Portugal

16 May 2011

N 37 57.030 W 08 51.956

Sines, (Sinch) Portugal

Distance Travelled: 83.2 NM

Total Time at Sea: 17 hrs 54 min

Sailed: 15 hrs Motored: 1 hr 54 min

Weather: Sunny, 28C, some thunder and lightning on south Portuguese coast. Wind: Beaufort 2-6 ESE

We have had a lovely few days lolling about at anchorages; Portimao and Alvor. Alvor was very pretty. We had to follow a very narrow channel in to the anchorage once through the entrance. It's not very well marked and the 2 markers that are there; one green and one red are not in the deepest part of the channel. Not sure if they have drifted or if the sandbars have changed since the markers were put down. But we made it in at high tide with a shallowest depth of 2.4 m right in the middle of the channel. The anchorage was rather crowded closest in to the town and after a day we moved out to the outer anchorage just inside the entrance. The town itself is very small and totally geared for tourists. They had a lot of cute restaurants and cafés, everyone spoke English and indeed most of the tourists were English. We bought a bottle of Sangria and stayed mainly on Roam reading, sunning, puttering and drinking. A lot of the boats in these anchorages look like they have been there for years with no owner in residence for ages. They were rusty, tattered and very run-down.

Yesterday morning the wind came up around 10.00 and blew about Beaufort 6-7. We waited until about 15.00 after high tide before leaving. Once we got out we headed due West on just the genoa. The seas weren't too bad and the wind slowly died down to about Beaufort 5. The coast line was very dramatic with sharp steep cliffs rising about 40 meters straight up. The swells increased as we neared the SW corner of Portugal smashing onto the cliffs and sent spray all the way up to the top of the cliffs. It was very impressive to watch. Not so impressive to watch, was the lightning that flashed in front of us a few times and the sound of rolling thunder. But it moved off to our starboard with just a few drops of rain on our deck and disappeared over land. After about 3 hours we rounded Cabo Sao Vincente and headed northwards to Sines. We saw on the uGrib files that the swells on the south side of Portugal were from the SE and as soon as we rounded Cabo Sao Vincente the swells were going to be from the NW. After having sailed in the Med for so long, we were worried that the seas were going to be very confused and choppy around the Cape. But when we got there, although the sea was somewhat confused, the swells in the Atlantic are so long and wide that one doesn't really notice them much. Roam was lifted gently up and down as the cross swells meshed with each other. Sailing in the Atlantic, so far, is a welcome change to sailing in the Med with its short steep swells. As darkness descended, the wind became very shifty. At one point we were sailing along at 6.5 knots and then suddenly, we lost all wind. The genoa fluttered and no matter how we turned we couldn't catch it again. We rolled in the genoa and started the motor for about 20 minutes, when the wind came up again and was about Beaufort 4. There was a sailboat coming up behind us that we watched go through the same shifty wind before furling in his sails and motoring farther out to sea. He soon put his sails out again and disappeared from our view. We saw no other traffic all night, no fish, nothing exciting at all. At one point, I had just gone down to sleep when Dan called me up again to help reef the main as the wind had picked up to Beaufort 7 SE. We have our new sail on now and it doesn't drop as easily as the old main did. So instead of just steering our course as normal, while Dan does all the work on the sail, I had to disengage Nelson and steer Roam into the wind. It was very difficult to see where the wind was in the dark, even with the soft light of the full moon. I ended up jibing and am very happy that Dan had his harness on as he would otherwise have gone flying. I got the boat back into the wind and we took down the main completely and once again we sailed just on the genoa. We were still doing 6-7 knots. We arrived at Sines at 09.00 this morning. The outer harbor is a huge shipping off/on-loading facility for coal and an oil refinery and is also one of the only harbors on the European Atlantic equipped and certified for shipping to and from the US. The inner harbor is for pleasure boats such as ours. It's very well-run and in good shape. The breakwalls are so high that from inside, one can't see the outer harbor at all. There's a nice beach in here that the villagers and tourists use. We met the sailboat that we saw last night. It's a Norwegian boat and they are also going North so has been nice to have someone to talk to and compare notes.

Sines' claim to fame is the birthplace of Vasco da Gama. We took a walk up to the village and stopped at the market for vegetables, the butcher's for some chicken and the bakery for some fresh-baked bread. In the afternoon we went to the beach and went for a swim. The water was lovely, about 19-20C, though I don't think we'll see the clarity of the Mediterranean water again on this trip...

18 May 2011

N 38 28.640 W 08 58.783

Portinho de Arrabides, Portugal

Distance Travelled: 35.2 NM

Total Time at Sea: 7 hrs 20 min

Sailed: 1hr 20 min Motored: 6 hrs

Weather: Overcast, rain, 20C. We had rain all night and lots of thunder and lightning. Wind Beaufort 0-2 NE-NW

Dan and I have met some very interesting people here in Sines. It's a nice marina with all the facilities, though doesn't quite compare to Netsel Marina. The Portuguese are real sticklers for forms and stamps. They compete well with the Turks. After spending about half an hour, copying seemingly word for word our registration papers, insurance papers and passports, we were finally checked in and had received our access card with the prerequisite deposit of 35 Euros and were free to go about our business. Every time we do this registration thing, we get the odd feeling that we are their first customers and that they have never really done this procedure before. There are all kinds of shoulder-shrugging, eyebrow raisings and sighs of exasperation no matter what country we are in.

There's a small town that you have to climb up to either by stairs or by a road winding up the hill to the town. There's not much here, the necessities. We met a Swede, Per, who is sailing on his own. He is from Stockholm and has sailed all his life in the Baltic. A year or so ago he decided to take the plunge

and sail beyond his horizons. He figured if he just used all his skills from the Baltic, all would be well, because the Baltic is "one of the hardest seas weather-wise, right?" He quickly found out how wrong he was. He has had some of the most terrifying adventures in Scotland with 7 knot tide currents, Beaufort 9 winds causing his mainsail to shred, standing waves, water in the engine...... He ventured out into the Bay of Biscay at the end of October completely oblivious to the advice that one should never attempt the Bay of Biscay after the 1st of October. But he survived and as he says, he learns something new every day... When we met him, he was just leaving to go south to Morrocco. Dan asked him if that was wise, given that the winds were Southerlies and once he got down to Cabo Sao Vicente, there were levant winds whooshing through from Gibraltar at about Beaufort 7-8. But he just shook his head and said he couldn't make heads or tales of the weather forecasts so he was just going to go. When we woke up next morning, we saw a Swedish flag tattered beyond all recognition on the stern of a sailboat and realized that it was Per back in the berth he left the day before. He ended up turning back after 35 NM due to exactly the weather that had been forecast. We invited him over for afternoon tea and he proved to be a very interesting fellow, but how he managed to get this far, we will never know. We both felt rather protective of him but he was very philosophical and seems to take it all in stride. Dan was on his boat at one point and he very proudly showed him some of his gadgets and methods. He has a lovely diesel burning stove which keeps his boat nice and warm, but he forgets that it is on and when he needs to go down into the storage bins under the sofa, he often throws the cushions over to the side and they land right on the stove; so most of his sofa cushions have burn holes in them. He also very proudly showed Dan his latest discovery; a dog dish for "sloppy dogs" that has a lid with a hole in it so dogs don't make such a mess when they eat. I can see you are wondering where I'm going with this. Well, he saw it in a pet store and got a brainstorm idea that it would be perfect for when he is at sea and needs to eat. Everything stays in the bowl due to the lid and he can just dip his spoon down and get his food. Most impressive, I thought, and then thanked the Gods that I get to sail with Dan where things are civilised. He left early this morning again for Morrocco dressed in his sailing gear which includes hockey knee pads and a Russian fur cap. (Due to the warm weather he is looking to get a hockey helmet to take the place of the fur cap). Unfortunately, he has no email, website, and his boat name is half rubbed out, so we have no way of staying in contact with him. Just hope he makes it and enjoys the journey.

We also met the couple from Norway. They are teachers and have had a 49-foot sailboat down in Greece for the last 4 years and now they have taken 5 months off to sail her back to Norway. Yesterday was the Norwegian National Day (17/5) so we put up a Norwegian courtesy flag and invited them over for a drink. It was fun to compare places that we have been to with our boats and share new experiences. They are also sailing north so we figure we will be seeing more of them as we travel northwards.

This morning we were very undecided whether or not to leave Sines. We had planned to continue northwards, but we had rain and thunder/lightning all night and into the morning. This morning we walked over to the Norwegian boat, Böringen, to see what they were going to do. We had both planned to go to Cascais which is 12 hours away, outside Lisbon. But by the time the rain let up and the skies looked somewhat decent, it was too late for us to go to go that far if we were to avoid a night land fall. They were also undecided about what to do; stay or go. We finally decided to make a shorter run to Portinho Addabida and said good-bye to them and headed out towards the Rio Sade. They took off a while after us and headed for Cascais. We had radio contact and decided we would meet up again on Thursday in Cascais. The wind is going to take a northern turn for the next few days starting on Friday so we figure we will all be in Cascais for a week or so before the winds change and we can continue northwards.

We kept our cockpit cover on to protect us from the rain and it was warm, dry and comfortable. After about 2 hours, we were able to sail on Northeasterly winds, but not for very along as the wind shifted, then died altogether. The anchorage that we've chosen is a bit of a pickle to get into. There are shallow sand bars all over the place. We had to keep a good eye on the chart and to the changing color of the water. We came in on an incoming tide and the depths at low tide are between 0,5 - 2.2 m. We draw 1.6m so one doesn't want to make a mistake when the low tide sets in. We managed fine and anchored off a white sandy beach with a dramatic backdrop of tree-covered cliffs that rise about 100 m up. The pilot book says this is the most beautiful anchorage in Portugal.

We had just settled down in our anchorage, near another boat from Germany that had sailed here from Sines, when a motorboat came up to the German boat first and then came over to us to tell us that we can't anchor here as it is a nature preserve. Nowhere in our charts did it say this about this place. But he said it was fine if we moved to a bouy about 25 m away, used that instead. Argh! Of course we did haul up our anchor and move the measly 25 meters over to the bouy and took that. Just as Dan grabbed the bouy the rain started coming down again. The German boat was a bit slower in raising its anchor so they had to go a bit farther to get a bouy. But we waved to each other and shrugged our shoulders. We settled down again and continued our conversation of "best anchorages" we have been in since we left Sweden and this will go somewhere towards the bottom of the list. The absolute best anchorages so far have been in Turkey; Serce, Bozum Buku, Pupa Yat Bay, Kuhulu Bay, Tomb Bay, Kucük Kuyruk, Gerbekse Cove, Wall Bay, to name but a few.

But now we are in Portugal, and to be fair, it is a really pretty place, or rather, would be if the weather was right. It is pouring with rain right now. Anyway, we are very cozy where we are, and about to enjoy a Spicy Beef Stew with Rice.

20 May 2011

N 38 41.812 W 09 24.972

Cascais, Portugal

Distance Travelled: 32.7NM

Total Time at Sea: 8 hrs 19 min

Sailed: 6 hrs Motored: 2 hrs 19 min

Weather: Sunny with a nip in the air. Wind Beaufort 0-4 E - NW

After a night of pouring rain, the day dawned sunny and clear. There was already a wind up from the East coming down over the mountains above us so Dan raised the anchor and I pulled out the genoa and we started picking our way out between all the sand banks. Dan has downloaded the most fantastic App onto his iPhone. It's called Navionics and it has all the charts of Europe except England (have to buy additional app for that). It has a GPS too so it shows where our boat is on the chart on the phone:) All for 20 USD. Dan had that up and guided me through the labyrinth of sandbanks, "Do 181 degrees, now go to 197 degrees, whoops you're sliding, maybe the current from the tide, do 200 degrees now" and so forth until we were out into the deep water. Pretty amazing ain't it? Of course, we still use our eyes as the primary source of information. The App also shows tides where ever we are so we always know where we are in the tidal schedule which is important because certain places we can only get to at high tide.

Once we got into deeper water we put up the main as well and as we were sailing westwards with an easterly wind, we had a sail on each side (main on starboard, genoa on port) We sailed along the coast for a couple hours till we could round Cabo Espichel and head north. Cabo Espichel is the most amazing geological combination of rock we have seen in a long time. On one side, it is horizontal layers of some kind of gray porous rock and clay and very high; about 40-50 meters. Down at sea level, there are masses of caves that give a very eerie look, they almost look like open mouths screaming and woeful eyes. Rounding the cape, the other side becomes visible and is totally vertical slabs of granite of different shades of gray and black shooting up from the sea. Up on top is a lighthouse with big stone house where I assume the lighthouse keeper lived. Looks so desolate up there. As we rounded the cape the wind went all funny and we noticed we were getting into shallower water which was confirmed by the iPhone. We motored off for about half an hour to get away from it and then picked up the wind again. But that died out too and we motored for about 1½ hrs till the afternoon sea breeze came up. This time from NW. We hoisted all the sails and off we went making the last 9 NM in quick time arriving at Cascais at about 17.00. There is a big sailing regatta going on here so we anchored outside the harbor in a little bay where all the fishing boats moor. There are a few other sailboats here too; the German catamaran from Sines and our anchorage last night is here. The wind continued to blow pretty hard, Beaufort 6 NW, most of the night and Dan was up several times when it was gusting particularly strongly to make sure our anchor was holding. We are using our new anchor that we bought in Turkey that is supposed to be soo great. So far it has dragged twice so we don't have all that much confidence in it at the moment. But it held this time. Cascais is a wealthy suburb west of Lisbon right near the estuary of the Rio Tejo, with very pretty, old houses. It has lovely stone tiled streets, lined by Plane trees and some kind of tall tree with purple flowers blooming. Red and pink Bougainvillea bushes climb up many of the houses and the facades are decorated with ceramic tiles depicting saints, ships and palm trees. There are lots of restaurants and shops and there seem to be plenty of tourists here.

22 May 2011

Back at Cascais Anchorage, pretty much same place as 2 days ago.

Distance Travelled: 26.6 NM round trip from Cascais to Alcantara, Lisbon and back to Cascais

Sailed: 4 hrs Motored: 1hr 30 min

Weather: Sunny, 28C Wind Beaufort 0-3 N, NW, W

Shortly after high tide, we left our anchorage yesterday after tussling with a stuck anchor for 30 minutes. Turned out a fishpot had wrapped its line around our anchor. When we got the anchor up with the fishpot stuck on it, we saw that there was a live octopus in there trying desparately to get out. Being the animal lovers we are, we completely disregarded any rights the fishpot owner might have and tried to shake the octopus out. But he clung to the sides and kept reaching his tentacles out and towards the water. Finally,

I put on one of my sailing gloves, reached my hand into the pot and pulled him out and dropped him gently into the sea again where he quickly disappeared from view. We untangled the fishpot and dropped it back into the sea too, and then were on our way Lisbon.

We had a nice sail the short distance up the Rio Tejo to Port Alcantara which is just past the big modern bridge over the river. The Rio Tejo is a huge river, in fact once in the entrance it looks more like a sea passage between 2 islands. On the way in to the harbor, I connected to internet to look up the top-10 sights to see when in Lisbon. Most of them are museums and we weren't really interested in that, but St Jorge Castle looked interesting and of course we wanted to see the city. Port Alcantara is on the north side of the river and about 5 km from the center of town. We secured Roam to a pontoon dock, paid our fee of 19 Euro, showered, dressed decently, and then headed into the city. We thought about taking a bus, but then decided since it was such a nice day, it would be interesting to walk in and see the more of the city. What we saw was not all that impressive, in fact, most everything was run-down and poor-looking. The only interesting thing was the tiled facades on some of the buildings. Even though we were pretty sure we were in a poor part of town, the facades were really beautiful and even the windows were ornate and elegantly shaped. We walked past the French Embassy which was looking pretty tawdry and obviously no longer in the Posh part of town.

Eventually, we happened on to the big square down by the river's edge, Placa de Comercio. It was huge and completely empty except for a big statue in the middle. There were a couple cafés along the edges of the square, but nothing like one would expect to see in such a huge square. We walked down to the water's edge and then looked back towards the city and to our right up on a steep hill we saw what we figured must be the Castle of St George. We set off in that direction and on the way came to another big square where there was some kind of global Honda Golden Wing motorcycle get together. Flags from all nations around the world and the motorcycles were the big fat kind for long hauls and fat riders. Men seem to have an instinctual fascination for motorcycles and Dan was no deviant from the mold. We had to spend 15-20 minutes strolling through the labyrinth of parked motorcycles checking them all out and wondering what it would be like to tour Europe by motorcycle…

From this square, we started climbing stairs up to the castle. It took us about 30 minutes, hundreds of stairs and 2 wrong turns before we finally arrived at our destination. Once we got up the hill, there were these beautiful tall trees with the purple flowers all blooming and smelling divine. It looked like the old town of Lisbon with old, ornate buildings, small squares and of course the citadel at the top. We paid 7 Euros each to go into the citadel and spent the next 2 hours walking around imagining the Moors and Christians fighting over possession of this place. The walls are very well preserved, but the inside is mostly empty. The information describing all the sights is very good so we felt we got a good idea of the place.

When we were finished we wandered down the hill back to the center of town and found a restaurant for a traditional Portuguese dinner which was the copper plate meal. We ordered a copper plate meal of fish. It's like a stew with potatoes, fish chunks, some shrimp and some clams in a tomatoey sauce with a lot of fresh cilantro. The whole thing is served in a round copper pot with a top on it to keep everthing hot. To be brutally honest, it wasn’t very good and the portions were tiny. Dan complained a bit and asked for more potatoes and that’s when we found out that the waiter thought we ordered a single portion, not a portion for 2. Since it wasn’t all that tasty we declined an additional order of the stuff.

After dinner we went down to the big square again and caught an ancient tram for 5 EUR which took us back to the marina. It was a nice day, but neither of us got a good feeling about the city. It seemed rather diffuse and very poor. The city center lacked life, didn't have restaurant areas like other cities, (they were rather few and far between) and people didn't look particularly happy walking through town. Anyway, the 6 hours we spent in town were enough this time.

We headed back to Cascais this morning as the tide turned so we sailed the 10 NM with both river current and out-going tide with us. We were actually doing 9 knots with very little wind.

Back in Cascais, it seemed that every Portuguese sailboat and motorboat within miles had concentrated down on this little anchorage. By the afternoon we counted 24 sailboats and probably as many motor cruisers anchored. The beach was covered in human bodies and parasols and music. Felt kind of nice to be in the middle of it and also know that by cocktail hour pretty much everyone would be gone:) We plan on continuing north tomorrow morning. Not sure how far we will go, there isn't much to see on the coast for the next 100 or so NM, so we will see what we do. The weather is supposed to be nice for the next couple days, till Wednesday evening when bad weather is coming in. Glad we are not doing the Biscay crossing right now as UK is getting one low pressure after another coming in off the Atlantic.

24 May 2011

N 39 35.011 W 09 04.506

Nazaré, Portugal

Distance Travelled: 82.2 NM

Total Time at Sea: 21 hrs 39 min

Sailed: 9 hrs 1 min Motored: 12 hrs 38 min

Weather: Partly cloudy, 20C. Wind Beaufort 5-7 N. Ocean swells: 3-4 meters

We had a really tough passage with all the elements against us. We raised the anchor and motored off at 06.30 in the morning to get a head start for the 62 NM passage from Cascais to Navaré. As soon as we came around the corner from Cascais and headed north we were hit by big ocean swells. We quickly moved farther out to deeper water where the swells are usually smaller but by the time we got out there the wind had kicked up much stronger than forecasted and we had to slog it until we reached the islands outside Peniche, about 30 NM. The waves built up on top of the swells and our progress slowed from 5 knots to an average of 3 knots. Sometimes a big wave would stop us dead in the water and Roam would slowly get herself moving again. The wind steadily increased and by the afternoon we had Beaufort 7 dead against us from the North.

We noticed that seagulls seemed to like flying beside us, looking for food no doubt, but they were so close that you could see all their markings. At one point I stood up to see better and then noticed that there were masses of them flying all around the waters directly a head of us. As I watched them, feeling an Alfred Hitchcock moment approaching, several dolphins surfaced near the boat and then more came and more and suddenly there were more than 30 dolphins swimming towards us. We soon understood that there must be a big school of fish swimming near the surface because the seagulls and petrels started diving into the water and all the dolphins (except for a few playful ones that hung around the boat) converged there too. There was a huge feeding frenzy as we ever so slowly passed by them. But watching the birds dive down from 30 meters height and splash into the sea at great speed was highly entertaining. Wonder if they ever collide with a dolphin going for the same fish....

After 12 hrs we could finally hoist the sails, albeit reefed and make better time.

Neither one of us was very hungry all day and no one wanted to go down to the galley and cook something so we subsisted on lemonade and energy bars; one of which was called Cliff and was a combination of peanut butter and chocolate. Jummy! it was good and very filling. Thanks for that Stephie!

By 02.30 we could make our approach to the marina entrance. We still had about 2 hours to land so Dan took a much deserved rest while I sat at the helm. We were heading directly East and the wind was still from the north, but steadily decreasing and Nelson had a hard time keeping the course. The moon came out at about 03.00 and was so bright, I thought it was a spotlight from a fishing boat at first. Imagine my relief to see that it was just the moon coming above the land mass. There were several fishing boats coming out and occasionally I could make out the shadows of the swells racing across our bow up ahead. Looked almost like animals furtively running past under cover of darkness. A strong scent of cedar came over the water from about 5 miles out, probably from the conifer woods behind the town that are meant to be some of the most extensive in Europe.

Dan came up when we were 2 NM away and we both searched and searched for the harbor entrance's green and red lights. With all the town lights in the background it was really difficult to make them out. We got closer and closer, took down the sails, moved a bit closer and finally when we were barely 1/2 of a NM away, we saw the red port light of the harbor entrance. It took a while longer to make out the green one as it was a much weaker light. With the help of our GPS plotter we made the harbor entrance spot-on in the dark and then could see the looming break walls on either side of the entrance, but nothing else. It was kind of nerve-wracking because we could hear the breaking of the surf on the beach close by, but we slipped through the entrance safely, quietly found a berth, tied up and went to sleep at about 05.30, rather exhausted.

This morning I had just gotten up around 09.30 when someone knocked on the boat. I went up and it was the harbormaster who, happily, is English. A very kind gentleman named Captain Hadley. He runs the marina here. He chastised me for not registering as soon as we came in as the Police had already paid him a visit and told him there was an unregistered boat in the marina. I explained our arriving just a few hours ago, whereby he told me to eat breakfast and then come by his boat and he would take me to the office and to customs to register. Every single Portuguese harbor has a Customs office and each time one enters a harbor one has to go through the same paper work showing all documentation of the boat and its passengers. Even though we belong to the EU. I sure am glad we didn't try to smuggle Valentino. It would have been a nightmare of lying and worrying that we'd get caught because every customs official asks if we have animals onboard. Captain Hadley and I went up to his office and went through the harbor formalities small-talking all the while. He asked where we came from and how long it took. When I told him it took us almost 22 hours to sail 62 NM (partly because we had to tack back and forth at the end adding another 20 NM to our journey) he looked at me sternly and said obviously we were not used to sailing along the Portuguese coast. I agreed and then he explained that if you sail more than 3-4 miles off the coast you encounter a 1-2 knot current flowing from North to South. We did notice some kind of current so "check" on that one. Closer to land the current is hardly noticeable. Then there is the Portuguese sea breeze that kicks in every afternoon and can blow up to 40 knots from North and lasts until sundown. "Check" noticed that. By the early hours of the morning there is no wind at all. Also "Check". And, lastly, there is a deep underwater canyon out in the sea off Nazaré that is 2000 meters deep. It is called Canhao da Nazaré and runs in a northwest-southeast direction and passes just 600 m off Nazaré. This is a good thing because it causes the swells moving towards land to reduce so that by the time they reach land they are not as bad as they are out at sea. "Check" Noticed how much calmer it got as we approached land and thank goodness as was not relishing surfing into the marina.

Ergo: Had we sailed close to the coast and avoided sailing in the afternoon by taking off around midnight, we would have done the passage in 12 hours or less. Live and learn. We have now modified our itinerary so that we never travel more than 35 miles per day along this coast. That way we can leave at 05.00 in the morning and be safe in a harbor or anchorage by 13.00 when the afternoon sea breeze starts. I would like to shanghai Captain Hadley and keep him and his expertise on the Atlantic coast with us until we have crossed the Bay of Biscay!

We spent a lazy day taking the bus into town to look around. It's a very picturesque little village totally geared to tourists. The beach is amazing; about 1 km long and a hundred or so meters wide at low tide. We saw some photos of the old days between 1931-1963 before there was a marina here and the fishing boats had to be man-hauled at high tide up onto the beach, sometimes with oxen pulling sometimes with every man, woman, and child heaving and hauling. This harbor has an extensive fishing business and every time a fish boat comes in with a catch a siren sounds and people come from the town to join the auction for the fish.

This evening we were visited by a Swede who is sailing his Amel 53 up to Falsterbokanalen solo and he plans on reaching there by 15th June!!!. We had heard about him from the Svanbergs and saw his boat in Caiscais but had not met before. We had a brewskie and shared experiences which was very pleasant. We look forward to seeing him again and hearing how his journey has gone.

27 May 2011

N 40 08.842 W 08 51.594

Bay Sao Jacinto, Aveiro, Portugal

Distance Travelled: 37.8 NM

Total Time at Sea: 7hrs 40 min

Weather: Overcast, 20C. Wind Beaufort 2-4 N

Left the dock at 05.00 again this morning. Still dark. We knew that the swells were going to be pretty big (2.3-2.8m)but since there was only a light wind and we were not going very far it would be all right. It was very nearly unbearable. The swells were a bit bigger than forecast. Especially every 7th wave which was over 3 meters high and coming right at us. Funnily enough, we still made good time, doing on average 4.5 knots. Our usual cruising speed in flat water is about 5.5 knots. We spent 7 hours rolling and pitching and generally uncomfortable.

When it was time to make the approach to Aveiro we got a bit concerned. The Pilot book warns that the entrance is very dangerous in big seas especially with the tide on the ebb which is exactly where it was when we were going in. It's very difficult to coordinate all the elements out here. 1. You should arrive at your destination before the sea breeze sets in at midday. 2. You should leave your harbor right after high tide and enter the next harbor at low tide. The tides and the sea breeze seldom coincide so you have to make choices of worst case scenarios. But we have noticed that the tides aren't as strong as everyone warns, at least we haven't experienced the really bad ones yet. So we studied the chart and the entrance to Aveiro, studied the swells and planned our approach. Dan steered when we got closer in to shore. We could see the swells breaking on the beaches all around and it looked pretty hideous. They were smashing against the outer breakwall too with enormous spray and then rolling across the entrance. We tried to stay in as deep water as possible as we came in and steered away from the outer breakwall, heading for the Green light on the inner breakwall. We had to veer away a couple times to take an incoming rogue wave head-on but other than that it went fine. The entrance turned out to be bigger than we thought and apart from weaving around all the fishing boats at the entrance, we had no trouble coming in. Whew. The harbor is just for anchoring, no berths or facilities, but it is very well protected on all sides and well away from the sea. We spent a very quiet afternoon and night there. No swimming though as water is river-dirty.

28 May 2011

N 41 11.157 W 08 42.284

Leixos, Portugal

Distance Travelled: 41.5 NM

Total Time at Sea: 9 hrs 15 min

Sailed: 4 hrs Motored: 5 hrs 15 min

Weather: Sunny, Chill wind, 20C Wind Beaufort 3 NW

Today we decided to sleep in a bit so didn't get on our way until 08.30. We had the tide coming into the estuary at Aveiro and the swells were still there though a bit smaller today, which was forecast. The ride was much smoother than yesterday's trip and around lunch time the wind shifted slightly so we could sail the rest of the way.

Leixos has one of the first marinas ever opened on the Atlantic side of Portugal and is the Port for the city of Porto, which is Portugal's second biggest city. The commercial port is centered on oil, fishing and general trade. Port wine comes from this area and is so called because the Portuguese traded this wine with the English who traded between here and England and they called it Portuguese Wine which got shortened to Port Wine.

It only costs 11€ to stay here so we will spend today seeing the city of Porto before moving northwards tomorrow, weather permitting.

1 June 2011

Leixoes, Portugal

Weather: Sunny with thunder clouds all round, some rain,. Wind Beaufort 7 N

Today it's really windy, but otherwise have had good weather with temperatures around 25-28C since we've been here. We took a local bus to the city on Saturday, 28/5, to explore Porto and it was a wonderful experience. Although you can see the city across the river right from the boat, it takes about 40 minutes to get to the center. The streets are very narrow and all cobblestones forcing the buses to drive slowly especially when passing each other. Sometimes it looked like we were driving partly on the sidewalk. The city, 2nd after Lisbon, is a very old town, run down, like many of Portugal's cities, but retains the charm of centuries past. There are no modern buildings, signs, neon lights or anything remotely modern in the old town and indeed in much of the city center itself. Flowers are blooming on balconies everywhere and of course, there is laundry hanging right across some the streets, drying. We heard some music and followed the sound to the Porto Train Staition where there was a group of folk dancers performing. Not only were the dancers impressive, the station itself was amazing with thousands of hand-painted ceramic tiles depicting historical moments in Portuguese history. The churches are imposing, and the entire city is built on several very steep hills. It's a chore to walk around and a very steep walk down to the riverfront. But that is where all the action is. We went down there around lunch time and had lunch at a café right by the river watching people passing by and boats negotiating the tidal and river currents below us. We both agreed, it was good we didn't bring Roam here....

After lunch we bought tickets for a tourist bus, the hop-on/hop-off kind that took us all over the city and ended at the other side of the river where the renowned port wine companies store their port wine in oak barrels so that it may aged in a perfect environment. We went to a producer called Croft and had a tour of the warehouse and then tasted their Port Wine. It was very interesting and we both agreed, we really like Port wine. So we bought a bottle to take back to Roam. Dan had a nice birthday on Roam, his favorite place, on May 30th. The only thing missing was Madde's chocolate mousse. I bought a chocolate soufflé-ish pastry but of course it wasn't nearly as good. Dan spent the better part of the morning negotiating with the harbor office for a berth during the 2 weeks we are away for Caroline's wedding. In the end it worked out to be cheaper to stay a whole month rather than pay the day-rate for 11 days. They were very kind and even deducted what we have already paid for the previous 2 days from the sum total for the month's rent. They also moved us farther in towards to harbor office giving us maximum protection. So we feel very secure and settled and are glad to be here for a while before we fly to Sweden.

Once that was done, we took our map and walked into the little village here to get groceries, check out laundry facilities and get camping gaz for our stove. (Much to Dan's disgust we found that the retailers in town were selling the equivalent bottle of Port that we bought at the outlet at a considerably lower price). The basics can be found here but not much else. We got all the stuff we needed and came back to Roam to spend the afternoon puttering and looking into what sights we can see inland while we are here. There's Santiago de Compostela of course. There are the vineyards up the Duoro river where the port wine grapes are grown and there are numerous castles and churches -(yawn from Dan )- that should be seen, the list seems to be endless.

We met a very nice couple, Simon and Cat from Falmouth, England, who are on an Oyster Boat called Planet. Not Oyster the yacht maker from the US, but a real sailboat designed for oyster fishing. It's 28 feet, with wooden mast and gaff-rig and the sweetest boat you ever saw. They had seen us in Gibraltar and came over to look at Roam. We invited them over for drinks and had a super nice evening chatting into the wee hours and polishing off the Port we had bought. Turns out we have been in many of the same places this spring, both making our way North. They left today, June 1st, but are planning to hang out on the Brittany coast so hopefully we will meet up again north of Brest.

8 June 2011

Leixoes, Portugal

Weather: Gale

Dan and I have been very effective the last few days getting Roam prepared to be left on her own for 2 weeks while we go back to Sweden for The Wedding. The bilge has been cleaned out, the decks cleaned (sand is a horrific problem here, gets into everything), furlex is cleaned and covered to protect it from the ever-present sand, Dan has run fresh water through the engine and we have been moved to a berth closer to the harbor office so they can keep an eye on Roam while we're away. We had a nasty surprise yesterday when Dan was cleaning out the sinks and pipes. He closed the seacock and disconnected the drain hose when suddenly seawater came gushing into the boat. Obviously, the seacock valve is not working so he had to put the hose back on and tighten the clamps without cleaning out the pipe. To change the seacock we will have to be on land so that has to wait until we get back to Sweden. I get very nervous when water gets into the boat. This time it was only a few liters, but it is always frightening to me. Dan laughs and tells me it's no big deal.

I have been cleaning out all our cabinets and making meals out of all the left over bits and pieces we have on board and getting Roam spic and span below decks. An example of our ad hoc cuisine is last night's dinner of a starter of potato salad (to get rid of leftover potatoes) and sardines and then a pasta made with all the vegetables in my vegetable net topped by the last of my Italian pesto. We've handed in our laundry for washing and replaced both camping gaz cannisters. Lastly, Dan went to the fuel station and filled up on Diesel for when we get back.

I've been to the fish market across the bridge. It takes about 25 minutes to walk there but it's a huge fish market along with fresh fruit and vegetables and meat stalls that do not look at all appetizing. There's something about the meat here that is very off-putting. The cuts are very sloppy and uneven, and they aren't terribly hygienic either. We walked into, and quickly out of, one meat market that had a whole bloody piece of an animal lying on a very dirty white marble slab. The butcher had just thrown a chicken carcass onto same marble slab, without clearing it of other remnants and started hacking it to pieces with a cleaver

that still had beef on it . I could become a vegetarian if I stay here much longer. The fish is much better. I bought 2 mackerel which were really nice. There's another big market that sells everything under the sun. It covers about 6 city blocks and runs for the month of June. We found a great frying pan that can be used on both grill and stove. Dan found a gigantic wrench that will accommodate the stuffing box for 10€. He was very pleased about that.

The Dutch couple with a dog that we met in Lisbon came in here 2 days ago. They are also traveling north like us. Alchemy was anchored out in the outer harbor but left before we could get in touch with them. They are also traveling north but we spoke to them on the phone and hope to connect somewhere up in the Rias when we get back from the wedding. Simon and Cat on Planet left a couple days ago and we hope to see them again too before they get back to Falmouth in August.

On Thursday morning we leave for Sweden. We have rented a car and will drive the 3 or so hours to Lisbon, leave the car at the airport and fly to Copenhagen, then take the train to Malmö where the girls will pick us up. During the last few days we have had a couple Skype wedding conferences with all the girls going over details and delegating tasks. It's been really fun with lots of laughter and jokes amid some super ideas.

So this is the last entry in the log for a couple weeks. We will be back as parents-in-law on Roam on 21 June and plan to continue our journey north and eastwards as soon as possible.

Roam tucked in till we get back