In which we spend a
lot of time in Portugal; learn the truth of the saying: never try to sail to a
deadline but finally make it to Madeira.
October started with Ruby in Leixoes marina, Oporto, Elsie
aboard and Lionel back in Scotland for routine medical checks, returning on
Friday 2nd. Our next
appointment was in Lisbon on the 13th to collect son Zac from the
airport and then sail across to Madeira.
Port barges in Porto
This part of the Portuguese coast is basically a long beach,
with very few harbours and even fewer that can be entered in any weather, so
timing one’s passage down is fairly critical.
Saturday was light winds and we could have motored 30 miles down to
Aviero. Strong winds were, however,
forecast for the following few days and we would have been stuck inside as the
entrance would have been dangerous. So we stayed in Leixoes, with a big day out
on Saturday doing touristy things in Porto, including a tour round a port
winery (very tasty) and our first meal out since we departed Ireland. We then just basically lurked, waiting on
weather. Sunday and Monday it blew up a
Southerly gale. We were comfortable
enough in the marina but our berth was opposite a corner of the harbour and at
high tides waves broke over the wall, carrying all the flotsam that had blown
there so the pontoon and Ruby were covered in detritus. A mistimed mooring adjustment meant that I,
too, got a bucketful of garbage emptied over me, much to Elsie’s amusement. On Tuesday, the wind had subsided but there
was still a huge southerly swell, so we waited one more day.
Wednesday 7th we finally departed. We reckoned that Aviero would still be too
dangerous to enter so headed for Figuera da Foz, a further 35 miles south. Unfortunately the wind was now too light and,
to make a daylight arrival, we had to motor most of the first 40 miles. The wind then increased to a N’ly 4 and we
were able to run goose-winged, then broad reach. With an hour of daylight and 3 miles to our
destination, we were congratulating ourselves when we were called by the
maritime police and informed that the harbour was closed. It transpired that a 25 metre trawler had
been caught by the swell at the harbour entrance the evening before and rolled
over, with the loss of 4 fishermen and SAR operations were still in
operation. We had no option but to
continue a further 35 miles down the coast to Nazare, the only all-weather
harbour between Porto and Lisbon. This
was our first night-time arrival and, it being a strange port, Elsie was a
trifle nervous but we found a convenient, if slightly rickety, pontoon and tied
up without incident having travelled 101 miles since morning.
The Iberians are very
keen fishermen. This goes from anglers
on the pier to open boats with handlines, creel fishers, long lines, drift nets
and trawlers. All down the coast we had
to watch for floats, some marked with flags, others with just bare sticks and
never knowing what they marked. Having
heard of one unfortunate yachtsman who had had his stern drive destroyed when
he picked up a steel wire we were very keen to avoid them. Difficult by day and almost impossible by
night. On this leg, we saw a large (to
us) fishing boat pass down our port side shooting his net. He did a 180 turn and overtook us to
starboard, still shooting. We did wonder
whether he was the big brother of the ring netter that we had annoyed a few
weeks earlier but he didn’t actually attack us.
We reckoned, however, that his net must have been over 10 miles
long. Not fun to be caught up in.
It was light airs again on Thursday morning, but we only had
a little hop down to Peniche so waited until the afternoon and had a fine broad
reach down in N’ly 3-4, tying up opposite the border control’s launch, which
made formalities easy. A pleasant little
town with a good supermarket and a convenient shop for morning bread.
Elsie watching the sun go down. It's a tough job, but someone's got to do it.
We had 50+ miles to our next port, Cascais, which presented
a small dilemma on Friday. Light airs in
the morning meant motoring again, but the harbour is open to the south, whence
strong winds were forecast later, promising an uncomfortable night if we
stayed. So out we went, heading well
offshore to take advantage of the SW’ly forecast for the afternoon which would
give us a broad reach in. Unfortunately
the wind, when it came was from the south-east giving us a beat home. My disgruntlement at this was turned into a
full grump on entry: for the first time ever, they required a photo copy of our
insurance certificate. Unfortunately the
only available copier didn’t work and the half hour delay meant we didn’t get
to our, very tight, berth until sunset.
Saturday, strong winds kept us in Cascais, which meant that we had to
find a pub to watch the rugby. 2 very
good matches with Scotland edging it over Samoa and Wales making a good showing
against Australia. As by this time we
were slightly tired and emotional we didn’t stay for the 3rd match,
England having their predictable, but far too late, trouncing of Uruguay.
We elected to stay in Cascais for Sunday as well, having a
nice walk along the shore to Cabo Raso.
Catching a bus back left us in the centre of town which dropped us at
our new favourite supermarket, Pingo Doce, so we stocked up with a few goodies
on our way back to the boat. A late
start on Monday enabled me to find a repairer for the bottom of the dinghy,
ripped a few weeks back in Combarro. It
was collected from, and delivered back to us in Expo marina. I suspect that, judging from the repairers
grin, that I paid over the odds for the service, but it was worth it to have a
fully serviceable tender again. We
sailed up the Douro, taking advantage of the flood tide and waving to the
Oriana, which was just departing, on the way.
Our choice of destination, a marina at the site of the 1998 trade fair
was convenient for the airport and busses to the centre of Lisbon. We took
advantage of this on Tuesday by having a morning trip to the centre for a bit
of sight-seeing before a mega shop for en-route provisions then collecting Zac
from Airport.
We can carry 160 litres of fuel, enough for about 300 miles
so, with 500 odd to go to Madiera, wanted to have full fuel on departure. We hadn’t topped up since A Coruna so needed
about 110 litres. Not a problem: Expo
marina had fuel; turned out to be out of operation. So we set off on Wednesday, heading for a
settling in sail to Sesimbra needing to stop at another marina near the mouth
of the Douro which has fuel. Unfortunately
they had run out of berths and there was an unattended yacht at the fuel
station so it was back to our unfavourite marina at Cascais. There was flat calm on Thursday, so we stayed
put. Our best departure seemed to be at
midday on Friday, heading well west to avoid a storm due to hit the coast on
Saturday, so Thursday was R&R in Cascais.
On Friday, Elsie was uncomfortable with this plan and we decided to wait
‘til after the storm had passed. Looking
more deeply into the forecast on Saturday proved her to be correct in that
while we might have made rapid progress, it would have been far from
comfortable with winds averaging F5-6.
In fact the Saturday morning storm lasted all day, by which time it was
too late to leave and make Madeira in time for Zac’s flight home. Oh dear! Since his flight home from Madeira
passed through Lisbon, I was able to re-book.
By the strange logic of airlines, it cost me about 50% of the original
fare for him not to use his seat on a flight, which they could then re-sell.
We were provided with entertainment by a large tanker, which
lost its anchor in the storm and drifted towards the marina, going aground only
a hundred feet away from the breakwater.
It was fairly nerve wracking watching it approach as I am fairly sure that
if it had hit the wall, it would have destroyed it, leaving us to the mercy of
a force 10 onshore wind. Having bounced
along the bottom at the next high water, it managed to stabilise itself with
its second anchor and a couple of harbour tugs and was successfully re-floated
the following day.
Tanker drifts towards Cascais
We were now left with entertaining ourselves for the
following 5 days, which we achieved by sailing back to Peniche on Sunday,
having a good walk and lunch ashore on Monday, back to Cascais (anchoring off
this time), up to the centre of Lisbon on Wednesday and doing the tourist walk
along to Belem (Navigator’s monument, Belem tower and modern art gallery) on
Thursday. Early start on Friday to take
Zac back to the airport. I’m sure he could have managed to get there and check
in himself, but it seemed the least I could do after the disappointment of not
making the crossing.
Navigators' monument, Lisbon
Friday afternoon, we motored back to Cascais (again!). The forecast suggested that it was going to
be light airs for the next few days, so we intended to meander down the coast
and hang around Lagos until a suitable window arose for us to make our passage
to Madeira.
Weather check again Saturday morning gave light, but usable
winds and, if we went sufficiently far west, we should catch stronger
northerlies to speed us on our way. We
had 7/8 fuel; 7/8 water and enough food for 5 days. Decision?
Decision!
At 1130 on 24th, we heaved up anchor and headed
WSW. At Elsie’s suggestion, we set 6
hour watches, with her keeping the 12-6.
Although this would give her the deep night hours, there was a full moon,
it would not be totally dark. For the
first 16 hours we were on a dead run goose-winging main and, initially, chute
then genoa before an ENE’ly 3-4. When it
was F4, it was fine as the sails were full but as soon as it dropped below 10
knots, the rolling would back the sails and they would slap. Tried to overcome this, but I think the only
answer is don’t run; reach. Fortunately,
the next morning the wind backed sufficiently for us to broad reach. Unfortunately, 8 hours later it dropped and
we had to motor to make more than 3 knots, which I had determined was our
minimum passage speed. This was not good
news as, although our fuel tank was nearly full, we only had sufficient to
motor for half the distance and we were anticipating light winds approaching
our destination. Running out with 50
miles to go in a flat calm would not be fun!
Approaching midnight on the 27th, the wind backed again to NW
and, although it was only about 7 knots it was on the beam and we could again
sail at 5-6 knots. The wind continued to
back and increase and by 0500 we had 2 reefs in close hauled steering 240. By mid-day, with gusts to 20 knots we had 3
reefs in for the start of Elsie’s watch. An hour later, with it still
increasing, we put away the genoa completely and she motored slowly on track
with the wind fine on the starboard bow, while I went back down to doze. After a further hour, I was woken by a
violent slam and a frantic Elsie. The
wind had suddenly veered 45 degrees and increased to 35 knots, a full
gale. We brought Ruby round to put the
wind back on the bow and throttled back to just give steerage way and the
motion, while not comfortable, was bearable.
The rain increased to a steady downpour and there were all the
indications of an approaching warm front.
This was not on our forecasts (neither was the wind); we were expecting
to be well south of any significant weather.
After 40 minutes, the wind started to ease and we tried a conventional
heave to (OK) then, by tiny increments, we put out the genoa to resume sailing
on track with 20knots on the beam.
Having had such strong weather with the warm front, we were
very apprehensive about its inevitable brother, the cold front. As I came on watch at 1800, I could see a
clearance coming and braced. It turned
out to be a total non-event and we continued on a beam reach with a NNW’ly F4. Elsie was, naturally, rather cautious of her
afternoon’s experience and insisted on 3 reefs before I turned in at midnight
but we continued to make progress.
Favourable winds continued through Tuesday and we could now be sure
that, come what may, we had sufficient fuel to motor to our destination. This was good as, come midnight, it dropped
and we were now alternating motoring and sailing. A beautiful sunrise on Wednesday was made
even better by the peaks of Santo Porto on the horizon and a pod of small
dolphins coming to play. We arrived at
1300 having taken 97 hours to cover 534 miles by log; 504 over the ground, with
only ¼ tank of fuel used. We slept very
soundly that night.
Bureaucracy in Portugal reminds me of India. Every time we check in to a marina there are
long forms to be completed, photo-copies to be made, invoices typed and reports
filed. In Porto Santo, this took 3 staff 20 minutes. I then had to report to the GNR (government
authority) who took another 10 minutes to complete his necessities. (And
required me to report to him again before departure). This compares to U.K., Ireland or France
where, provided you tie up in a reasonable fashion and pay your money, little
else is required. I try to just sit back, relax and think of the beer I will have once all is secure and tidy. The only time that I have lost it(so far) was at Cascais, where they insisted on having a photocopy of our insurance before letting us berth, but had no working copier. We spent 30 minutes, with nothing happening apart from the sun setting. 2 other instances of 'jobsworth attitude here mean that it is our least favourite marina. Shame that it is so conveniently located.
The next couple of days were spent in drying out and
cleaning the boat, a little maintenance and a little touristing round the
Island.
Stats for the month
905 miles by log
833 miles over ground
Stats for the month
905 miles by log
833 miles over ground
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