Sailing along Portugals coast – Sailing with Saphir

Days in Lisabon

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.

Hugs Eva

Cascais to Lagos

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

Hugs Eva

Porto to Lisbon

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

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.

Hugs Eva