Crossing to Porto Santo

We will be leaving the Azores early tomorrow morning to cross over to the Island of Porto Santo in the Madeira archipelago. The distance is more than 500 nautical miles so about 5 days of sailing. We will take advantage of the time at sea by writing about Santa Maria an preparing the next photo montage which we will add to the web site once we have arrived at our destination.
In the mean time, we will leave you with an historical fact about Christopher Colombus loosely translated from "Le Petit Futé" guide book. In the night of February 13 and 14th 1493, the boat of the Explorer, the Nina, was in bag shape in the middle of a bad gale after about a month at sea. Colombus as lost contact with the Pinta. He is about to loose control of his crew who are wondering if they should put a bad spell on the co
mmanding officer or to pray to the Virgin Mary. Finally, they opted for the later: In the middle of the night, after two days of anguish, Colomb succeeds in anchoring in sight of the coast of Santa Maria in a small bay in front of a town called Nossa Senhora dos Anjos. In the early morning, the entire crew respect his wishes and head for the island in a procession of penance. It is in the village chapel that the seamen barefooted and praying are discovered by the locals. The governor of the island is alerted and after listening to Colombus' explanation decides that he doesn't believe a word he is saying (at the end of the XVe century, it
must of been difficult to sound credible when explaining to a governor that he got lost returning from a trip to a continent that didn't yet exist). The governor convinced the Colombus is taking part in some illegal contraband on the west African coast decides to act as a policeman and throws everybody in the hole except for Colombus himself, who will remain free with three crew members and one Indian. The Explorer fist decided to try and reach Sao Miguel but soon realized that it is impossible to govern a ship with so few crew members. He will have to negotiate for ten long days before he is granted permission to leave with his crew for the court of Spain in Seville were he reaches the triumph we all know about.

The moral of the story is that he should of taken is crew to Horta were they would of drunk beer in Peter's cafe rather than take them to pray in Santa Maria!