(No.6) South towards Lisbon
Catou
Paul and Sylvie Tucker
Sun 18 Jul 2010 09:49
Wednesday 14th
July (Still at Leixoes - the port just
north of Oporto). Nigel and Helen left us late morning
for their flight home, so after we had waved them off, it was a 'domestic'
day. A large pile of laundry had to be carted to a local laundrette and
some shopping needed to be dona. Trying to find useful shops seems an
immense problem in Portugal. You will find 3 or 4 bars/restaurants in a
row, but no little grocery or 'spar' type store in sight. Nothing
convenient seems close to marinas, so long route marches for shopping is the
order of the day. In 10 days I have been unable to locate any charts for
the coast further south - there just don't seem to be any stores selling
them - and a definate lack of chandlery stores, much to the delight of
Sylvie, who knows they are a magnet for we yachties - in Bayona we found a
chandlery which had 6 charts - 3 of them were the same!
We decided to bring Catou into the marina from where we
had been anchored off for 3 days. However, we discovered that our
anchor was fouled. It was caught around something that we couldn't
dis-lodge, so we had to stay put and take some action in the
morning. That evening Dave and Jill Radbourne (from our neighbouring
village of Forthampton) arrived. Their flight out of Heathrow had been
delayed, so they missed their train in Lisbon, and didn't arrive until about
8pm. We took them straight to a restaurant that we had passed on the
way to meet them. The restaurant was BBQ'ing sardines and they smelt so
good we had to go and try them - and they were excellent.
Thursday 15th July
First thing was to try and sort out a diver fro the anchor. I managed to
locate a professional diving team - who were already working somewhere in the
harbour. They advised that they could come after lunch and it would cost
100 - 150 Euros. With little choice, I booked him, and we went back on
board. We soon decided to have a go at clearing the anchor and tried going
ahead, astern, to port, to starboard - all to no avail. However it was low
water, and with some difficulty, we managed to get the anchor up to about 2
metres below the surface. Eventually yours truely had to get in the water
with goggles on - and with one dive I got a line around the chain that was
fouling the anchor. Dave secured both ends of the rope on the cleat
and we lowered the anchor and after a few goes cleared the anchor and eventually
slipped the line when ready to go. It's amazing what the threat of a
150 Euro bill can do! I called the diving team and advised them, and
we slipped out of Leixoes and had an excellent broad reach sail all the
way to the Ria de Aveiro about 30 miles south in WNW wind force 3 - 4. As
good as it gets! We dropped the sails off the breakwater at about 1900
hrs and motored into the river and picked up a mooring in the Baia de S.
Jacinto off what looked to be a pretty village, and then had an excellent
dinner on board. Poor Jill had been ill nearly all the way, but she
recovered well, and looked well recovered in the evening.
Friday 16th July
We rowed ashore at about 0900 to discover a not-so-charming
village with a fairly crumby selection of shops and little activity. There
was a military airfield on one side of the village and little else. The
whole region was completely flat with hundreds of square miles of what had been
salt ponds. The other side of the river was a large industrial complex
that looked very ugly with docks, oil storage tanks and some sort of chemical
works. So - what to do? The pilot book said we could go up to
Aveiro, some 4 miles upstream, but didn't sound very positive about it, and
anyway it was shallow at the top (we would be up there at low water) + there was
a power cable across the river which it stated " was reported to have a
height of 18 metres". (Our mast is a tall one at 17 metres) That's very
different from saying ' It is 18 metres' ! Anyway, we decided to
go for it, with no other prospects for the day - and what a decision it turned
out to be. We had a lovely sail up the river, which was most
interesting. Lots of old ships and square-riggers - all in various states
of repair (and rust). There were old Russian factory (whaling) ships,
trawlers, cargo boats etc. When we arrived at the upper
reaches, it was much deeper than indicated and we were able to tie up
on a Y C pontoon. After lunch we walked for only about 3/4
mile into the most charming town (Aveiro) which had canals and amazing
local boats with very decorative bows and sterns - it all looked like a
Portuguese version of Venice ( well - with a little imagination)! We had a
pleasant afternoon and after a shopping expedition we were back on board at
about 1800, and ready to go back down the river at the end of the flood tide at
about 2000 hrs. The motored and sailed back down to the same mooring as
the previous evening, which was close to the entrance and ready for an early
start on Sat am.
Saturday 17th July
We left at 0830 and
soon found a heavy swell with the northerly wind. We had only put the
genoa up and intended to sail all the way under that, since with the wind
astern, the main tends to shadow the genoa and take it's wind. After a
couple of hours of corkscrewing motion (I was feeling a bit sick and took to my
bunk for an hour) we furled up the genoa and turned head-to-wind and set the
main. She was a lot more comfortable from then on, but we didn't get a
good sail. It was a bit lumpy to set the cruising chute, since I would
have been up on the foredeck on my own, so we plodded along with
the donkey on, down a very feature-less coast line of sand dunes and the
occasional ugly group of modern Portuguese high-rise blocks of flats blighting
the coastline!
After a cracking final sail just before arrival, we
entered the port of Figueira da Foz at high speed, and after dropping
sails we motored into the marina in mid-afternoon. After a late
lunch we took a stroll around the town, which, like so many Portuguese towns and
villages, looked lovely from the sea, but seemed rather worn out and
peeling around the edges! But it had a charm. We had a lovely meal
at the marina restaurant - Sylvie ordered - what was called 'veal
sideburn'. When it arrived it was the most enormous portion of meat we had
ever seen - reminded me of Desperate Dan and his 'Cow Pie'. Anyway, Sylvie
did justice to it.
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