The Good Life

Vega
Hugh and Annie
Fri 4 Sep 2015 10:17
The sun is shining - so much so that we have the new sun shade permanently in place (the Malo equivalent of a bimini which is the rear awning roof without the side panels). Without it we would frazzle and even then it is easy to underestimate the amount of reflected UV coming in off the water as yours truly discovered recently. With the sun comes more exposed flesh - and the stark reminder of how pale and unconditioned we are. This prompted a joint vow to cut out carbohydrates and sweet sugary foods. I even discovered that the cockpit width is perfect for doing a few press ups. The only snag is that this would mean none of the comfort food that can be so important on passage e.g. bread and honey, chocolate, cake and so on. The bread here in Portugal is wonderful - white but very dense and the perfect honey accompaniment. So it looks like moderation rather than abstinence.
We do still eat lots of fresh fruit and vegetables. We had squid and sardines from the fish market in Lagos and the resulting meals were better than anything we have eaten in a restaurant. Which is a puzzle really because simply cooked fresh food is both delicious and easy to prepare. The squid was fried in olive oil with garlic, coriander, lemon juice, salt and pepper - sublime!. It makes me wonder whether our tourist fare is quite as fresh as claimed.
The sardines were equally wonderful, again lightly fried in olive oil. As a result they were nearly our downfall in Portamao where we had anchored for the night - see “Anchors A-Weigh”.
Another comfort to us is tea and real coffee. Despite all the crockery being plastic (for obvious reasons) we nevertheless retain three china mugs - two given to us by friend Karen from which we learn our knots and read flags and one sold to us by Rick Stein - that we use during the day and always for tea. At night or on passage we use our Bodum coffee drinking cafatieres. The coffee is great and stays hot long enough to extend the pleasure over a considerable period.
The sailing now is wonderful. The Portuguese trades blow from the west or north west every day from midday up until midnight or thereabouts. Usually they blow at between 10 and 15kts which means we romp across bright blue green coastal waters admiring the view at around 7kts of boatspeed. The view for the past few days has been wonderful beaches and grottoes beneath limestone cliffs. On reflection, had we used the opportunity of afternoon winds to visit the beaches in the morning rather than have a lie in we could have enjoyed them much more. Still, we did visit a wonderful beach here on Culatra this morning and Annie swam in the warm water - yards from where a large Portuguese Man of War jellyfish was washed up on the beach.
Culatra is a low sandy island close to Faro. It is one of those undeveloped places with only a few cafes and shops and small unsophisticated houses with no roads or infrastructure other than a raised wooden walkway across the sand dunes to the beach. It also happens to be right under the flight path into Faro airport which means that this trip has been an aircraft spotters dream - we have been anchored or berthed right under the flight path into each of Portugal’s three main airports. It has taken two months to get to where we are - albeit not continuously sailing - but you could catch a plane from Faro and be back in Bristol in two hours!
Down the west coast of Spain and Portugal you get quite a big Atlantic swell coming in from the west. The direction of the waves, however, is dependent upon the wind and if this is from the north then they cross the swell at right angles or thereabouts. I noticed that the rocking of the boat would be fairly mild for a few waves and then much heavier when, presumably, the wave coincided with a peak or trough in the swell. As anyone who has been in the Navy or read Papillon will know, every seventh wave tends to be larger than the preceding six (don’t ask me why). I remember Nick telling me that for two very stormy days in the North Sea in his fishery protection vessel all they could do was point into the waves and hold this position as it was too dangerous to turn. Someone would count the waves and they would anticipate each seventh wave. Anyway, this is a digression from the fact that along the south coast of Portugal you don’t seem to get the Atlantic swell and the wave motion is much more even and predictable. As a consequence we find that the easiest option going downwind without using the pole for the genoa or hoisting the cruising shute is to use the mainsail only (rather than genoa only as on the west coast). The mainsail has a bigger sail area than the genoa and if the wind is consistently 10-15kts and the boat not rocking too much then you don’t need a preventer. It can be reefed or gybed easily with the smoother motion……………
And finally we can announce a new nautical term that should find its way into the lexicon - the ‘Tad’. For the last 10 years or so Annie and I have been changing direction by a tad to port or starboard without consistent agreement on what a Tad is. The autopilot has 10 degree and one degree buttons so we tend to think in 10 degree and 5 degree increments. A tad however my be neither of these and we find that as 5 degrees may be too much and 2 or less not worth the effort that 3 degrees fits the bill. So there you have it, the Tad, a change of course to port or starboard of 3 degrees.