Next day my brother Lars came to sail with us for a few day’s and Vittoria joined two days later. On top off that my cousin and his wife was in Lisbon and came out to Cascais on Friday. So nice to see them and have lunch with them. Me and Lars took a walk along the coast up to Boca do Inferno. The sea was very calm but got some nice photos of the caves
Meeting friends continues. Marie and Henrik came to Lisbon Friday evening and Saturday evening Susanne and Matti arrived. Saturday was spent in Lisbon picking up Vittoria, having lunch together with Marie and Henrik and at dinner Susanne and Matti join.
The original plan was to sail to Sines to meet Vittoria and then sail to Lagos. Due to the weather we decided to stay. On Sunday we took a walk up to Park wich is an oas in Cascais and then in to town for a lunch. It was blowing very much and in the gusts it went up to 15.7 m/sek or 30kn . Glad that we didn’t go out sailing and extra when heard that it had been an Orca attack not far from Cascais. In the evening we went out for dinner on Marisco and Praça wich is a very good fish restaurant in the harbour. Love theirs Tuna steak nikkei sauce. Early night since we all had to go up early on Monday.
Woke up at 6.30 and waved bye bye to Lars and Vittoria . They took an early bus to Faro to fly back to Luxemburg. We cast off and headed to Sines as some more sailboats. We stayed 2-3 NM from the coastline depending on the depth of the sea. Not deeper then 50/60 m. If we would have crossed over the bay we would have save 15NM wich is approximately 2 hours.
Best part is that after 2 1/2 hours we got company. And this time you will see many dolphins picture.
This time it is not only fishing gears to watch out for . There is a Nato practice going on in the bay and we where asked to go outside off them. Edgar answered that we didn’t want to do that due to security of orcas. Took a while until they came back but they accepted that and told us to keep 1 NM frim the boats. One more time dolphins.
Now I am sure that it was dolphins I saw along the Spanish coast with all the birds. Great to have a better camera to catch them when they are so far away. This is by far the best photo I have taken.
Arrived safe to Sines and stayed just for the night. And we left early in the morning and enjoyed the sunrise.
This coastline is very dramatic and the waves are 2m high and comes from the side so it is very rocky in the boat and in between there is an even higher wave so we have to hold tight.
After rounded the cost we are at the Algarve coast. The waves comes from behind and the wind comes from the side a bit behind. We are sailing again and doing 7-9 knots. So nice and we reach Lagos in time before they close the bridge. Passing in to the berth we see our friends boat Life@Sea. It will be nice meeting them again.
Here we will stay for a week before we go down to Lanzarote. There will not much time to explore the city since we are of to Tavira for 30years wedding anniversary party and on Saturday a 70 years birthday party in Lisbon.
Wish you all a lovely week. Ps if you scroll down you will find the previous blogs as well and you can also subscribe to get notifications on your email when I have updated the blog under “Kommentarer”Sorry it is in Swedish just there
We left Porto early in the morning together with Life@sea and Currier Sur. First it was hard to see but as soon as the sun came up we had clear sight. Then we realised we had a lot others boats after us as well.. And we also saw lots of dolphins. Thank you for boat photos and the film Christophe
First jump I caught on the camera
Arrived in Figuera da Foz after eight hours on the sea. We took a walk in to town to have something to eat.
Next morning we wave bye to Life@sea and Currier Sur and headed to Nazare. We had a very nice day and got som really nice photos of Saphir from Esther of Sweden. A bit zig zag sailing between the fishing gears.
Nazare is famous for the high waves and is the paradise for surfers. To get them you have to go to the next beach north of the cliff so her in Nazare city the waves are smaller. I went to the beach and the water was great, big waves so didn’t need to go far out in the water to swim. But is was a bit tricky to get in and out of the water and not get caught in a wave. Lots of sand inside the bikini. Edgar didn’t join me but he also went in the water but in a wetsuit. He wanted to check the zinc anodes and at the same time cleaned the side off the boat. We stayed a few nights here. Very nice food and very good services in both of the restaurant we visited. Portugal is growing on us as we say in Sweden.
It is not always easy for us to get a place in a harbour as we are 18m long and most harbour at least so far are made more for up to 14-15m. Of course we can stay in a bay on anchor but our anchor winch is not reliable. We will get a new in Las Palmas.Depending on the weather some harbours fill up quickly. This makes us plan little ahead looking at weather forecast to see when we can go and then prebook. Sometimes we have to changes the dates of our arrival / leaving and so far that has been okay. This time we kept our planning and left Tuesday morning on the 20 sep heading to Cascais. These early mornings are lovely with the sunrise. It is only hard to get out of bed…. Sailing close to the coast is nice when you can see the coastline changes from beaches to big rocks and sometimes caves. The backside is that the fog always comes and we have all the fishing gears to watch out for.
We arrived to Cascais after 8.1/2 hours and an hour later we had our place and all paperwork was done. From not knowing many along our sailing (four actually and they are very new acquaintances ) we have many around us here in Cascais/Lisbon. Edgars former colleague Jörgen with family came sailing in to the harbour. They will also do the ARC. In the afternoon Johan who lives here with his wife Marina came down to have a look on the boat. Sadly Marina was not here. In the evening we had dinner with a friend from our time in Riga.
The harbour in Porto is located in Duero River less then 1 km from the Atlantic sea. This effected us very much during high and low water including the swells. It felt like we been out sailing and not laying calm in a harbour. Worst was on Monday to Tuesday when it was very windy and raining. All boats was bumping around. During the night we lost one fender and one was in the water that we saved. Sadly the boat got some scratches that Edgar have filled in as good as he could. It is not easy when it is bumping. The positivt about the harbour is the view, the location as in close to the Sea , the city and have a cute little village next to us with restaurants, food stores, cafe, bakery and a Portuguese traditional washing place
Washing house no machine are used
So what do you do when you are not sailing. Relaxing, like reading a book, looking at a film or sleeping…. Nope! sleep in sometimes yes ( if you ask our daughters they who’d say we are teenagers) and have longer breakfast. Otherwise it is like having a home that needs your attention like cleaning, washing, repairing, food shopping and also filling oil, or change it after a certain time,checking filters, fill up water, organising. And since I love to take lots of pictures there is some extra work sorting them out and then use some in the blog and when that is done time to write the text to the blog. This is not always easy doing it in an other language then your mother tongue and sewing of course etc. We still organise on things around to get them there best place. Wherever that is? At the moment the beds in the cabins are full and that is not good when we get guests onboard soon.
Staying 1-4 nights then you quite busy so having seven nights is very long for us but it didn’t felt that long since we got to spend time with Sofia and Fredrik from Zelda. One day we walked in to Porto took the gondola up to the bridge and walked over to old town and walked back home to our boats. Totally 12km or 20 000 steps.
Together with Life@Sea, Currier Sur,Zelda, Balder, Esther of Sweden and Windysailing we walked to Churchill, witch is a port winery . There we a had a privet guiding and tasting.
I realised that we have missed the most beautiful Mc Donald’s ever so we had to go to Porto again. Edgar was quick to say yes when I told him that I wanted to go to Mc Donald’s. ( not my favourite place to eat at) And luckily just around the corner is Sao Bento train station that used to be a convent for nuns. The entrance is decorated with hand painted tiles. It is sad that there are some mistakes putting them up and that makes it even more charming. So glad we got to see it. Specially since we actually passed by it two days before and totally missed it.
In between we have had sundowners, lunch, small chats on the pier etc with other boat-friends Friday morning 16 sep we leave Porto and also say fare winds to Zelda that will sail to Madeira . We will meet them agin in LasPalmas
All in all Porto is a lovely place but the harbour needs to work on getting better wavebreaker.
Plan changed. We leave Muxia in the morning and sail in a convoy down to Ria de Muros. The fog was very intense when we woke up and kept like that for almost the hole day. Our New sailing friends Zelda, Life@Sea, Morning Glory and Currier Sud are there in the front somewhere. You have to be very close to see each other.
Almost at the Ria the sky clears up and we see a Guardian civila boat meeting us. Suddenly it turns and comes up next to us. A bit scary first, thinking have we done something wrong. Gladly they only wanted our papers and ask where we came from and where we were going. The last thing the wonder was why we are going in a convoy and they agreed it was a good thing due to the Orcas. The papers came back in a fishing net( the Swedish language have a specific name for it.. fiskehåv ) and we could continue . Getting in to the Ria we decided to go to Muros harbour and the rest went further in the to the Ria to swing anchor in a bay.
We spent a few days here . A very cute village and calm. Did some walk around, food shopping as always. Lots off fishing boats where laid outside off us.
After two nights it is time to go more south. This time again we go in a convoy to Ribeira. Still feels more safe going near the coast. We keep only 2-3 NM from land and that is where all the fishing gears are so we are looking out for them all the time. Don’t want them in the propeller. On top of that we have the fog that comes and goes and it makes it harder to spot them. This time it is great to have Peter and Anna on Sea@Life in front telling us where they are.
When we get closer to Ria de Arousa we have to go round the island since not all of us had received the license to sail near National parks Islands. There are a few of these Islands and we heard that they are very lovely so we wanted to make sure we could go there. Entering the Ria de Arousa we saw some dolphins that I manage to get with the big camera. Next to Ribiera harbour there is a beach where we all anchored. After a while lots of dolphins came and played around the small sailing boats. Think one of the boys was extra happy. In the evening we had Anna&Peter,Sofia &Fredrik,Isabell&Chris and Christophe on our boat for a sundowner. It was very nice to sit down and talk to all of them and to get to know them a bit.
These we saw going in to the RiaBye bye nice to see you
A tour in to town to do some grocery shopping ended up with new sandals as well . Didn’t buy these when I saw them in Mallorca so now was the time and I was not the only one buying sandals. After lunch it was time to leave and when we took up the anchor the chain was filled with “green salad” so it took a little wile to clean the worst to get it up. Right and enough wind made us all happy that we finally could sail. Passing by lots of fish and shellfish farms some of them very close to the shore. Which a bit destroys the view and makes it harder to anchor . Instead of anchoring we decided to go in to Porto Villagarcia. We ended up having a nice evening over at Christophes boat Currier Sur.
In the morning we left to go to Illa Ons, a small island just outside the Ria, while the rest stayed to go to Santiago de Compostela. It was just a few hours out to the Island. Before we could anchor we had to apply to make sure that it would not be to many boats and person that would be on the Island as this is a National park. When the anchor is in the dinghy goes in to the water and we get in to land and to the beach. So nice to have sand between my toes and take a dip in the water when I felt for it. It could have been warmer but okay . Think it showed 16,5… but is was very clear and nice. What I didn’t expect on the beach was total nakedness of some people. Of corse it is up to anyone to choose to wear or not wear swimwear’s. Not that I am that prude but I wouldn’t choose to go skinny-dip in public. On the beach we met the couple from the Swedish boat Viking goddess Anna and Clyde. Believe we will see more of them along the coast. And yes we did.
Next day we enjoy the beach for an hour before we had to go back to the boat due to the strong current. We hadn’t put on the engine so it was heavy to row back to the boat. The wind was getting stronger and also the waves so we decided to go to Vigo and explore the city and do a tour to Santiago de Compostela. The way in Ria de Vigo was very nice and sunny. We spotted lots of sailing boats that had a competition.Just when we had gotten in to the Ria we hear on the VHF that there are Orcas attacking a boat bit north of Illa Ons. Later we get the good news that the crew and the boat is okay and this time no damage on the boat. It had only been in the water for three weeks after been attacked by orcas and needed to be repaired. First time they hit the rudder so hard that it bent and the couldn’t steer the boat. We met them later in Porto.
Luckily Edgar had called up the harbour in Vigo and got us the last place. Maybe not the best one just inside the pier and next to the gas station that was closed. Sadly we had a lot of clucking when we were sleeping or trying to… But happy we didn’t need to lay on anchor in the hard wind and rain that was predicted the next days. Since the weather was still nice I decided to do some washing and after the third machine the rain came so we hade to hang dry in the boat. I had walk around the city and we decided to go to Santiago the next day if the weather was going to be okay. In the morning it was pouring down. I ended up staying insided relaxing and did some knitting and sewing. Nice to have restaurants around the corner when the inspiration goes down. We had some really nice seafood here and pizza. I am in heaven. Edgar is also okay if he gets some meat in between.
There will be a good weather window in two days to go down to Porto, so we leave Vigo to go further out on the Ria. On our way out we see MorningGlory and Balder on the other side of the Ria going to Vigo. They are easy spotted due to there turquoise colour. And not far after them we see Life@sea and Zelda. All of them sailing. Lucky them.
We arrive to Baiona and ask if they have place for us. The first harbour was full but we got one on the other one. According to the office manager the harbour was full and the poor guy who gave us the place was in trouble but we could stay. Once again these harbour towns don’t look much from the seaside but when you step in a block it is totally charming and cosy.
The next day the bay fills up with more sailing boat’s getting ready to sail south the next day. Best was that some off these boats where our sailing friends . In the evening we all went out for dinner in Baiona.
At 8.00 on Thursday 8 Sep we leave Baiona with our sailing friends and a lot of other boats as well. It is a very magical morning. Lots of photos are taken and just outside the wave-pier there is a lots of small fishing boats. Depending on our speeds we divide us in different groups. We take the lead and guide Currier Sue and Life@Sea true all the fishing gears that we pass. It is a lot off them so some slalom technic is required. Happy to see some dolphins also. The waves are high and long and in between our friends boats mor or less disappears
We reach Porto and we wave to our friends that will go to an other harbour. Lovely bridge and view when we entering Duero river and the harbour. An hour later Life@Sea came into the harbour since they got denied due to there length even if it was okay when they booked it. Here we will stay a few days or more. All depends on the wind,waves and rest of the weather
Sailing with Saphir 