Happy Holidays!
Greetings All,
I hope this note finds you well. After several quiet months of work back in Chicago, it was time to free Midnight Voyageur from her slip in Cascais, Portugal and return her to the high seas where she truly belongs. Over the past month, we completed three memorable sailing voyages, and I wanted to share a few highlights from the journey.
Listen to the Wind
For the first leg, I was joined by friends from Chicago: Brad and Gretchen Horn, Diana Dams, and Jessica Koehler.
As our departure date approached, I kept a close eye on the weather. I noticed that the winter storms (low-pressure systems) would occasionally dip as far south as Madeira. With age and experience, I’ve become far more willing to truly listen to the wind and choose the easier path when it presents itself. Rather than risk tangling with one of these tempests, I decided to change our destination; skip Madeira and head due south to Agadir, Morocco.
Before we could do that, however, we needed to avoid the mischievous band of adolescent orcas that have been patrolling the Portuguese coast and harassing sailboats for the past few years. To put as much distance between ourselves and the coast, we headed due west on the first day. The trade-off was a rough ride, and a few crew members paid the price with bouts of seasickness.
On the second day, we turned south. spirits lifted, the seas eased, and three days later, we happily made landfall in sunny Agadir, Morocco.
Listen to your Boat
Boats leak; that’s what they do. Hearing the bilge pump cycle on now and then is reassuring—it means the system is doing its job. But when it starts firing every fifteen minutes in the middle of the night, that’s a different matter altogether. It was something I would have loved to have ignored, rolled over and gone back to sleep, but experience has taught me that it’s always wise to listen to your boat. Any seasoned captain will admit to having an intimate familiarity with every creak, groan, and rhythm of their vessel. So when the bilge pump began cycling that often, I knew something wasn’t right.
Starting in the bilge, I discovered a tiny trickle coming from the stern. Tracing that stream to its source required contorting myself into a space similar to the one beneath your kitchen sink; once I wriggled back there, I wasn’t entirely sure I could get myself out! Fortunately, I soon found the culprit: a hairline crack in one of the thru-hull fittings.
While it’s recommended that we each have a family physician, it’s also wise to have a Boat Doctor you can call at any hour. Mine is my childhood friend and master shipwright, Jim Noland. After waking Jim in Charleston, SC at six a.m., we talked through the symptoms and next steps. Upon arriving on the first Canary Island, Lanzarote, the boatyard provided excellent service, installing a new bronze fitting that put the issue firmly behind us.
A Dubious Beach Landing
With our work complete at the Lanzarote boatyard, we set course for our final destination: Gran Canaria. Once there, I secured Midnight Voyageur in the designated anchorage, nearly a mile from the dinghy dock. That distance posed a problem, as I needed to catch a 6 a.m. flight to Paris the next morning for a party hosted by some dear friends.
To save time, instead of trekking to the dinghy dock, I convinced my crewmate, Brad Horn, to ferry me to the beach only 100 yards away at 3 a.m. In retrospect, wading through the surf in the dark at this ungodly hour, duffel bag hoisted overhead, I must have looked more than a little suspicious.
The moment my feet hit the sand, I looked up to see a police car screech to a halt. The officers hopped out and met me halfway across the beach, firing questions in rapid Spanish. I attempted to mime that I was heading to catch a taxi to the airport so I could fly to Paris for a Christmas party hosted by some dear friends. They weren’t convinced. Fair enough: people jetting off to parties in Paris don’t usually arrive via a surf landing in the middle of the night, carrying a duffel bag over their head.
As visions of spending the night in a Spanish jail cell started forming, I made one last desperate attempt to explain myself. I pointed toward Midnight Voyageur anchored offshore and declared, “sailor, sailor!” Instant recognition. They both rolled their eyes in disgust and walked away without another word. Apparently in the Canary Islands, sailors have been irritating the locals since Christopher Columbus decided to drop by on his way to the new world.
For the final leg from the Canary Islands to the Cape Verde Islands, I was joined by Tim Aho, Karine Odlin, Arin Kaye, Maggie O’Connor, and my long-time, trusty firstmate, Peter Morin. Over seven days and 840 nautical miles, we encountered robust conditions (thirty-knot winds and eighteen-foot seas) yet the passage remained remarkably uneventful. Midnight Voyageur proved her bluewater chops, carving gracefully through the majestic swells.
One highlight of this leg would come each evening as Arin and Maggie would take the helm for their midnight watch. Throughout their watch, their infectious laughter would echo down from the cockpit as they guided us across heavy seas, beneath a crescent moon and a canopy of a billion stars.
Home is Where the Heart Is
Look who showed up in Mindelo, Cabo Verde for Christmas week after traveling from St. Vincent - Miami - Chicago - Miami - Lisbon to get here? It’s my long lost medical student & wife, Angelika Foley! Wishing you all a joyful holiday and happy new year!
Mike Foley
P.S. I will have plenty of availability for crew aboard Kookaburra on Lake Michigan during the summer of 2026 and on Midnight Voyageur in the Caribbean next winter (2026 Sailing Voyages).
