Our pre planning of heading to Cascais rather than heading further into the Lisboa river served us well on day 81, as the 27nm journey took us 10.5 hours due to light winds (we only adveraged 2.5 knots).
We managed to get the fishing rod out due to our mostly slow sailing. We tried a mixture of single deep diving lures, and also the paravane with feathers and a spinner.
As Adam was making dinner Kathryn started to reel the rod in, but is felt suspisciously heavy. Upon getting the paravane up to the surface Adam walkd away thinking that job was done., before Kathryn said “wait we caught something”.
Normally the paravane should come to the surface when it catches a fish, but either there was something wrong with this fish, the paravane, or perhaps it just bit at the last second?
We caught our first Mackerel scad (thanks Mark for helping us identify).
Anchoring in Sesimbra wasn’t ideal, we arrived just after the sun had set, and the anchorage remained rockey for most of the night, but there were not many alternatives.
Day 75 saw us heading to Cascais. This was the moment we turned the first “corner” on the west coast of Portugal.
The anchorage was large and there was plenty of room for us right in the middle.
That evening we headed to shore to explore what Cascais had to offer and to find some food.
Once again, as keeps happening at many of our ports of call, there was a festival happening.
We stayed in Cascais for 2 days, as long ago during the planning of the trip Kathryn had seen a place called Quinta de Regaleria that looked rather awesome, and we had to check it out.
This meant a short taxi to Sintra and a day spent surrounded by more tourists than any of us have seen in a while.
The next port of call on the way to Lisbon was Ericeira.
Parts of this hop were quite light on the wind front and mostly downwind.
We found ourselves gull winging with the Genoa and Ghoster, before switching to the cruising chute for the first time since leaving the UK in its newly repaired sock.
What a joy it was to fly in comparison to trying to hoist it behind the Genoa.
Here it is on the way up (excuse the talking)…
And here it is a few minutes later on the way back down when we decided it wasn’t going to work with the wind that we had at the time.
Upon reaching Ericeira we were only joined by one other boat in the anchorage. Most boats seemed to pass by Ericeira, probably due to its small size, and head straight to Cascais of beyond. The one other boat that joined us for the night we had actually been sailing near since Figuera.
The harbour had quite an interesting dock, lowered into the water by crane when in use, but hoisted out most of the time.
After a lovely time in Figueria, Andrew had rejoined the boat after his bout of COVID and it was time to head off to our next port down the coast, Nazaré.
We were a little apprehensive about coming into Nazaré knowing that this is the place which has recorded the biggest waves in the world, but fortunately, our day of sailing saw near 0 swell.
We apparently forgot to start the Navionics track when leaving Figueria, so half of the route is missing below.
Of course there were more dolphins along the way, this time doing something rather interesting… I checked in with a marina mammal expert, and yes they may be doing what you are thinking while enjoying the bow wave of Hannah.
Due to the dropping wind in the evening, we had to motor the last couple of miles around the Nazaré headland and into the marina. Once again, we were entirely engulfed in fog.
We spent one of our free days before needing to get to Lisbon for Andrews flight here exploring on land.
That of course meant a trip to the headland to see the red lighthouse of Nazaré, the museum at the top as well as Praia do Norte from the headland. A shame there was no swell!
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
It looked like it was going to be a windy sail on leaving the safe harbour of Porto so we went with one reef in the main sail and the genoa had a little furl in, and the mizzen up in full.. the perfect set up really as we shot along at 8.5knots with a following swell that got us up to 9 or even 10 knots on occasion.
The race was on to catch up with SV Blue Note! Who we could see on AIS, we were catching up with speed.
A couple of hours or so in, the wind had dropped off just a little so all of the sail went up to try to maintain our speed, and we managed a very modest 6 or so knots for a few more hours
Half way through our sail we were on track to catch Blue Note just as we entered Aveiro.
The excitement however, started to diminish as our speed got slower and slower, the wind was really tailing off as the day drew on and we realised we were not going to catch up 🙁
Instead we finally got to the anchorage at about 11pm and we passed Blue Note on our lap of the anchorage trying to find a space, looked like they had packed up and gone to bed! The race will have to continue another day
The anchorage was packed out with sailing boats and we actually had difficulty finding a good spot so we ended up very close to a car ferry channel
In the morning after a few boats had left we were able to move to a better spot and not feel like we were in the path of all the little fishing boats coming and going
SV Blue Note went on their way and we said goodbye to them as the customs police came along side to check our documents, they were nice and chatty and liked our new paint job and told us about a good bakery, we also asked the story behind the giant wrecked trimaran that we were anchored next to.
Apparently some years ago it was being sailed by its French owners not far offshore from the harbour we were in when it was dismasted, it came in but the insurance didn’t pay out so it lay there dormant slowly being picked at by thieves till all that was left was a hull (or three really!) and it’s engine which the police said only hasn’t been stolen due to it being too heavy to get out of the boat!
The small town was interesting, it used to be purely made up of a naval base and ship building yard, and everyone who lived there worked in one or the other, over time the ship building yard became derelict, we walked around the dilapidated buildings trying to figure out what it used to be, for some time, eventually after translating some signs and finding some paperwork from the 1970s we realized it was a ship building yard
Nowadays it looks like some people use the spaces to hang out and there were some cool looking graffiti sprays on the walls.
We were planning on hopping to another anchorage down the coast but decided to have a day of exploration and relaxation instead.
The beach was lovely and long, and the sun was out. Needless to say we didn’t manage to walk the multiple kms of the entire length but instead got distracted trying to make our very own TikTok… (yes we know we are behind the trend but it’s still hilarious!)
And of course, the very tasty BBQ that I already mentioned in the previous post.
Journey to Póvoa de Varzim
Next stop, Póvoa de Varzim, a 37 nautical mile venture south.
We needed to time leaving the river at the point of least tidal flow which happened to be early in the morning.
I’ll avoid putting the exact time here, as to be honest I’m not sure. We had tide schedules in Azores summertime while being on the border of Portugal and Spain.. confusing, to say the least!
The tide dictated our exit from the river, and this put us out to sea without much wind. This led to a very wiggly and slow venture out to sea, before the wind swung and started to pick up guiding us toward our goal.
The sailing part of this hop was rather uneventful.
The fishing however was very interesting…
Catching a lobster pot
In the hour after leaving the river mouth, we came very close to a lobster pot buoy that was also connected to 2 other small buoys. We managed to mostly avoid the small buoys with the boat, however, the fishing line that was out at the time got snagged on a line between the 2 smaller buoys.
To retrieve our tackle we had to tack around, turn on the engine and approach the buoys with the motor on, managing to grab them out of the water and cut the needed bits of line.
Upon untangling the mess of line from our own lures, we found that we had acquired another hook with some line attached that must be from another boat that had got snagged on the same small buoys in the previous days.
Catching a seagull
About halfway through the journey, the line started reeling out a little then stopping. Almost like a fish bite that didn’t get hooked. It happened again and at the same time, Daisy said “What’s that seagull doing”.
Our lure must have caught some weed and surfaced, only to have a seagull dive on the lure thinking it was some tasty fishy food.
The engine went on once again, and another tack back to reel in this seagull without actually reeling it in and causing too much damage. We managed to pull the seagull out of the water, cover its head with a towel and slowly remove 2 hooks from it, one in the beak and one in its wing.
The caught seagul
After giving its wounds a rinse down with some sterile eyewash we put it on the foredeck and it quickly took flight heading for land, poor seagull, luckily we think it will be fine.
Póvoa de Varzim
Finally arriving in Póvoa de Varzim we were informed that there would be a festival with fireworks that night (dejavu from our arrival in Brest).
We wandered around the festival, bought some cake and generally had a look at what was going on.
But the main attraction would be the fireworks, which were being set off from the middle of the marina. In the picture below you can see the pontoons for the fireworks very close to the catwalk of the marina where the photo is taken from.
We decided to watch the fireworks from this calm and quiet marina location, and it’s one of the largest, loudest, and best firework experiences we have ever had.
The fireworks were so close you really couldn’t fit them all in your field of view at once.
Here is a little snippet from near the end of the show.
Journey to Leixões
The next hop on our way to Porto was Leixões.
One of the things that we had been worrying about in Portugal was the police possibly kicking out of anchorages, but we had no such problem in Caminha, so could only hope that the reviews we had seen on Navily were the exception rather than the norm. Leixões had a similar review saying that a boat had been told to move at 3am from the anchorage in the Port.
Our journey was another short hop down the coast. We probably should have left a little earlier as we arrived in Leixões after dark.
We anchored right in the corner of the anchorage, near 2 other boats and had no issues for the night.
When entering be aware that large ships may be entering or exiting the port. The anchorage is in the corner of the main area of the port, just the other side of the marina wall in a shallower area 2-4m chart depth. We anchored easily, close to the wall and out of the way of any ship movements and spent the night with 2 other boats (a Tri and another monohull), probably would have been room for another 4-6 boats without getting in the way of things. Good protection, though you will get some wake from pilot boats occasionally. There is some noise in the port, but we had a good sleep. Very muddy bottom when pulling the anchor up, lots of mud came up. No sign of the police, I can imagine if you anchor too far out they might ask you to move, we dropped anchor at 41°11.102N, 8°42.335W with the other 2 boats to our NW
To Porto
We primarily anchored in Leixões so that we could be as close as possible to Porto without actually being in Porto.
The sail the next day was only around 4 nautical miles and we were in Porto before 8am!
But let’s leave everything about Porto for the next post!
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.
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.
