Beyond the "end of Europe"
Freespirit
Sat 16 Sep 2006 12:18
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Turning the left-hand bend to put into Lagos in
southern Portugal after such a long trip South was a big moment. We were all
pretty tired but the sun was out, the wind came up and we were really flying
along the coast towards Lagos.
 Cape St Vincent at the southern tip of
Portugal
We entered Lagos harbour at 1145, 15
minutes ahead of scheduule and with plenty of time to make preparations for the
next leg the following day. The marina is even more dominated by the
English than Cascais and we could feel the influence of the English invasion of
the Algarve. Quite a contrast with the Portugese and Spanish ports we have
been in for the last week. Nevertheless, we had work to do and provisions
to buy and a burger and chips can look very attractive after 20 hours at
sea. We had our last meal as a threesome and set out to do the
laundry and a few jobs for the boat before Colin's arrival. Tiredness
overcame all of us before we could make it to the supermarket so we were all on
board when Colin arrived. We immediately set to replacing the VHF arial
that he had kindly brought over from the UK for me. I went up Free
Spirit's mast for the first time and, perhaps inevitably, found that the simple
replacement job was a little more involved than I had thought. We made a
hurried trip back to the chandelry for various bits and pieces but darkness
overtook the work and we resigned ourselves to completing the task in the
morning. Angus and James made the shopping run and we ate ashore before
turning in for an early night.
We changed our itinery to include a stop
at Madeira in order to allow Angus to get home on Monday as promised. None
of us had looked properly at the distance to the Canaries from Lagos and we
realised, when I did the passage plan that we had 650 nm still to go!
Madeira is only 488 nm and gives us an ETA of Monday morning for Goose to catch
his flight.
We managed to fix the VHF by 1030 and
left Lagos at 1145, just 24 hours after our arrival. We were straight back
into a wonderful trade wind on the beam, 18-25 knots with blue sky and Atlantic
swell. Free Spirit was making 8.5 knots consistently and up until
midnight, when the wind swung round behind and dropped we were making fantastic
progress. Unfortunately, Colin had been jumped into the swell a little too
quickly and, for the first time since we have been sailing together (32 years)
he was seasick throughout the night. This placed an unexpected burden on
the rest of us to cover the watches and I was very relieved when 2 Sturgeron
pills and the passage of only 12 hours or so put him back on his feet. The
cumulative effect of this trip is certainly beginning to tell on my reserves of
energy. However, we are making good progress, the sun is shining and we
are expecting the trade wind to fill in again any time now.
 Colin's arrival in Lagos
 Sunset on our first night en route to
Madeira
To those of you following our adventure,
thank you for your interest. If you would like to email us the ship's
email is freespirit {CHANGE TO AT} mailasail {DOT} com. We
would love to hear from you.
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