprise surprise, the direction of Madeira, our hoped for destination Throughout the following night and the next day the southwesterly wind increased and because it was opposing the south going Portuguese current the season became much rougher. Lying across our course, roughly halfway between Portugal and Madeira we encountered rougher water as the ocean bed rose up from the depths to form a vast range of submarine mountains and the wind over current situation only made this worse. As the wind steadily increased and the seas rose it didn't seem to make much difference which tack we chose to sail. We never seemed to make any headway towards our destination and Sunseeker was pounded mercilessly by the towering waves and constantly fell into deeper and deeper holes in the sea.

It was about this time that Rene developed a raging fever and was laid low for three days. She could eat nothing and alternated between overheating and being so cold that she shivered. Her strength dwindled and she became incoherent. She told me later that as she lay in her bunk she watched little green men racing around the deck outside the portholes. She had no notion of direction and as she struggled to reach the heads in the after cabin I feared she would make her way to the side of the boat and be lost overboard. I had to watch her constantly whilst trying to help Sunseeker through the worst of the weather. When I became too tired I hove to and tried to rest and recover some strength.

The free pontoons in the harbour of Bayona ran out from the piles of boulders that made up the breakwater. They harboured swarms of small mosquitoes which, thankfully, bypassed me but made a beeline for poor Rene. She was covered in bites despite trying to rig some form of netting to keep them out of the boat. Apart from the misery of being constantly the target of such horrible insects and feeling a little sick, she appeared, at the time, none the worse for her encounters of the insect kind. Perhaps the many tiny amounts of poison injected by each bite had added together to form this debilitating condition in which Rene now found herself.

As the hours and days wore on with no sign of respite from this relentless wind that seemed intent upon denying us any hope of reaching our goal, so my stamina and strength waned. It became a personal thing. Each time I struggled to bring Sunseeker onto the other tack so the wind shifted to head us once more.

One feature of the satellite navigation system is the display showing the distance to our next waypoint or destination. Our noon to noon distance run was recorded using this figure. The days run being yesterday's distance minus today's distance. For the last three days the log showed 2 miles, 4 miles and 0 miles. This was the final straw for me and I accepted defeat. The huge brick wall placed in the middle of the ocean had succeeded in repelling us and blocked off our passage to Madeira. Our noon positions are marked on the chart with a circled cross and the date and on the 24^th, 25^th and 26^th show that we clearly hit a brick wall!

At half past five in the afternoon of the 26^th October I stopped banging my head against the brick wall and we abandoned our passage to Madeira. Sunseeker was brought about and sails were set for a run back to the Portuguese Algarve coast some two hundred and fifty miles away. Of course, with the wind behind us we had a great sail. However, because I was so tired I reverted to my RYA Day Skipper status and we only sailed during the day, heaving to overnight for some rest. Rene was slowly on the mend and her little green men had abandoned ship. We managed to get some food into her and gradually her strength returned. While I slept Rene stood watch. Although Sunseeker was hove to the wind pushed her slowly in roughly the right direction.