Harmon and Randall's Voyage…

Leg 3, Blog 12, July 6, 2025

At the suggestion of Randall, one of us needed to put out a mini-blog to let you know that we have just left Madeira and are struggling with an equipment failure, high winds and directional issues. But all is well on-board, and we will give you highlights of our Madeira visit shortly.

But first, what would our trip be without an auto-pilot failure? As we were preparing to leave the island, Randall tried to reprogram the computer to enable navigation by wind direction as opposed to strictly by the compass. What happened next depends upon which of us you would ask, but both of us would agree that the system went “out” shortly thereafter. The ol’ Mac-3 she ain’t what she used to be. BTW, Randall did change her out in Homer and bought a spare to boot.

You can see our route above – we will head almost directly south. We will pass by the Canary Islands leaving them to port. Cape Verde is approximately 1,050 miles which should take us about one week.

I took a little nap and woke up to see that we were way off course. Asking a skipper about the course he has taken is like asking a chef why he decided to add an ingredient (this can be a little touchy).

The reason we were off course is due to an interesting phenomenon as we leave Madeira. The island is so long and has such mass that it blocks the wind in the direction we are going. This is not unusual except that this wind hole is way bigger than anything we have encountered to date. So rather than head south and have to motor for at least a day, we headed out to the side to pick up the wind.

It took several hours, but the wind picked up in our direction. It hit 25 knots quite soon and we reefed both sails to handle the load.

Well, it is sunset as we prepare for our first night at sea. We have not split into our watches yet and we are both up. This will end as soon as we get the boat settled for the evening. But for now, enjoy the sunset with us.