On to Porto Santos, Madeira Archipelago

Oct. 22nd, Position 35°16.596N/11°10.899W

After seeing Monique out at the station, right after lunch Andy and I went to the supermarket to get the stuff for the trip, while Rutger cleaned the boat and topped up the water tanks.

It's been 2 days now since we left Lagos and are about half way to Porto Santos, a small island just 20nm NE of Madeira. We didn't spend much time in Lagos so we thought it might be nice to make an extra stop over at Porto Santos.

Just after we left Lagos, we were visited by the Portuguese Coastguard.They called me over the radio and soon after they came over in a dinghy. It was just a routine inspection and they were very polite and friendly. They didn't search the boat or anything, but checked all the documents, licenses, safety equipment and then left again. Over the radio the skipper told me I had to report to the maritime police at Porto Santos or Madeira to buy a tax... I have no idea what kind of tax he was referring to .. I'll see it when I get there...

There is a bit more wind so we had a good sail so far but every now and then we also have to motor a bit. The weather is great, sunny and the nights full of stars until sunrise.. :-)

The storm that was forecasted does seem to move NE after all, but still,I don't want to take any risk. The forecast in general could be a bit more specific. On the navtex there was a gale warining for the area between 25° and 7° W and parallels 35 and 45; that is a huge area, about 600 by 600 nm... Anyway, we're at the far south of this area and lows always move to the North, so we'll be fine.

It's very quiet and peaceful in this part of the ocean. Occasionally a freighter or tanker passes, but in general we have no pings on the sea-me. So we can actually switch the sounder on to watch out for other vessels What a difference with before, if we turned on the sounder then it looked like as if constant Morse code messages were coming in...

So, a good moment to write this short update, killing time of my night watch :-)

Hello and goodbye Lagos

It was a nice trip to Arrifana anchorage. The wind picked up enough to sail and we hoisted the spinnaker. With only 12 kts of wind we did better on speed then when motoring :-)

Also the swell picked up and by the time we entered the bay, the swell was as in the pilot book, … making the bay the place to be for surfers …

The boat was swinging like a roller coaster but the waves were spectacular!! Rutger regretted very much not to have taken his surfboard with him … :-o

We could not barbeque in this kind of movement and Andy managed to fix an easy dinner. We couldn't stay for the night, the anchor alarm kept going off and the rocks didn't look too comfortable .. So we decided to move on after dinner to Lagos.

When I came on watch at midnight, we had just passed Cabo de Sao Vincente. Actually we were just south of Sagres with a nice and sheltered bay where we could anchor.

It would be nice to get to Lagos in daylight, so we headed North and dropped the hook for the rest of the night.

After a nice swim, Rutger and Monique, we left for Lagos, with... 15 kts of wind :-)

The wind died again after an hour or so....

Anyway, Rutger went back to fishing again and caught a beautiful fish. It looked like a tropical fish and we could not find it in the book.

We arrived at Lagos around 4 pm and planned to stay there for a couple of nights. When I checked in at the marina, I asked if they would know someone to look at my furling system. They gave me the number of Antonio. He was in fact working on a boat on the next pontoon and came over to have a look. He went up the mast and when he came down again, it was fixed :-) He told me to use the uphaul as a genoa halliard because of the better angle and that was it.

When we were moored, our neighbors told us there was a big storm forecasted with massive rain for coming Sunday. A very deep low at the Azores was heading due East, which is a bit out of the ordinary. They're supposed to go North-East. Anyway. I downloaded the gribfiles at Ugrib and Zygrib and they were consistent with the forecast. So we decided not to stay in Lagos but leave the other day. That would give us time enough to go South and West to Madeira and avoid this bad weather.

So unfortunately we won't get to see much of Lagos … It looks like a very nice place. Anyway we had a very nice dinner in the old center. It was Monique's last night onboard .. :-(

She did manage to get the card of Pedro the fado singer though, so she'll have something to dream about on her flight back :-)

October 16-18, From Oeiros to Arrafina

Oct. 18th , position 37°46.674N/008°52.501W

We left Oeiros oct. 16th, heading for the most beautiful bay of Portugal some 30 nm South.

When I plotted the waypoints however it turned out to be at least 55 nm …. meaning we would arrive a bit late to have a barbeque... :-( Something ha to be wrong! I could not have made a mistake like that.... and I didn't … I had put in the waypoints for the wrong bay :-o  The bay we were going to was Portinho de Arrabida and not Praia Vasco da Gama, that would be our next destination...

The trip to Arrabida was nice but unfortunately there was too little wind to sail, we motored the whole trip.. Getting in was a bit tricky as we had to avoid the Baxio do Alpertuche, a drying sandbank, that could have

moved or grown over time... Because we did try and sail for a bit, in spite of the light wind, we did arrive in the dark so the directions from the pilot were a bit hard to follow. Distances are harder to estimate in the dark, but Rutger managed very well to set out the course on the plotter and with a close eye on the depth meter, we got to the exact right spot to anchor :-)

Next  morning at sunrise it was indeed a very beautiful anchorage ! Just when Monique wanted to go for a swim, the maritime police came by, telling us that we were anchoring in a national park which was not

allowed. They were very polite and I chose not to explain that the pilot book said otherwise. Since it already was 11 am local time, we left the bay after Monique had a little swim around the boat.

This time we were on our way to Praia Vasco da Gama just near the town called  Sines :-) We trashed the fish on our way out and tried to catch a fresh one. We had no luck with the fishing, nor with the wind … and had to motor the whole way.

Since there was no wind at all, I was hoisted up the mast to check the jammed top swivel of the genoa furling. It turned out to be broken … I cut the line from the genoa to the swivel so we can use the genoa but we have to hoist it like in the old times... Maybe in Lagos I can replace the broken part, otherwise I'll have it fixed in Las Plamas. In the mean time we can always use the staysail if we have to reef.

At Praia Vasco da Gamawe anchored and had a real nice evening and a nice barbeque :-)

This morning we left around 9 am local time, heading for an anchorage at Arrifana. Again with not enough wind to sail but, just as I was typing, the engine was turned down because Rutger caught another Bonito :-) So tonight we'll have a barbeque with a fresh fish !!

Lisboa

We left Ilha da Berlenga at around 9:30 am local time. Unfortunately there was too little wind to sail and it stayed that way the whole day. So we motored all the 53 nm to Lisboa. Well, that can happen...

Early afternoon though we finally got some luck in the fishing stuff. The rattle on the fishing rod went off and then it stopped again. There was not a lot of tension on the line but Rutger wanted to check anyway. When he hauled it in there was obviously something on the hook but it seemed not a fish, it didn't resist at all... But,... it was !! We got it in and with a smack on the head it was dead. It looked like a mackerel but when we checked the book later it looked more like a bonito. Anyway, while I was getting his guts out, Rutger had set the line again and by the time I was finished he got another one, and another one.... I cleaned them all and put away the rod... three was more then enough. The biggest one was about 50 cm and the other 2 only slightly smaller...The baby bath I picked up just before we left came in very handy to clean the fish without getting the boat all bloody. After we got in the marina at around 7.30 pm we had a great catch of the day dinner :-)

We moored in the marina in Oeiros, about 10 nm west of Lisboa just at the entrance of the Tejo river. Saturday we left to visit Lisboa. That is Monique, Rutger and I. Andy decided to stay on the boat, working for a bit.

It took us about 40 min by train to get there, it was a nice ride..

Guided by Monique, our onshore navigator and a little help from the lonely planet, we did a magnificent tour that took about whole afternoon. Monique had read something about tram 28 we had to take as a starting point and that was an experience. The trams look a bit like the ones in San Francisco but then smaller. It sometimes drove so close to the buildings you could definitely not lean out of the window!!

The tour we did took us indeed to all the beautiful places. At a flee market, described as the theft market in the lonely planet, we bought a fado cd for a really good price :-)

Of course we wanted to have dinner in a fado restaurant. On the tour we walked by a few and we went back to there later. We did not have any reservations and the first 2 were fully booked....

We were advised to try at Pedro street and there we found this tiny restaurant that had put out all its tables on the little square and there was this woman singing …. fantastic!! It turned out to be a group of 4 singers and two guitarists that played very good. They were singing right in front of our table Moninque fell in love with one of the men....:-) I got his card with his phone number, address and all to send him the video's I made but I have to hide it and check Monique's purse when she's leaving !!

We ended up staying the whole night, missing our train back but whatever.

Taxi's aren't that expensive at all and we had a really great night.

Back at the boat we sat with Andy for a while and after a few more drinks we went to bed. Today we'll sail for a bit to an anchorage off the Praia Vasco da Gama near Sines, about 30 nm South, where we'll barbeque the rest of the fish. It's supposed be the most beautiful bay.... and,... we got wind today :-)

From Ilha da Berlenga, Portugal

Oct. 14Th, position 39°24.496N/009°30.260W; Ilha da Berlenga, 4nm NW of Peniche

We left Leixoes Oct. 12th, around 5 pm heading for Ilha da Berlenga about 115 nm SSW.

Ilha da Berlenga is a group of 3 [very] small islands which according to the pilot book were worthwhile visiting. The trip was okay but we had to motor a lot. Twice the wind picked up enough to set sail. We even hoisted the spinnaker but that didn't last long as the wind died again. For downwind sailing we need at least 10 kts with the swell, even if it's a mild swell.

Anyway we arrived around 3 pm next day and dropped the hook. It was indeed worthwhile :-) The 'main' island has a lighthouse and is inhabited by a handful of  people. The islands are a national park/bird sanctuary with trails for walking. Also there is an old monastery which seemed still in use according to the lights that were on at night...

We launched the dinghy, went over to a small beach and walked around for a bit. We didn't see that many birds but for the rest the view was great. Rutger walked over to the monastery were Monique and I picked him up with the dinghy later. We did a short tour around the cliffs in the dinghy and went into a cave that was in fact a tunnel. `The steering was a bit special because of the funny waves and eddies but we managed to avoid the rocks and the walls :-)

We had a very nice barbeque that night and stayed for the night. The wind had picked up a bit, so we hoped that we could have a nice sail to Lisboa the next day. Actually, we'll be heading for the marina in Oeiras at the entrance of the Rio Tejo. From there it´ll take about 40 minutes by train to get to the center of Lisboa. The plan is to visit Lisboa on Saturday.

The marinas more upstream are very crowded and don´t have any berths reserved for visiting yachts, according to the pilot. Only in high season there might be some spaces open from boats that are away. Cascais is the marina where most passing yachts go to, but that is a pretty long ride to Lisboa - and also very expensive.

Anyway, when we left the beautiful anchorage at Ilha da Berlenga this morning, the wind had died again so at the moment we are motoring, hoping the wind will pick up later ….
However, since we left Scheveningen, we have had no rain, apart form a few lost drops, only sunshine and starry nights and that´s really nice, too! :-)

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 :-)