Our longest passage yet, the end of our shakedown season before wintering The Dream in Cascais. By then we had completed around 2500 nautical miles, visited ...

Closed Captions (CC):
In the

previous episode, we enjoyed and discovered

the Madeira island, and found our favourite

spot in a little quiet mooring in the Deserted

Islands but now it was time to return to Lisbon.

We left Quinta do Lorde Marina in the afternoon

and Madeira island said goodbye to us

with one last amazing sunset.

We made our way towards Porto Santo Island,

also part of the Madeira archipelago,

before we tacked north and face a long calm upwind

sail marked by the many different birds that

visited us every day, and by one of those

moments that make you think

this may have been a bad idea.

The first days of sail were punctuated by

many relaxing moments and by the strangeness

of having what we would think were exclusive

“land” birds visiting and following us

sometimes for hours, even in heavy fog.

To all of them, we tried our best not to disturb

or scare if they managed to land on The Dream

seeking refuge on their long journey.

After all, we were many hundreds of miles

away from any landmass.

On the fourth day of our passage we ran out

of wind and stayed drifting for a day with the current,

while waiting for a change that

allowed us to continue our journey,

we were close the area where big cargo ships converge

coming and going from northern Europe

through the Atlantic coast of Portugal.

After a day drifting we found ourselves getting

closer to the shipping lanes than we would like,

so the decision was made we would start

the engine to cross that heavily trafficked

zone and get closer to shore.

That’s when this passage stopped being a

pleasant one and became a stressful one.

We had been experiencing problems with our

engine when in rough seas, but now we were

in calm waters and the engine just wouldn’t

run, by now we were dangerously

in the middle of the shipping lane.

At the same time, a Man Over Board message

came through the VHF radio,

it was close by and we couldn’t help.

We sat for hours listening while trying to

solve our engine problem.

We decided to open the tanks and jury rig

one of our spare fuel canisters,

that’s when we found the problem, contrary to all

received professionals advice, we had diesel

bug in the fuel and it was clogging the fuel

intake rod at the bottom of the fuel tank.

After many attempts, we managed to clean it

enough to run the engine normally.

On the VHF radio the outcome of the search

and rescue was received and it was not a good one.

The mood to sail was gone, it had passed five

days since our last weather forecast

so we motored through the rest of the day.

We arrived our destination late in that evening.

We arrived in Lisbon after having completed

around 2500 nautical miles, visited 5 different territories

over a 5 month period, putting The Dream and

ourselves to the test,

we concluded our season 0, the shakedown sail.

We were now ready to winter The Dream and

wait for the beginning of our next sailing adventure.