Shortly after eight in the morning the first watch of the day sighted the Cies Islands at the entrance of Vigo Bay. It was an April morning, in the year 2015. The story of this Madeira-Baltic Sea Passage began with an "accident" during a charter contract with Slovakian people, which have to bring Famagusta back to Heiligenhafen in Germany.

My charter agent Wolf Ernst had booked this four-week charter for Famagusta to return to Germany after her wintering in the Canaries. The Slovaks, after filling the boat with tons of vodka, sausages of all kinds, eggs, hot chilies and some thirty loaves, sailed from Puerto de Mogán with the first destination being Madeira. Wolf had given them the weather forecast, which mentioned winds from the north-northwest seven to eight Beaufort with strengthening over the next two days. The wind direction would not change. He advised them, since they wanted to end up in Lisbon the first week, to overlook Madeira, which was a windward course, and to prefer a closed course straight to Lisbon. "With eight Beaufort in the Atlantic, not even Columbus would have dared to set sail to catch Madeira..." he had characteristically told them!

The "mountain people" from Slovakia had a different opinion. The passage to Madeira was about 300 miles in a straight course or 500 with constant "tacks"! A week of fighting against the huge waves and fresh sea in their underpants, without doubt! The two diesel tanks were full, 250 and 250 liters and regarding the sails, they had the jib furled and two genoas in stock, a triradial 120% and a standard 140%. On February 28, 2015, Saturday, Famagusta sailed from Puerto de Mogan with the final destination (and end of contract in four weeks) Heiligenhafen in the Baltic.

 The Skipper, as we have found out after, had sub-chartered the Famagusta on a week's charter and to different clients for each of the four pre-arranged routes. In other words, he intended to follow a "cruise ship program" and not a sailing vessel, which chooses courses according to the wind and the state of the sea! Seeing that the weather would not take him out with sails for Madeira, he lowered the sails and by engine began to ascend towards the Atlantic. The crashing of the boat against the waves, with the wind on the nose, brought damage. A sea cock broke and the boat was starting to take on water. They stuffed her with a cork (!!!) of wine, which was held in the hole with cable ties.

When they finally arrived in Madeira and asked the boatyard to replace the sea cock, the Madeira "mafia" told them that this job would take two weeks. After these bad news, the Slovaks left Famagusta with the diesel tanks almost empty, the interior of the boat a mess, the sink full of pots and pans and the bilges overflowing with broken vodka bottles. After communicating with them, I canceled the contract and ... the "vacationers" were released!

21st March 2015 Saturday I land in Madeira preparing for the 900 mile passage to A Coruna in Spain. A day later, on March 22, the Austrian assistant to my shipping agent and an East German, also a friend of Wolf's, landed on a flight from Gran Canaria to join me as the crew on the first leg of the "Return" to A Coruna. From there the second leg would start with a new crew and destination Dover, England.

When the new crew landed at A Coruna airport and we spoke on the phone, we were still about 150 miles south of A Coruna. To save time, we agreed to sail to Vigo, which was about 10 miles away, and have the crew changed there.

On the third of April, Friday, after ten days of ocean sailing, we entered the deep Gulf of Vigo, having passed the Cies Islands. A seaside location, which we would certainly like to visit again in the future, and a port that also marked the successful end of the first and most difficult leg of the Canary-Baltic passage: the crossing of the wild Madeira Archipelago to the Spanish North and the beginning of Biscay!