We arrived off Cabo St Maria for the first time about thirteen years ago at 2 am having sailed from Gibraltar. I had planned to arrive at dawn, anchor for breakfast just inside the entrance into Ria Formosa and then continue up the channel to Olhão. We had a very fast and enjoyable sail in a north easterly force 7 wind, which was stronger than I had expected and consequently arrived about three hours earlier than we had estimated.

I had considered at about midnight as to whether or not it might be sensible to heave-to and wait so that our arrival would be in daylight, but having looked at the pilot book (RCC Atlantic Spain and Portugal), the entrance into Ria Formosa looked very straight forward and so I made a short pilotage plan to anchor just inside the entrance. We sailed through the entrance close hauled into a strong spring ebb, the plan went perfectly, as we approached number 4 red buoy we dropped our mainsail and rounded the buoy with just our working jib, sailed on a course of 250º M for about 150 yards, rounded up into the tide and dropped our anchor in about five metres of water.

In the morning we enjoyed breakfast at anchor off a beautiful sandy beach on Ilha da Barretta (otherwise known as Ilha Deserta). Following which we made a pilotage plan to get us up to Olhão. The system that I use for pilotage owes more for its origins to the AA or the RAC than anything nautical. It is a simple vertical column of buoys and the magnetic compass bearing from each buoy to the next one. Once completed we weighed anchor and began our slow careful progress up the channel to Olhão, I should emphasise that each bearing in a pilotage plan is in order to identify the next buoy in the channel, they are not courses to steer, because often there may be a crossing tide or wind which can take us out of the channel and into shallow water. A close watch must be kept on the echo sounder and where possible a back bearing used to ensure that you are not being taken out of the channel by a strong crossing tide or wind.

Channels are always marked with red buoys on the left and green buoys on the right when you come into a harbour from the sea as shown above and to the right, obviously when returning to the sea to be in the channel the buoys will be the other way round, red on your right and green on your left. It is important to keep a constant check on your position, so tick each buoy off on your plan as you pass it. Buoys will always have a number painted on them, these numbers will be shown alongside each buoy in the pilot book. Red buoys are numbered with even numbers such as 2, 4, 6, 8 etc and green buoys with odd numbers such as 1, 3, 5, 7 etc. They will always be numbered from the harbour entrance in ascending order.

We spent two very enjoyable days anchored at Olhão and on our return passage to Gibraltar had a delayed departure as a result of going aground on our approach to No 3 green buoy, we were too close to the edge of the channel and obviously were not paying sufficient attention to our echo sounder! One of my crew, a German called Hendrik, asked me as to what the emergency procedure was when going aground, to which I replied that as we were on a rising tide, to put the kettle on, make some coffee and we would soon be afloat again! I think Hendrik expected a rather more dynamic approach to the problem than our British one! Before we had even finished our coffee we were off again and had an enjoyable passage back to Gibraltar.

Note:  In Europe and most of the world including Africa, India and Australia we use the the IALA (International Association of Light House Authorities) 'A' system, whereas North & South America, the Caribbean, Japan and the Philipinnes use the 'B' system. The difference being that with the 'A' system when following the direction of the buoyage coming in from the sea we leave red buoys to port and green to starboard when going back out to sea we leave red buoys to starboard and green to port.  The IALA 'B' system is exactly the other way around, which when I visited the Caribbean a few years ago I found very confusing on several occasions and nearly went the wrong side of buoys when entering a harbour for the first time.

Cardinal Marks are also part of the IALA system, to read my article on Cardinal Marks click here.