Early in 2009 a decision was made to take one of the charter yachts, Pamina a Bavaria 44, operated by Charter For You based at Inverkip to the Canaries for the winter of 2009. With the yacht making the return trip in the Spring of 2010.

Pamina en route

I completed an intensive theory course in the spring which concentrated on celestial navigation and ocean passage making, but not without thinking that my brain was going into meltdown as I tried to get to grips with the theory behind sun sights and the use of the sextant. Bill the skipper for the whole of the voyage planned the trip in four legs. Inverkip to Southern Ireland, Northern Spain then Madeira, finally arriving in Lanzarote.

Approaching Madeira

I joined the yacht for the leg from La Coruna to Madeira and attached is a link to the narrative log I kept for the 6 days it took to complete the passage.

The narrative log along with the ships log and sun sights taken en route were then presented to an Ocean Examiner for checking, with an oral exam of approximately 2 hours being the final part of the process, which I completed in October.

Although not intending to use the qualification in a professional manner, it was the culmination of a long held ambition of mine and well worth the effort.

Tags: Baiona, Lanzarote, long distance cruising, Madeira, Pamina, yachtmaster passages

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 11th, 2010 at 12:29 pm and is filed under Sailing, cruising. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.