Viana do Castelo

Marita3
Mark & Helen Syrett
Sat 9 Jul 2011 18:09
41:41.551N 08:49.368W
We sailed from Bayona this morning leaving in poor visibility and rain but we wanted to get further South and the weather is apparently going to deteriorate towards the end of next week---- although we are not sure that it can deteriorate much further!
For the passage South the forecast and grib files promised us some rain, calm seas and a pleasant northerly -----the prevailing wind that blows along this coast all summer. The wind blew directly from the south all day!! Another frustrating day of sail and motor.
However we made it this very friendly harbour---- the Portugese appear much more friendly than the Spanish and they also speak better English which is a great plus for us. We took down the Spanish courtesy flag and raised the Portugese flag in it's place and bizarrely put the clocks back one hour so we are now on British Summer Time.
The windex, which I thought we had fixed, packed up again despite it's new mast head unit so further trips up the mast await as that was obviously not the fault----it is an intermittent fault which are always the hardest to fix as guess work as to what is wrong.
At the moment we are sailing in company with Maximillian (a Moody 47) who are Med bound. Reassuring to have another boat around and also good company.
The rock concert on the green next to the marina is just tuning up for a whole night of song and entertainment----- no peace.

Sent from my iPad