For me, the hardest part of passagemaking is when the winds are unfavorable, either not enough wind, too much or from the wrong direction.  On this passage the wind has been very light which has slowed us down a lot. It has been quite frustrating to slowly motor sail much of the time.

Fortunately, with a bit more than 400nm left to go, Things are improving as the wind has gradually increased so, with brief lulls, we have been sailing well for the last day so I am happy.  As we get closer to Portugal, we will likely have too much of a good thing but at least we will be moving toward Gibraltar at a good clip.  

We cannot see Gibraltar yet but I am sure that it is out there somewhere…

Pandora has a distinctive hum when she reaches 7kts and I am hearing that welcome sound a lot now and the weather files from this morning predict that we will have fair winds for the remainder of the run.  

Sails setting nicely in 15kts.

It is hard to believe that with 400nm more to go it seems like we are “almost there” but after more than 4,000nm under Pandora’s keel since departing Trinidad more than two months ago I do feel like we are getting close.

Of course, “arriving” assumes that we do not run into any delays (orcas).  I checked www.orcas.pt again today and no new attacks have been logged.  I am not particularly superstitious but I am unwilling to predict that we will make it through without incident.  Although, I am counting on it.

Originally, I had anticipated arriving in Gibraltar late on Tuesday afternoon but now it looks like making landfall late on Wednesday or very early on Thursday morning is more realistic.  With some luck we will be able to make it to the entrance of the harbor during daylight but it is more likely that we will be picking our way into the harbor in the dark.

I contacted the marina to ask if there might be a place in the marina to tie up after dark but was told that they close off the marina and that I would have to anchor nearby, north of the marina and come in the next day.

He said something about “putting up the boom” as a reason that I was unable to enter after hours.    I guess that is some sort of barrier in the marina but who knows.

I have heard that with the north coast of Africa so close; a fair amount of smuggling goes on with small craft making the run into the harbor at night and unloading on the beach.  Perhaps the boom is about deterring small craft from entering the marina.

I am looking forward to being in Gibraltar for a few days and am really interested in making a trek up to the top of the rock, an image that has been with me since I was a kid watching “Mutual of Omaha Wild Kingdom” with the famous Rock of Gibraltar predominantly featured at the beginning of the show. 

I understand that there are resident monkeys on the mountain and that they are quite adept at snagging items, especially food, from unaware visitors. 

Based on the wind predications that are forecasting strong easterly winds between Gibraltar and Almeria, I expect that we will spend three days or so in Gibraltar before being able to move east. 

Down below, a bit of a mess, in cruising mode.

Of course, Peter and Steve playing cards. 

Peter

Steve

Our wake streaming to the west and it’s all downhill, in a good way I hope, to Gibraltar. 

It is hard to believe that once I make landfall in Gibraltar that I will have been aboard or underway with Pandora for more than 2 ½ months, beginning when I left Trinidad on May 4^th.  Along the way I visited more than a dozen countries, made crew changes 4 times, 5 if you count Brenda, sailed with a total of 8 individual crew members covering 4,500 nautical miles. 

Just for fun, down below when Pandora is rigged for a nighttime run.

And all that sailing included more “fixing broken stuff” along the way, than I want to think about.  And who can forget the root canal I had done in St Marten? 

With about half of the 1,000 miles from the Azores to Gibraltar under our keel, my thoughts turn to the “last mile “where we will possibly encounter the dreaded orca.

I have written a good deal about the orca menace and their attacks on pleasure boats along the coast of Portugal and the waters around Gibraltar and am very focused on trying to avoid becoming a statistic.   

For the last few years there have been many incidents where orcas bit/broke off the rudders of cruising sailboats, rammed the hull and in a few cases, sunk boats.

There are several websites focused on chronicling these incidents including www.orcas.pt.  On that site you can select a time period and see how many sightings and attacks there are in any given area.

This image shows a years’ worth of sightings for 2024 (in blue) and “incidents” (in red). Yikes!

Incidents in July and August of last year.  Still a lot… but mostly up north.

Looking at just the last three weeks, sightings and incidents.  Not so much.  I am encouraged.

And finally, hits on boats in the last three weeks. Not terrible, unless it’s you…

Having personally met two skippers over the winter that were attacked certainly brings home the scale of the risk.

Nobody really knows why orcas hit sailboat rudders but the leading theory is that the are doing this for sport and that the number of orcas involved in this sort of behavior is quite limited. 

There is also evidence that this behavior is being “taught” by a small number of adult females.  Yet another example of bad behavior among young males being encouraged by women. Just sayin…

The primary food source of orcas in this area is tuna and a leading theory is that the matriarch is encouraging juveniles and adolescents to “practice” catching tuna by going after the rudders of boats.

Early in the spring the risk of attack in the area near Gibraltar and southern Portugal is at it’s peak but as the season progresses, many of the orcas move north, following the tuna, up the coast of Portugal so the threat on the south coast of Portugal and near Gibraltar is less during the summer months.

Additionally, most reports of sightings are near the southern coast of Portugal and less far offshore between Portugal and Morocco.  That area, about 100 miles from shore is also where the commercial shipping lanes are located and my plan is to transit that area. 

Much advice is shared on Facebook and other resources on how to deter attacks such as sticking a metal pole in the water and hitting it with a hammer.  Dumping gasoline over the side, tossing sand in their path and even tossing big firecrackers into the water.

One of the most popular though is to tow an acoustic device that is supposed to repel them.  Sadly, the one that I ordered never arrived in the Azores before I departed.   I have written all about this but alas, I will never know if it would have worked.

Of course, none of the active approaches that involve deterring them will work unless you can see them coming and it is not uncommon for them to hit the boat before the crew is even aware that they are in the area, especially in the dark.

I heard of one report recently where the boat was hit so hard that it turned 360 degrees in its own length and many “victims” have reported steering linkages being broken.   It is advised to disengage the autopilot, turn on the engine and go as fast as possible away from them but also being careful to release the wheel so as not to be injured when it is yanked violently. 

It is hard to comprehend the power of one of these animals that weigh thousands of pounds.

If my steering gear is damaged, I have an emergency tiller that will allow me to steer the boat and I also had an auxiliary tiller fabricated for my wind vane steering as a backup of a backup.   

This whole thing is quite unsettling and all I can hope is that we are not one of the unlucky few that sustain real damage and that we can pass through the area with a minimum of fuss.

So, here we are, half of the way to our destination and as I noted in a recent post, “everything on a cruising boat is broken, you just don’t know it yet.”  I sure hope that does not include my rudder at the hands, or should I say mouth, of an excited adolescent orca.

So, to the question of “do orcas bite?” the answer, sadly is yes.  But for me, the real question is if they will bite Pandora. 

Oh, I sure hope not…

Details to come…

In contrast to the nearly three hours, between midnight and 03:00 that I spent swapping out the dead alternator yesterday, the last 24 hours have been decidedly uneventful.

My crew Steve and Peter have settled into the rhythm of passage making and I am happy to say that not a lot has happened.

Brenda likes to say that when we are cruising that “nothing happens aboard Pandora until noon”, typifying the relaxed approach to getting stuff done aboard.

One basic truth is that even the simplest task takes a lot of time when you are on a boat.  Whether it is meal prep, general cleaning or fixing broken stuff, somehow the next day rolls around with a lot of sameness.

Swapping out the alternator only meant taking off a handful of bolts but getting to them was anything but simple and required a good amount of sweat reaching around a hot engine and it took a long time.  Time that I should have been sleeping.

When I got up this morning, I noticed that I had a few more bruises likely related to my midnight contortions. 

Sadly, decent wind continues to allude us but we are hopeful that it will begin to fill in later today. 

 As we loaf along, waiting for wind to fill in, engine rumbling away, Steve challenged us to a game of hearts.   I have never played and the rules seemed a bit daunting to me.  Fortunately, a brief rise in wind called the game off after a few rounds…

As I have mentioned in past posts, strong north winds are common off the west coast of Portugal and while the wind to date has been frustratingly light so far, we should have more than enough wind to move us along smartly for at least the last several hundred miles.

Even when there has been wind, it has either been too light or from behind us so that we have been unable to keep up a decent speed.  As a result, we have motored a lot and today I decided to transfer some of the fuel I have in jugs to the port tank.  We have plenty of fuel and transferring from can to tank is yet another SLOW activity aboard Pandora. 

We are facing a deadline late on Wednesday evening to finish our transit of Gibraltar before strong easterly winds will begin blowing from the east.  While I prefer more leisurely sailing we will need to make up speed as we have not covered enough distance each day to ensure that we pass Gibraltar before adverse winds make progress impossible.  

As I write this we are about 300 miles into our 1,000 mile run and it will be a nailbiter hoping that we get through Gibraltar before the wind turns against us.

Perhaps I will close with a lovely sunrise photo, just in case you might have missed the countless sunrise photos I have already posted this season.

I guess that is about it for now, a post that is nearly as interesting as our day has been.  

So far, a good day and not a lot happened aboard Pandora, so far…

Now all we need is better wind.

My friend Mark loves to say that “everything on your boat is broken you just don’t know it yet”.  

That is so true an on just about every passage something important breaks.   

A belt, water pump and more things than I can count have given up the ghost on passage and on our first day out, Pandora acted true to form. 

Yesterday after a days of preparation, we dropped our lines and headed out, bound for Gibraltar. 

As expected, there was very little wind so we had to motorsail for about the first 18 hours and finally, about dawn today the wind picked up enough to sail sans engine.  Well, at least some of the time. 

On passage I carefully log information every few hours about boat speed, wind speed, location and other stats that help me keep track of how things are going.  I also log the battery status so that if anything unusual happens I will see it.  Is the solar keeping up with the loads, is the engine charger working well? 

At midnight as I logged the numbers, I noticed that the battery charge was dropping even though the engine was running.  That wasn’t right and it was clear that the alternator was not putting out power.

We tried several tests to confirm that indeed the engine was not charging the batteries. 

I have an alarming number of spare parts assuming that “everything is broken” and along with a spare for every pump on the boat, I carry a spare high output alternator,

It has been sitting in storage for seven years just waiting for the “old” one to fail and it did last night.

So, at midnight I turned off the engine, now 175 degrees, and carefully removed the very hot alternator.  The entire process took more than two hours but I got it back together.

We turned on the engine, held our breath, and NOTHING…  No charging at all.  Same problem. 

Ok, now what.   I took a deep breath, checked everything again looked all around and discovered one tiny wire that was not attached.   I plugged it in.  Started the engine and… still nothing. 

We turned off the engine again and I scratched my head…

Not ready to give up we started the engine again.  This time I waited longer and much to my surprise the power slowly came up to full charging, more than 100 amps at 24v. 

What happened?  I had forgotten that on a big alternator the voltage regulator is designed to “spool up” the load slowly to minimize the shock to the system and I had forgotten that.

Problem solved and after two hot hours working on the engine, problem solved…

Now I will take the old alternator and have it tested to see if it has indeed failed and if so, have it rebuilt.

I am not absolutely certain that the old one failed or if there might be a wire somewhere that was jostled during the “repair” and now works. 

The point is that aboard Pandora “everything is broken you just don’t know it yet”. 

Yes, Mark is right and like him, I keep a LOT of spare parts aboard, just in case. 

Of course, if I was to carry spare parts for literally everything there would not be any room for us so all I can do is to carry parts that seem “likely to break” and hope for the best.

I do not know what I would have done if I did not have a spare alternator to charge the batteries but I do have a small Honda generator and that would have helped at least a bit.   And, of course, we have solar panels and a wind generator…

All better now.

Well at least until I discover another part of Pandora that needs fixing. 

Let’s just hope that I have a spare…

It was a long night but all is forgotten, thanks to having a spare and a beautiful sunrise. 

Oh yeah, as I write this the wind continues to be fickle so the engine, now charging happily, is off for a bit and then on again. 

We have to keep moving with about 850 miles to go even a half not difference in boats speed will mean a difference of 12 hours of passage time to Gibraltar.

It’s hard to believe that I am scheduled to depart for Gibraltar today. It’s been a wonderful month in the Azores and I am so glad that we were able to explore a number of the islands. After a week here in Sao Miguel, my crew has arrived, Chris Parker says that the weather is good for the run so here we go.

Pandora is about ready with her dink securely strapped on deck. A bit more to do but almost ready. Interestingly, sister ship to “old Pandora” our Saga 43, is on the dock next to us. It’s hard to recall much about our SAGA as it’s been so long since we sold her. “New Pandora” does look a lot different, that’s for sure.

Sadly, the electronic orca pinger, deterrent, thingy, never showed up and after visiting three DHL and local delivery offices yesterday, it was determined that the package was lost. You would think that at least they would know something. I do hope that it finally shows up so that it can be returned to the seller. , Thursday as I don’t want to be out $600 for something that I never received.

I have sweated about being attacked by an orca for some months now and hopefully I will be able to make it to Gibraltar without a hit. Fingers crossed.

I have been following www.orcas.pt to see who has been hit and where and it shows that for the last month, there have been fairly few attacks. Fingers crossed.

Since leaving Trinidad in April I have traveled over 3,000 miles and stopped more times than I can count as I made my way north through the eastern Caribbean to St Maarten where I met crew for the 800 mile run to Bermuda.

After taking on new crew in Bermuda we headed the 1,850 miles to Horta, enjoying the best passage I have ever had for that 12 day run. Perfect conditions and we only ran the engine for less than a day. Amazing.

This run promises to be easy, sans orcas, as well with fairly light and moderate winds on or aft of the beam. If anything, we will have to run the engine a bit but I hope not.

Normally the winds off of the western coast of Portugal are very strong from the north but they are forecast as being fairly light. That would be nice.

And we might even get all the way to Gibraltar without stopping. Of course, the orcas might have something to say about that…

Yesterday Brenda flew to Scotland for two weeks for some travel and to give a talk at the Dovecot Studio, a tapestry workshop where the subject of her book taught for many years. She also has a behind-the-scenes tour of the Archie Brennan’s work, the subject of her book “Archie Brennan, Tapestry as Modern Art”, that was donated to the National Museum of Scotland. I am excited for her.

So, Brenda to Scotland and me heading on what will be the final leg of my 4,000 mile run from Trinidad to Almeria Spain where Pandora will be hauled for the season.

It is always challenging to predict weather for an ocean passage and the 900 mile run to Gibraltar is no exception. The primary issue is that you approach the coast of Portugal the wind is generally much stronger and when it is blowing hard from the north, which is most of the time, there will be an easterly wind blowing out through the straights of gibraltar.

Fortunately, the current forecast looks quite moderate and if we are lucky, we will be able to make it through the straight and into Gibraltar with a favorable wind, and without stopping. Well, that assumes that the orcas don’t “stop” me along the way.

Last evening, my last in the Azores, I headed to a lovely little restaurant for a dinner alone, just me and my tablet to catch up on the always upsetting news from the US. In spite of all that, I had a lovely octopus salad and some local wine along with some fresh from the oven bread, the best I have had in the islands.

It was a nice walk through the historic area on my way back to Pandora in the twilight. It was interesting to see some decorations that had been recently hung. I am pretty sure that these exact pieces were hung in Horta while we were there. Traveling decorations…

On one of the evenings that Brenda and I stayed out after dark. No easy feat as that’s way after “cruisers midnight” it was magical. The buildings are beautifully lit at night.

The ever present tile walkways, wet from earlier rain.

I will miss Brenda and look forward to joining her in Almeria when I arrive with Pandora. We will stay there for a week, putting Pandora away for the season and then will drive to Madrid and tour there for a few days before flying home.

It’s been a wonderful visit to the Azores and while I don’t know if I will ever be here by boat again, perhaps our travels will bring us back at some point.

For now, focused on Gibraltar, the last 1,000 miles…

Wish me luck.

Note: You can sign up to receive a notice when I post, which I expect to do most days during my passage in the upper right of this page.

And, you can track our progress under “where in the world is Pandora?” at the top of the page or by following this link to my Garmin tracking page to see where we are.