Sines 37 57.12N 08 51.9W

ALKIRA
Charles & Maggie Bevis
Wed 14 Aug 2013 12:47
We left Cascais about 9a.m. on a glorious warm sunny morning. The coastline to the south of Cascais is a little better for a few miles, but nothing special. Houses are very few and far between away from the main towns with hardly any villages, unlike in Spain where towns and villages were frequent all along the coast. With so few places to call into along the Portuguese coast, it means quite long trips each day to get from A to B.

Motoring at first and then a very good sail up until 2 pm when we sailed straight into thick fog!!! We were able to keep sailing for a further hour but then the wind died so it was back to motoring. With very poor visibility all we could do was keep a close watch for unidentifiable small fishing boats who have no means of letting us know they're out there together with the dreaded lobster pots, which are profuse, more here than France or Spain together and they pop up from nowhere in quite unexpected places. A pity not to see anything as this part of the coast is meant to be lovely, but with visibility down to 100 metres, sometimes less, we're weren't going to find out.

We'd been contemplating another overnight passage tonight as Sines has nothing to offer, but in these conditions we've little choice. Found our way into the bay and dropped anchor shortly before dusk.