Leixoes looks better
Lera(hen3ry)
Malcolm Cann
Tue 30 Oct 2007 11:29
I've now been here nearly 24hours and have had the major success of finding
the local supermarket, it took me 25 mins to walk back from it carrying my
shopping, and its not the local corner shop, it has all the properties of a
real supermarket and also a reasonable range of products, of course I don't
recognise the names on them but I can distinguish them. So I now have beef
steak for Sunday dinner. I intend to unload my bike in time for the next
supermarket trip, which should make it a doddle. This might be better than
Portosin.
I've taken a week to get around to updateing this and in that time have
walked a few miles and got to know the area a little better. Finally I
didn't unload the bike, the walking is not too bad. It took me two days to
get areplacement bulb for one of my interior lights, firstly because the
nearest shop I could find is nearly in Porto and secondly, because the first
bulb was duff so I had to go back the next day. I've done my tourist bit and
taken some piccys, but there's not much but churches and statues to
photograph.
At long last I've decided to do something about my wing and a prayer
attitude to navigation, I've bought anotherlaptop to act as a spare if the
real one packs up, its got Windows Vista on it so not everything works and
is going to take some time to get it to at least do the navigation properly.
When its all done I'll have a spare navigator plus all my waypoints in a
handheld GPS, so I hope that even with a complete power failure I'll still
know where I am and which way to go!
I took the bold step of leaving Leixoes (pronounced Lesh-ways) on Monday. I got up very early, about 0530, since our clocks have now come into line with GMT, and rushed around getting ready to go. Everything was ready by 0730 all I had to do was hand in my keycard, this proved to be a problem since the office doesn't open before 0900, so I had to kill time and wait, finally getting away at about 0930, all that getting up early wasted.
I puttered out of Leixoes on the motor, as expected, and after dodging through the parked ships pointed towards Peniche. The sea was calm and so was the wind so the first hour saw me only 3 miles from Leixoes with the motor still doing all the work. The second hour there wasa breeze and my speed increased slightly with the use of sails and I managed a magnificent 4 miles in the second hour. After that things started hotting up, so much so that after three hours I had done 14 miles, nearly 5 kts average. This continued for the rest of the trip. The problem with it was the sea was getting rougher all the time as the wind was getting up. after 5hours and 26 miles I decided that this wasn't going to ease so I changed course to Figuriera, not wishing to spend all night beating my brains out against this sort of weather. I have to admit that the forecast did say the wind would be up to F6 and the sea rough by midnight. I thought with the weather as it is I'll canter into Fig in no time, but as time went on I started to reduce sail because of the conditions. Just before I reached Fig I was doing 5.6kts with only a tiny triangle of genoa up, even when I furled that I was still doing neary 4kts on the only other sail I could see, my spray hood. The entrance to Fig is guarded by a bar, which similar ti Chichester moves and changes, which is dangerous in NW/W strong winds, especially if there is a sea as well. I believe we fulfilled those conditions last night, if so I would have to divert to Nazare,34 miles away, as I came to the harbour I searched very carefully for the "Harbour Closed" signs but could find none and even saw a fishing boat come out, so in I went. I was doing 4 kts up until the breakwater of the harbour shielded me from both wind and sea, and it was really pleasant to have the boat riding level and sedately again. I was now able to motor quietly up to the marina and book in to a berth. I arrived at the marina at about 2230 which means it took me 13 hours to do the 67miles, so I reckonmy average is about 5 kts from stop to stop, not bad for an old bucket? After packing everything away I got to bed about 0100 and had a very quiet night. This marina doesn't seem to have the waves that Leixoes had so there is very little groaning ropes. Tomorrow WILL be a quiet day, I got thrown across the boat at least twice so I expect to be a little sore and weary.