Funchal, Madeira
8–16 October 2026
How we got here: Goose-Winged to Funchal
Porto Santo, Madeira → Funchal, Madeira
Lifted the anchor in Porto Santo around noon and rigged the preventer and spinnaker pole for another goose-winged run downwind. A steady 15 knots and only the occasional shower made for good progress towards Funchal — and we had the water between the two islands entirely to ourselves, not another boat in sight until we closed in on Madeira.
Rounding the eastern tip, the wind accelerated around the headland and gusted up to 25 knots, before we turned west along the south coast. We reached Funchal at sunset. With the marina full — this is the time of year the whole fleet migrates south, and everyone seems to be stopping here — we dropped anchor just off the harbour entrance. The anchorage has a reputation for being rolly, and it lived up to it, but we survived the first night.
What we did here
The anchorage off the harbour entrance was very rocky for the first two nights — wind and swell wrapped around the island from the east — but it calmed down over the following days, and the anchor held well. It stayed a busy spot the whole time, with sailing boats and big cruise ships coming in and out every day, some of them passing quite close to Footsie Blue. We met new people from The Flunder, and from Adishatz: captain Étienne with his crew Alexane and Luce.
Étienne sails for Nav’ Solidaire, an association from Normandy that collects prosthetic legs no longer in use in France, refurbishes them, and brings them by sailboat to Senegal, where its partner charity Legs4Africa fits them to amputees in Senegal and The Gambia. Adishatz has 215 of them on board. Diabetes is widespread in Senegal and very often goes undiagnosed or untreated, so a small injury to the foot can turn into an infection that ends in amputation — and a prosthesis is out of reach for most people who need one. Adishatz is sailing to the Canaries with us, and will continue on to Senegal a week or two later.
It’s good to be in a big town again. We bought and ordered the tools and parts to install the lithium batteries, did some hikes, went running and to the gym — and went paragliding with Madeira Paragliding near Calheta, run by German paragliding veteran Hartmut. A beautiful launch site with good lift all around, enough to top-land comfortably; the narrow beach landing, with its gravel and boulders, is on the tricky side.
