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Day 79-80: Cascais (again)

Day 79-80: Cascais (again)

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Andrew left the boat heading to Lisbon airport on the morning of day 79.

The marina had a quite noisy collection of little crabs that seemed to come out as the tide dropped. They would just sit on the rocks, clicking their little claws together, we assume eating things.

We spent the rest of the morning restocking the boat from a nearby supermarket, doing some last-minute laundry, general cleaning and unexpected boat maintenance (the shower pump out pump ceased up and we needed to take it apart).

Wanting to get out of the marina to avoid spending too much more money, but also not wanting to make our next hop down the coast any longer we decided to head back to Cascais.

The sail was in familiar water and rather short, with only the initial exit out of the river mouth leading us into some slightly lumpy more unprotected water.

We were once again a boat of 2 and spent some time relaxing in the quiet, with no real pressure to be getting anywhere on a timeline (at least not a timeline of a few weeks).

We had been talking of making pastel de natas aboard at some point and decided to give it a go (despite not having any sort of try that would make them pastel de nata sized.

We mostly followed a recipe from wetravelportugal.com, but opted for a rather large dish and made something like a pastel de nata tart.

With the burnt bits trimmed off, and a nice background in place, it looked and tasted delicious!

Day 73: Peniche

Day 73: Peniche

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We got a little behind with writing blogs since hving folks on board, and since doing so many little hops down the coast of Portugal.

Day 73 saw us heading straight from Nazaré on to Peniche, the next sensible port of call down the coast on the way to Lisbon.

We set off early, so actually got to the anchorage before dark.

This meant we could have a nice relaxing evening rather than heading straight to sleep before the next day of sailing.

A tasty dinner was made, cooked during daylight hours while not sailing.

Also check out the new wok we bought in Figuera!!!! Much easier to cook for 3+ people

Day 63-70: Figuera da Foz

Day 63-70: Figuera da Foz

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Andrew was still hauled up in a hotel after getting COVID in our somewhere between day 58 and 60. But the sailing must go on! (at least a little bit).

We had always planned on spending around a week in Figuera da Foz, so we continued down the coast to our next port.

It was roughly a 36 nautical mile sail which was mostly uneventful, but perhaps we would have been better setting off an hour or so earlier.

We didnt arrive until after dark, as as we approached the entrance to the river, fog decended. You can just about see the enterance to the river and harbour in the image below.

Arrival during fog

Annoyingly the marina in Figuera doesn’t allow pre allocation of berths, so we needed to both moor up at the visitor pontoon to register at reception before then also moooring up in our actual berth for the week. This was extra annoying due to the fog, wind and darkness.

The visitor pontoon was so large you could barely see Hannah hiding away behind the concrete.

Hannah moored up next to the concrete visitor pontoon

We spent most of our time in Figuera with friends and family. Rather than writing in detail about all of the wonderfull food that we ate and wine that we drank, instead I’ll just leave you with this collection of images to make you Jealous. (talking to Andrew here, as he missed out due to covid).

We also did a few boat maintenance jobs while in the marina for a week and while also having access to a sewing machine. We also got some things delivered that we needed to collect!

This included:

  • Modifications to our V berth pillow, including a new cover
  • Creation of fender covers out of tracksuit bottoms
  • Finishing the cruising chute sock
  • Started recaulking the deck

More on all of those in future blog posts. (checkout the Boat Things category)

Andrew rejoined us a day or so before heading out of Figuera, but the rest of the coast is for future posts.

Day 58-60: Porto

Day 58-60: Porto

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We arrived in the early morning of the 16th of August (the day of Daisy’s flight). @sv_bluenote were anchored in the river, as we cruised in and headed toward the marina, planning on staying there for a night or two.

Even though it was early there was someone at the marina to show us to a berth, and we ended up being pretty close to sv_zoe.

It was Daisy’s last day with us, and we made the most of it by seeing some sights in Porto, eating a very yummy Francesinha, and having some drinks on the river, then much to Daisy’s excitement, we rode electric scooters back to the marina along the river side all before it was time for her to taxi to the airport. There was only some minor running involved to get her and her bags to the taxi on time!

I’m glossing over the fact for the longest time Daisy was convinced her flight was on the 17th (next day). Glad we checked, otherwise she would have had a rather sad arrival to the check-in desk.

The next day the remaining 3 of us spent most of the day working, battling with the pretty slow WiFi at the marina.

The marina did redeem themselves from the WiFi though as it came with a free port tasting for each of us at Churchill’s, which we made the most of in the afternoon. €45 worth of free port tasting in fact, with a tour of the various port cellars and giant 55,000L port barrels, which was essentially the price of one of the nights stay in the marina! We did of course try a few more ports than came in the free tasting!… 15 tasting glasses later we stumbled home.

After our second and final night in the marina we spent much of the day working and doing laundry before heading to anchor in the river with sv_bluenote who had invited us for dinner.

It was so delicious I forgot to take a picture, but it was a lovely creamy risotto with asparagus.

But we did snap these pictures of Hannah in the sunset from Blue Note.

We planned on doing a night sail all the way down to Figuera da Foz that same night, but shortly after arriving back from dinner Andrew said he wasn’t feeling so good.

We hunted around to find the thermometer, only to find it was out of battery.

On a whim we got Andrew to do a covid test, and quite surprisingly he was positive!!!

Needless to say, we didn’t start to sail, instead staying anchored for the night.

Come morning Andrew decided it would be best to head to a hotel for his first covid experience rather than stay on small old Hannah, so we shipped him to shore in the dinghy.

Andrew headed to a hotel, and Kathryn and I prepared to chase Blue Note down…

We quickly pulled up anchor once we had the dinghy back on board and scoffed some food down whilst motoring out of the river, trying to chase Blue Note down who had left a couple of hours ago, but let’s save that for the next post!

Day 53-55: Reaching Portugal

Day 53-55: Reaching Portugal

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We said goodbye to our first onboard guest (Warren) on day 52. Just 1 more week until our second guest (Daisy) will also be departing.

It turns out writing blog posts with so many people onboard and also sailing most days is quite hard, hence a bit of delay in these posts 🙂

Baiona (continuing south)

After spending a few weeks in the rivers of western Spain, we needed to continue heading south and into Portugal. We headed to Baiona to provide a good staging area for our next bigger sail. We would be mostly out of the Vigo river and set up ready to head to Portugal.

We tacked all the way out of the river, sneaking through the Islotes Las Estelas in order to get into Baiona earlier than planned. This was quite a busy anchorage, with probably 20 boats or more all anchored up. Once again we found ourselves in the same anchorage as Sailing Vessel Zoe!

The anchorage was alive with fishy activity.

Entering Portugal

Next stop, Portugal!

The next 26 or so miles took us out of Spain and into Portugal (just).

We aimed for Caminha, and a small anchorage on the river that holds the border between Spain and Portugal.

The wind was frustratingly light throughout the sail. But toward the end, we did manage to get onto a straight downwind run and tried out the Ghoster for the first time!

Due to the slow first half of the sail, we came into the river mouth an hour or so after high tide and there was about 3-5 knots of tide flowing out of the mouth.

This led to us motoring in at probably the highest RPM we have had the engine at, doing only 2 knots over land, but 7 knots through the water!

We anchored mostly out of the river flow near the beach on the Portuguese side. The maritime police soon showed up to check us into Portugal. They also advised that we move slightly, so once again up with the anchor to move a few 10s of meters.

We spent 2 nights in the Caminha anchorage, as it was rather lovely, protected, close to shore, and we wanted to break up our sailing.

On night 2 we tried out the boat BBQ for the first time and made some rather tasty burgers.

Day 51 & 52: Goodbye Warren

Day 51 & 52: Goodbye Warren

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We headed back to our favorite, and the cheapest marina in Vigo (Liceo Marítimo de Bouzas) the day before Warren needed to catch his flight.

Land chores were the theme of the day with showers for everyone, multiple loads of washing at the launderette nearby, and a big boat clean.

For Warren’s last night, we headed for a fishy meal out, and boy were we in for a treat.

The next morning Warren headed off. We will miss him, his cake baking, and also his wonderful readings of The Hobbit.

Chapter 5 of The Hobbit, read by Warren.

We ended up servicing the engine, all filters, belts and an oil change. A job well done! 🧑‍🔧

Engine oil being pumped out into a bottle

We also went to every chandlery we could find in Vigo, only to find that the only money we spent was in the very first one. We managed to pick up a few small items, but not the large haul of deck caulking that we really wanted.

Leaving the marina we spotted Blue Note and passed the bag they left aboard Hannah over with a boat hook as we passed by.

Conveniently the fuel barge on the way out of the marina, outside Marina Davila Sport was still just about open (it closes at 10pm) so we topped up the tanks.

We sailed for about 5 minutes but had to motor most of the way across the river to another of our known anchorages, the same anchorage as Day 46 for some shuteye before trying to get down to Porto in a week. At least it was flat and pretty.

Day 50: Tack, tack and tack again

Day 50: Tack, tack and tack again

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Waking up in our anchorage, we found ourselves rocking violently from side to side after 10am. (This was due to all of the large ferries speeding past the area).

We had a little bit of this the night before, so we’re already expecting it. A quick spot of breakfast, and off we went.

We let captain Warren take command for the day, which lead to quite an interesting initial route. (Hence the name of this post).

A few wiggles, and a few accidental tacks, and we were out in the wind again, heading south toward Vigo.

Dolphins were quite a feature for the sail.

As was fishing, but once again no fish were caught (not having much luck this past week).

We headed to an anchorage on the north side of Ria de Vigo that we had spotted both Zoe from day 43 and Blue Note from Day 48 at on Marine Traffic.

We made a tasty egg fried rice on the way into the anchorage, so we’re eating moments after the anchor dropped

Zoe invited us all over for some drinks with Blue Note also attending.

We chatted late into the evening, even popping back to Hannah to continue until around 3am! All in all a very fun day, night and into the early morning!

Day 49: Another day full of food

Day 49: Another day full of food

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As well as being full of food, day 49 was also still full of fog.

We woke up in the anchorage after a fairly rockey night’s sleep. Although the swell was from the west, and we were well protected from any direct swell, it seemed to rebound from the land and hit us from the other side too. This was particularly noticeable from 6am onwards. And after our late night, we were all quite hoping for a lie in.

I enjoyed this morning, but I could have slept longer.

Warren, 2022

Pancakes were the first order of the day. (They were all as healthy as the one below, honest)…

Kathryn and I decided to let Daisy captain us to the next anchorage, we set the target in Navionics, sat back and watches the chaos ensue.

With Daisy at the helm, Warren and Andrew were left to pull the anchor up on her command and get us moving along.

We were motoring until we came close to the mainland due to lack of wind, but it was enjoyably flat, and fun getting others to do all of the work.

Warren and I started fishing part way through the hop, ultimately unsuccessful, but Warren did snag the world, resulting in us doing a little loop to get uncaught from the bottom.

Shortly after, we headed to the anchorage.

We finally got the relaxing day we wanted as Warren read us 3 chapters of The Hobbit.

Warren reading some of The Hobbit

Dinner followed, and we used leftovers with many additions to make some cheesy enchiladas.

Following that we had a delicious meringue victoria sponge with hand whipped cream.

Mmmmmmmm aahhhhhhh mmmmmm oohhh yeaaaaa mmmmmmm oh god it’s ssooo good

Adam, after eating Warrens cake

This really was a day of food…

Time for an early night, finally. Let’s just hope the ferries that keep driving past causing chaos wake do actually stop at 10pm.

Day 48: Feelin foggy

Day 48: Feelin foggy

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We all woke up a little late, and a little tired after our previous long day of sailing.

But wanting to make the most of the morning wind, we set off within the hour.

We wanted to move anchorage to avoid the changing swell and wind, and had also recently acquired a navigation permit for the nearby islands that are nature reserves, which we wanted to get a little closer to. (Guide for how to get this permit coming up soon).

As we sailed we applied for an anchorage permit which was approved instantly, so our anchorage was set :). (Also guide for this coming soon)

We considered looping the island, but this may have taken too long, so instead sailed across the top and back again.

We lost sight of the island half way through the sail due to the fog.

But thankfully as we neared the beach we wanted to anchor at we were actually in a nice and sunny hole in the fog. So after anchoring we headed to the beach.

Warren was cooking for the night, and we had a delicious Fabada cooked in the pressure cooker.

Suddenly, a knock a knock on the hull! Our neighbours from Blue Note had come over to see if we fancied a drink.

We took them up on their offer, suggesting they come back in 45 minuites after we had finished with food and packing things up.

A drink, or 4, were had.

We exchanged stories, and it turns out they had seen us at our previous day’s anchorage, and watched us picking Warren’s hat out of the water prior to anchoring.

Hopefully we will see them again soon as we all plan on being in Vigo on the 9th.

Day 47: Sprinting north

Day 47: Sprinting north

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The wind for the first week of visitors didn’t look great, so we set out for a big day sail straight away.

We headed quite far north to where there should be some wind throughout the week.

The whole journey was beating into the wind, starting off a little swelly as we exited the river at Vigo, but progressively flattening out, with the wind steadily picking up.

A picture of the whole group during the hop up the coast

We ended up with a reefed main and Genoa before reaching an anchorage that we previously visited on day 41.

Just as we were preparing to anchor, with Warren on anchor duty (releasing the anchor), his hat flew off and landed in the sea, prompting a quick doughnut and hat grab with a boat hook.

Daisy cooked up a delicious dinner.

Followed by a giant syrup cake which we demolished straight out of the oven in about 5 minutes.

Syrup cake

We partied on into the night by playing a game of cards and going to bed.