Portugal – Sailing with Saphir

Lagos Party weekend and off to Las Palmas

Our stay in Lagos was very intense. Not much time to explore the city. Had a walk around in the old town on Wednesday after cleaned up in the boat and between washing machines.

On Thursday we rented a car and drove to IKEA to get new pillows and bed quilts and some more stuff. Of course we had to have Swedish meatballs for lunch. After that we headed towards Tavira to meet our friends that was celebrating their 30th wedding anniversary together with their family and some close friends. Thank you Magnus and Poulina for a great party. It was so great to so see you and our friends again before we are crossing the Atlantic. And Eva Sandgren we are waiting for you to join us.

The day after we went to have lunch near the beach. To get to the restaurant you could walk out on a pathway our take a small train. No time for hanging on the beach sadly, but I got time at the pool before lunch at the house.

Back to the boat for on night and on Saturday morning we drove up to Cascais to celebrate Jörgen 70birthday. It was a great party. Many of their friends from Cascais and sailors. We meet two sailing families that will sail with us on the Arc+and Arc world Ellinora and Blue Sunshine. We are also going to sail with Jörgen and Louise and their kids when we go from Caribbean to Fiji.

We have a new plan on our circumnavigation since we got a place with the first group leaving Caribbean in January. This will give us five more weeks in Fiji. Here you can se the plan

On our way back to the boat we stopped in Albufeira to say hi to Sven-Olof and Bettan and see their new house. The house we passed was covered with seashells.

Monday we spent foodshopping and preparing for our next long leg. This time we will go 640NM approximately 1200km. So it is quite a long distance and the longest we have done so far. In the evening we had a lovely dinner with our friends Anna and Peter from Life@sea. At lunch on Tuesday we left the harbour . Just before Anna and Clyde from Viking Goddess came by to say bye . They are going in to Spain and spend the winter there. Anna and Peter was standing along the side and waved. I delivered cinnamon buns to them since it was kanelbullens day. Thanks for the lovely photos Anna and Peter. Enjoy your stay in Lagos.

The first 12 hours we went by motor to get as far out as possible and hope that no Orcas will come. When we had arrived in Las Palmas we heard about an orca attack outside Lagos. Feel so sad for the sailors and so humble that we have made it safe . We did see a dolphins far away. Not many boats out here just a few tankers. Some off them are really huge

The first days was okay waves and beautiful sunsets. It was so nice to set sail and enjoy the the sea. After the first night we found a squid on the boat. Later we also found one on the back of the boat.

Sleeping on the boat when it is only us we don’t use our ordinary bed instead we sleep on the sofa or on deck. A bit harder on deck since you have to hold on to something

On Thursday night it started to get rougher. The waves was up to 3-4 meters and came from back and side

The first to photos I s taken from the same spot and showed ho high the waves are when they come from the back.

After little bit more than four days we see land and the tip of Grand Canaria. It takes a couple of more hours before we get in to the harbour. Arriving we get welcomed by Sofia and Fredrik that arrived their earlier that day. Since it was late we stayed next to the harbour office for the night and the next morning we got or place. Here will we stay until the start on the 6 of November. Except for one week when we go home to see our children and grandchildren

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

A week in Porto

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

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.

Hugs Eva Ps I love to get comments from you