A short day run this of just about 55 miles, we left bang on 0700 with next to no wind whatsoever so the engine is going to get a real test today. There were several ships moving in and out of Lisbon but we timed our departure just right and crossed the fairway without having to fret about their movements. We slipped into a simple three hours on and three off routine for the day and it was a relaxing trip down apart from the noise of the diesel thumping away reassuringly. It was also very hot and sunny and was a real struggle to spend the whole three hours off watch sitting in the sun, I’ll have to work on perfecting the art. The dolphins (probably the same ones) turned up as usual but not for very long this time.
The only excitement for the day was off Cabo Esprich where there were hundreds of fishing markers, if you can call them that, there were no flags and some were very small and dark in colour. It was quite a job to weave through these as we had the sun ahead at the time so it was reflecting off the sea where we were trying to look. Other than that we had a straightforward run down to Sines. We motored into the harbour dropped the pick and went to go in reverse but the gear would not go in, we used the main in what wind there was to try and dig the anchor in.
Got up this morning and sorted out the boat a bit better, we also got stuck into the gear problem, nothing major, I’ve had this before it was a broken spring on the outside of the leg, but we only noticed it after we had taken the top off the leg and re-centred the throw for the dog-clutch and been through all the other connections for the gear cable from lever to leg. I should have checked the spring first as I have suffered exactly this problem once before but it had completely slipped my mind what with all the leg problems we have had recently I was convinced it was something more serious. Paranoia paranoia’s gonna get ya.
With all that lot done we are now relaxing once again and about to mosey on ashore to check out the town and find some wifi connection, the local libraries seem to all provide access for free so that will be my first stop.
Friday 28 September 2007
From Pete
We had a very enjoyable stop at Cascais, the anchorage was safe (to a degree) and free, we used the small fishermans jetty to land at in the dinghy. This was handy as it was right at the centre of things.
The first night from about half an hour after sunset the wind started to blow off the land quite hard, and by about an hour and a half after sunset it was blowing a near gale. That put paid to any plans to go ashore for a meal or drinks, so we ate on board and wondered at the amazing holding power of the anchor. A good juncture to tell about our ground tackle, at the moment we are using a cheap Dan forth copy which seems to dig in and hold quite well, but does not like weed. Our previous first choice of anchor before I bought the cheapy, is a standard cqr 15kg. Both are on twenty metres of chain followed by 80 metres of nylon rode. I have a third anchor but it is only a smaller kedge really.
For power we are supposedly self sufficient. I have three battery banks, one for the engine start, one bank of three batteries (235ah total) that provides all the domestic and navigational equipment, and one single 110ah battery that supplies the inverter, which we use to charge all the electronic gadgets of the twenty first century, ie mobile, laptop, mp3 players and so on. The engine can charge the domestic and engine battery if required to, but they all have their own independent charge supply apart from the engine. The engine battery is connected to a 5watt solar panel which trickle charges it nicely and keeps it topped up ready to fire up the engine when needed. The domestic bank is supplied by a duogen which is a wind and water towed generator and provides many many amps, unless we are at anchor with no wind when it does nothing, this makes me edgy the longer we have no wind at anchor. The third bank is charged by a 70 watt solar panel which keeps it very nicely topped up. This panel can also be switched over to charge the main domestic bank if I need it to ie in times of need when there is no wind at anchor and we want to run the fridge for a cold beer which is an absolute must.
For communications we are carrying a vhf (dsc) radio, a satellite phone on prepaid tariff, bought second-hand just for this trip, mobile phones of course and my laptop for emails and such when in harbour. In emergency we have the epirb which sits on the wall and looks pretty in yellow and will hopefully still be unused when we return, touching wood . . . . . . now.
Anyway enough of that stuff, back to Cascais the second morning we awoke to a flat calm which gave us the confidence to jump on the train into Lisbon to do the touristy thing and have a good explore. I wore the wrong sandals and ended up with very painful blisters, I shall beware of that in future and only walk as far as the bar!!! Even so I think we just about covered all the culture spots and also found a fantastic cake shop, delicious.
We got back aboard by about six pm with the wind just threatening to come up again so we stayed aboard and ate again, but it did not blow as hard this time. The first bottle of port has been thoroughly tested for quality and it passed, it also passes the price test at 4.50 euros. That one was bought at Nazare and finished at Cascais so I had to replace it with some more I found which cost 3.49 and 3.99. It’ll be interesting to see if they match it for quality.
Cascais was certainly geared up for your average brit tourist, the first place I saw when I stepped ashore to go to do the paperwork was O’niells Irish pub. For a moment I thought my navigation must have been way out, as Irish pubs are in Ireland surely,. We did not venture in to test the theory, being here to sample the delights of the country we are in, and not ones we’ve left behind. If I want a full English breakfast I’ll cook it myself. Other than that Cascais had a lot going for it, probably because we have missed the main rush of the tourist season, but the bars and restaurants were still priced to fleece the tourist.
There were a good number of other yachts anchored and all seemed to be heading south, and for all you single girlies there was a yacht there called ’Hunk - around the world’ from Sweden with two young blonde Swedes aboard, I reckon they could be in for an interesting trip.
Time to get ready now for the next leg to Sines, leaving tomorrow 27th September at 0700.
The first night from about half an hour after sunset the wind started to blow off the land quite hard, and by about an hour and a half after sunset it was blowing a near gale. That put paid to any plans to go ashore for a meal or drinks, so we ate on board and wondered at the amazing holding power of the anchor. A good juncture to tell about our ground tackle, at the moment we are using a cheap Dan forth copy which seems to dig in and hold quite well, but does not like weed. Our previous first choice of anchor before I bought the cheapy, is a standard cqr 15kg. Both are on twenty metres of chain followed by 80 metres of nylon rode. I have a third anchor but it is only a smaller kedge really.
For power we are supposedly self sufficient. I have three battery banks, one for the engine start, one bank of three batteries (235ah total) that provides all the domestic and navigational equipment, and one single 110ah battery that supplies the inverter, which we use to charge all the electronic gadgets of the twenty first century, ie mobile, laptop, mp3 players and so on. The engine can charge the domestic and engine battery if required to, but they all have their own independent charge supply apart from the engine. The engine battery is connected to a 5watt solar panel which trickle charges it nicely and keeps it topped up ready to fire up the engine when needed. The domestic bank is supplied by a duogen which is a wind and water towed generator and provides many many amps, unless we are at anchor with no wind when it does nothing, this makes me edgy the longer we have no wind at anchor. The third bank is charged by a 70 watt solar panel which keeps it very nicely topped up. This panel can also be switched over to charge the main domestic bank if I need it to ie in times of need when there is no wind at anchor and we want to run the fridge for a cold beer which is an absolute must.
For communications we are carrying a vhf (dsc) radio, a satellite phone on prepaid tariff, bought second-hand just for this trip, mobile phones of course and my laptop for emails and such when in harbour. In emergency we have the epirb which sits on the wall and looks pretty in yellow and will hopefully still be unused when we return, touching wood . . . . . . now.
Anyway enough of that stuff, back to Cascais the second morning we awoke to a flat calm which gave us the confidence to jump on the train into Lisbon to do the touristy thing and have a good explore. I wore the wrong sandals and ended up with very painful blisters, I shall beware of that in future and only walk as far as the bar!!! Even so I think we just about covered all the culture spots and also found a fantastic cake shop, delicious.
We got back aboard by about six pm with the wind just threatening to come up again so we stayed aboard and ate again, but it did not blow as hard this time. The first bottle of port has been thoroughly tested for quality and it passed, it also passes the price test at 4.50 euros. That one was bought at Nazare and finished at Cascais so I had to replace it with some more I found which cost 3.49 and 3.99. It’ll be interesting to see if they match it for quality.
Cascais was certainly geared up for your average brit tourist, the first place I saw when I stepped ashore to go to do the paperwork was O’niells Irish pub. For a moment I thought my navigation must have been way out, as Irish pubs are in Ireland surely,. We did not venture in to test the theory, being here to sample the delights of the country we are in, and not ones we’ve left behind. If I want a full English breakfast I’ll cook it myself. Other than that Cascais had a lot going for it, probably because we have missed the main rush of the tourist season, but the bars and restaurants were still priced to fleece the tourist.
There were a good number of other yachts anchored and all seemed to be heading south, and for all you single girlies there was a yacht there called ’Hunk - around the world’ from Sweden with two young blonde Swedes aboard, I reckon they could be in for an interesting trip.
Time to get ready now for the next leg to Sines, leaving tomorrow 27th September at 0700.
Thursday 27 September 2007
Mucking About
Sorry folks, have been messing about with the pictures trying to avoid getting this long line of pics on the right hand side that extends further down beyond the text. If we carry on like this the page will be a few miles long by the time he gets back! I have figured out how to include pics as part of the text post so will do this in future to try and get round this problem, then they will get archived along with the older posts. Bear with me, steep learning curve going on here!
By the way they made Sines at about 7 pm this evening, having motored down from Cascais, in no wind. It was a 12 hour run, which went well, Pete's hoping to find wi-fi access tomorrow so should be more pics etc coming then.
By the way they made Sines at about 7 pm this evening, having motored down from Cascais, in no wind. It was a 12 hour run, which went well, Pete's hoping to find wi-fi access tomorrow so should be more pics etc coming then.
Wednesday 26 September 2007
Update from Pete - Nazare to Cascais
Nazare was a bit of a let down, tourist town end of season and dead, the marina was a very long hike from anything at all. We were able to get things done there though, the washing which was beginning to become a priority. I took it upon myself to lay in the sun and watch it dry, well it was blowing very hard and could easily have blown into the sea and needed retrieving, so I started to read a book and had a bottle of beer to keep me cool.
There were several other boats there all heading south, one I recognised from being in Scilly, they said they were there two years ago which is when they started heading south, we have been gone for two weeks and we have now overtaken them! Perhaps I am going to fast and missing out on so much, it does seem at times to be a bit rushed, if only I could guarantee the weather would hold for us to move on as and when we are ready, well it has so far, mustn’t tempt fate.
As I said there were several others there heading south but some seemed reluctant to take advantage of good sailing conditions to get to the next port, instead preferring only to go if it was perfect which in their minds seemed to mean motoring in flat calm. Perhaps it was just Nazare doing that to them, the wind certainly did funnel in there and make it seem as though the conditions outside were awful when in fact they were fine, or it could be the mischievous manager ‘Mike’ who seemed to like to play on their nerves by saying the conditions were bad and that the marinas further on were more expensive, we took no notice and had a great sail overnight down to Cascais.
We had planned to leave late afternoon and take it nice and slowly to arrive in daylight, so once clear of the harbour we hoisted just the working jib and bore away. The conditions were perfect and if it held our timings were also going to be good. We had a lovely moon to sail by through the night and as is now usual, the accompaniment of dolphins from time to time. As the night wore on and the closer we got to Cabo Roca the stronger the wind became, and the faster we went. This meant we would be well ahead of schedule and end up arriving before daybreak and that is exactly what happened. So after rounding the last headland which left us in the lee of the land we dropped sail about a mile from the harbour and waited an hour for daylight to come along, basically sticking to our original plan to arrive in daylight, it worked for us.
Cascais is an out and out tourist town with prices to match, but the anchorage is good and the ‘massive’ supermarket, aptly called ‘Jumbo’ is within walking distance so we stocked up.
Its about the stage where I shoud start to introduce you all to bits of the equipment we have aboard for the trip and which are worthwhile and which are still waiting to earn their keep. So I shall start on that in the next update.
For now I had better write a few postcards for those not wired up.
There were several other boats there all heading south, one I recognised from being in Scilly, they said they were there two years ago which is when they started heading south, we have been gone for two weeks and we have now overtaken them! Perhaps I am going to fast and missing out on so much, it does seem at times to be a bit rushed, if only I could guarantee the weather would hold for us to move on as and when we are ready, well it has so far, mustn’t tempt fate.
As I said there were several others there heading south but some seemed reluctant to take advantage of good sailing conditions to get to the next port, instead preferring only to go if it was perfect which in their minds seemed to mean motoring in flat calm. Perhaps it was just Nazare doing that to them, the wind certainly did funnel in there and make it seem as though the conditions outside were awful when in fact they were fine, or it could be the mischievous manager ‘Mike’ who seemed to like to play on their nerves by saying the conditions were bad and that the marinas further on were more expensive, we took no notice and had a great sail overnight down to Cascais.
We had planned to leave late afternoon and take it nice and slowly to arrive in daylight, so once clear of the harbour we hoisted just the working jib and bore away. The conditions were perfect and if it held our timings were also going to be good. We had a lovely moon to sail by through the night and as is now usual, the accompaniment of dolphins from time to time. As the night wore on and the closer we got to Cabo Roca the stronger the wind became, and the faster we went. This meant we would be well ahead of schedule and end up arriving before daybreak and that is exactly what happened. So after rounding the last headland which left us in the lee of the land we dropped sail about a mile from the harbour and waited an hour for daylight to come along, basically sticking to our original plan to arrive in daylight, it worked for us.
Cascais is an out and out tourist town with prices to match, but the anchorage is good and the ‘massive’ supermarket, aptly called ‘Jumbo’ is within walking distance so we stocked up.
Its about the stage where I shoud start to introduce you all to bits of the equipment we have aboard for the trip and which are worthwhile and which are still waiting to earn their keep. So I shall start on that in the next update.
For now I had better write a few postcards for those not wired up.
Monday 24 September 2007
Set sail from Nazare
Going into town for a meal turned into a beer onboard a posh yacht, (petes words not mine!) who's owner turned out to be an ex wharram builder, and then a chinese. They left Nazare at 3.30 this afternoon ready for an overnight sail for Cascais, hoping to arrive tomorrow morning. The forecast for later in the week is giving south westerly winds at the moment so they are keen to get further south while they can.
Update from Pete
Surprisingly, having celebrated the repair of the engine leg, we were up fairly early on Friday morning. We went into the marina and filled the water tanks then back out to the mooring whilst we came ashore to shop and pay bills. Having done the shopping I made a last visit to the café Monterey with the laptop to get the latest weather grib files downloaded. So far these have proved to be really quite accurate up to a few days ahead. Once the final emails were sent it was down to the marina office to pay for the mooring and to settle the bill for the mechanico.
With all the chores done wed went back aboard and got ready for sea, and had a really nice big lunch. It was absolutely flat calm inside the harbour with hardly a breath of wind. We cast off at 1pm and headed out under motor (a pleasant change) and once out of the shelter of the harbour there was indeed a good breeze blowing, it is surprising just how sheltered it is in Bayona. We already had the main up so just hoisted the genoa to go with it and we were on our way. The wind was not blowing to great so early progress was quite slow but it was in the right direction and after the shelter of the harbour it felt quite chilly in the breeze, I had to reach for my fleece by mid afternoon. By early evening we had a good breeze from the north, up to force five, and we were going along nicely. This wind held throughout the night until the early hours of the morning when it started to die away again. By daylight we were poodling along at 3 to 4 knots which put our eta at Nazare back to sometime in the evening but after sunset for sure, great joy another night-time entry. Every now and then the wind would pipe up and the boat would get going at up to six knots and we would revise our eta and think well that’s ok in before dark, only for the wind to drop off again. We were teased like this all day long and eventually just before sunset when we were only five miles off we put on the engine to get the speed up a bit. We arrived at 8.45pm in the dark but it is an easy entrance and they very kindly had a very large hammerhead berth free as we came in and there was the marina manager and his wife waiting to take our lines, only to be told they were waiting for a 19 metre yacht to arrive, he was three hours late but if he turned up we would have to move to another berth, all Chris and I wanted to do was scoff the curry warming in the oven and then fall into bed, we were certainly knackered enough. We found it more wearing with just the two of us to handle the watch keeping, we’ll have to work on that and change the system to suit.
After being dragged off by Mike the marina manager to do the paper work at the office and with the Brigada Fiscal I got back and had the curry accompanied by a bottle of beer. This was closely followed by the promised slumber and they could have parked the Scillonian III alongside nothing was going to wake me up.
Sunday morning started off a bit misty but soon cleared to give the now usual wall to wall sunshine. We put on two loads of washing and bedecked the boat with it all to dry out, (its not all lounging around in the sun you know) I reckon we could have sailed quite fast with that lot up, it was certainly flapping like mad as the wind got up. There were a few other little jobs that needed doing and then it was relaxing as usual. The marina is a very long hike from town but we’ll have a wander up there for dinner tonight.
With all the chores done wed went back aboard and got ready for sea, and had a really nice big lunch. It was absolutely flat calm inside the harbour with hardly a breath of wind. We cast off at 1pm and headed out under motor (a pleasant change) and once out of the shelter of the harbour there was indeed a good breeze blowing, it is surprising just how sheltered it is in Bayona. We already had the main up so just hoisted the genoa to go with it and we were on our way. The wind was not blowing to great so early progress was quite slow but it was in the right direction and after the shelter of the harbour it felt quite chilly in the breeze, I had to reach for my fleece by mid afternoon. By early evening we had a good breeze from the north, up to force five, and we were going along nicely. This wind held throughout the night until the early hours of the morning when it started to die away again. By daylight we were poodling along at 3 to 4 knots which put our eta at Nazare back to sometime in the evening but after sunset for sure, great joy another night-time entry. Every now and then the wind would pipe up and the boat would get going at up to six knots and we would revise our eta and think well that’s ok in before dark, only for the wind to drop off again. We were teased like this all day long and eventually just before sunset when we were only five miles off we put on the engine to get the speed up a bit. We arrived at 8.45pm in the dark but it is an easy entrance and they very kindly had a very large hammerhead berth free as we came in and there was the marina manager and his wife waiting to take our lines, only to be told they were waiting for a 19 metre yacht to arrive, he was three hours late but if he turned up we would have to move to another berth, all Chris and I wanted to do was scoff the curry warming in the oven and then fall into bed, we were certainly knackered enough. We found it more wearing with just the two of us to handle the watch keeping, we’ll have to work on that and change the system to suit.
After being dragged off by Mike the marina manager to do the paper work at the office and with the Brigada Fiscal I got back and had the curry accompanied by a bottle of beer. This was closely followed by the promised slumber and they could have parked the Scillonian III alongside nothing was going to wake me up.
Sunday morning started off a bit misty but soon cleared to give the now usual wall to wall sunshine. We put on two loads of washing and bedecked the boat with it all to dry out, (its not all lounging around in the sun you know) I reckon we could have sailed quite fast with that lot up, it was certainly flapping like mad as the wind got up. There were a few other little jobs that needed doing and then it was relaxing as usual. The marina is a very long hike from town but we’ll have a wander up there for dinner tonight.
Sunday 23 September 2007
Nazare
They reached Nazare at about 9 ish last night. Reasonably good sail I believe - nothing much broke anyway which has to be a plus! Pete said they had a good Atlantic swell and surfed down some good waves. They were also passed by some dolphins who didn't hang around this time - obviously had some place to go. They were pleased to stop and get a good sleep, they did 3 hour watches this trip which left them very tired, so are going to try and different system on the next leg. They managed to find a launderette this morning so could get all that done, and it is now flying horizontal in a very strong breeze from the rigging. Pete was sincerely hoping he wasn't going to have to go swimming to retreive any. They will probably stay there until tomorrow afternoon when they will sail through the night to Cascais so that for once they can arrive somewhere in daylight. After that it will be on to Sines. Pete said that although it is great and he is having a good time, it is quite demanding trying to keep up with everything that needs to get done - especially with the short hops meaning that you don't get into a proper sleep pattern of any sort. Keeping up with the general maintenance on the boat, washing, shopping etc is fairly challenging and keeping them very busy.
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