Birthday in Porto

We arrived in Leixoes oct. 10^th at around 9 pm. Of course we waited till midnight to have a birthday drink but since we wanted to visit Porto next day we went to sleep not much later...

Next morning when I got back from a shower Monique had decorated the boat. That was really nice although it took a hint from Rutger for me to notice it … :-o. Anyway we left after breakfast and took the bus to Porto. The half hour trip was sort of a site seeing ride. It was a beautiful day and warm too. Walking in Porto means going up and down narrow and very steep streets and we had to walk in the shade because of the heat...

Porto is really worth while visiting and with Monique being our on shore navigator we got to see almost all the places that were in the book :-)

We had lunch at the banks of the river Douro that runs through Porto and went on with our tour, crossing the old bridge to the South side. Of course we there visited one of the port cellars ! We went to the oldest one which happened to be founded by an Englishman in 1790, called Sandeman.

Next English spoken tour however was not until tomorrow... so we did the first one that was on and that was in French.... None of us speaks French so apart from the few words we could pick up we were clueless about the story the guide so happily told us. Nonetheless it was nice and for sure worth while to be there and see all the huge barrels full with port. Some of those are itself ancient.

All the guides were of course dressed with the Zorro cape and sombrero so we had about a dozen Sandemans running around :-) The tour included a small tasting session of course. I had only once before drunk port and I didn't like it too much.. too sweet for my taste. This port however was much better!

Because of the heat we took a break several times to chill and enjoy the scenery. The ebb tide runs at an amazingly strength. In the pilot book it said that with heavy rainfall it can get up to 8 kts.

We had no rain but it was close to spring tide and that you could see!

Anyway after having tapas we went for a restaurant for dinner. My desert was served with candles on it which was a nice surprise and Monique had bought me a nice present, ..a Sandeman cap :-).

We took a taxi back to the marina. I must say that all Porto is not expensive at all. The cab ride was only € 13 and dinner for 4 including wine and desert € 70 and a bit.

We had a little sip of port when we got back to end a really wonderful day, and a very special birthday!

Oct, 10th, on our way to Portugal …

We had a lovely night in the Baiona bay. No wind, clear sky with moon and stars and a beautiful sunset. The barbeque was delicious :-)

Next morning we got up at 7am. The weather is great but there's not much wind, about 5kts S/SW

It's supposed to veer to W/NW but not to increase much.

Since Spain is one hour ahead of EST we had a really nice view of the sun rising at our stern while we motored out of the bay.

At around 09:00 UTC we crossed the border and changed the courtesy flag:-) We were welcomed by 15 kts of wind and a pack of dolphins that came playing at our bow.

We had all sails out including the stay sail and did 8 kts over ground :-)

That didn't last long though. After an hour or so the wind dropped to 3 kts and we motor sailed for a while. Then the wind picked up a bit but from the East... it was a broad to beam reach so we set the genaker. By the time we had it set, the wind had backed to North-West so we set it on the pole. That didn't last too long either.... and we were back to motor sailing.

A few hours later we could sail again with the spinnaker this time. This time the wind stayed steady for about 3 hours. It wasn't much but enough to enjoy a lovely afternoon sail,

After 73.6 nm and 13 ½ hrs we arrived in Leixoes and moored up, finding the office to open tomorrow morning at 8 am :-)