A Manta ray on the Pier
Hundreds of sailing crews have painted the pier.
28.09.2024
Marina do Porto Santo
As we disembark in Porto Santo, colorful logos greet us. The harbor pier is covered in ships and sea creatures. Ornate paintings, graffiti of boat names, flags and dates cover the wall. Colors burst from the concrete. Images that have been painted over. By crews at a special point their lives, before or after a long trip. I wonder where their path has taken them. Whether they found what they were looking for and what they are doing today.
Why do sailors leave their marks on quay walls? In Horta in the Azores, graffiti is considered a good luck charm. Which motivates crews to paint not only on the wall, but also the path underneath. If we sail the normal Atlantic circuit, we'll pass Horta next year, so we can mark our route there and back. However, we don't have any colors or brushes yet, let alone a logo. So we postpone our plans and enjoy the island life after our 4-day crossing from Cascais.
Even Christopher Columbus slowed down in the Madeira Archipelago. After marrying Filipa, the daughter of Porto Santo's island governor, he lived here in the early 1480s. He used his time to study the Atlantic and navigation, as far as it was possible. In contrast to crews of the 21st century, with our plotters, radar systems and autopilots, Columbus only had protractors and the sky to fall back on, a compass and dead reckoning. A bust in the main town of Vila Baleira, a museum and a festival celebrate the man who later discovered America.
Life in Porto Santo: the diving boat picks up crew at the anchoring.
We stay at anchor in the marina's outer harbor for almost a week. The famous, 9 kilometer long sandy beach begins directly behind the pier. We prefer to enjoy life underwater. Louisa is doing her open water diving license at Porto Santo Sub. I brush up on my diving skills on the house reef and Daniel dives a few wrecks at a depth of 30 meters off the coast. In Vila Baleira, we replenish our supplies and get the paints and brushes for our art project from Porto Santo Shopping.
Our logo is almost ready.
When Stella, Louisa and I land in the dinghy, it starts to rain. It takes us forever to find a suitable place. But we discover logos we haven't noticed before, even though we walked here every day. The names of ships that are anchored with us. Vessels that we met on the way here. Luckily the rain is letting up again. A cardboard cake base serves as a template for the shape and later as a palette on which I mix the colors. Louisa draws her self-designed logo - a manta ray - which appears to float gracefully on the wall. The acrylic paints covers the gray, cracked concrete way better than expected. Et voliá… Asja in the gallery of blue water yachts.
Did you also decorate the quai in Porto Santo? In case you’re reading this in the future… Is our manta ray still swimming on the concrete? Please let me know :-)
Anchoring Porto Santo ⚓️
located in the outer harbor of the marina
you can register and deregister with the harbor police in the Marina Office
Anchoring in the outer harbor costs 7 euros per day - in return you can use the sanitary facilities / showers and the laundromat in the blue building towards the dry dock (no additional costs)
Dinghies can easily be left at the marina's pontoon
At the beginning of October, it was quite crowded in the outer harbor. Keep enough distance from your neighbors.
Do not anchor too close to the harbor entrance and the yellow bouys because of tug and cargo ships.
The alternative anchorage directly on the beach was too rough for us. After a night out there, we went back to the outer harbour
