Sines - Dolphins
Moxie - Beck Family Adventure
Mike, Denise, Asia and Aranya Beck
Sun 12 Sep 2010 22:07
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Sines 12 - 14 Sept 2010 37.57.16N
008.52.01W
Sines is the birthplace of Vasco da Gamma, so now we've
seen the beginning and the end. Other than that there's not much to the
place really although it does have a very modern and impressive public library
that sits in stark contrast to the old buildings and castle surrounding
it. he Marina is one of the cheapest we have seen too with a tariff
of only 24 euro for our boat, I say seen as we decided to anchor off (we
were the only ones though and felt a bit cheap) - the next couple of days we
were joined by others though and were many euro better off than we could have
been. We did splash out and spend 6 Euro to use the marina facilities and
laundry though
.
 da Gama - It started here in Sines.
We read Alice in Wonderland the other day, Alice thinks
that she is falling so far into the rabbit hole that she'll end up in New
Zealand. Coincidentally Portugal is the exact opposite point on the
planet to New Zealand and I told the girls that if they dug a hole directly
through the centre of the earth they'd end up in The Land of the Long
White Cloud. Well the next day they gave it a darn fine go, by my
calculations this hole would have come through in the Maui gas fields just off
the coast of New Plymouth.
 Leaving Sines was awful, we thought that we'd seen the
last of the fog but it got us again. The passage to Lagos is around 80
miles so we got up about an hour before daybreak, 6:00am, and upped the
anchor. Right on queue the fog rolled in thicker than we had seen for ages
and in the dark it was quite unwelcome. We decided to push on out of
the harbour as the entrance is very easy but we did this all very cautiously
indeed eyes glued to the radar and plotter - there was not much point looking
anywhere else. After an hour the fog had cleared day broke and we were in
open sea on our way to Lagos. Once again this was to be motoring all day,
it was not until 4pm that the wind picked up enough to bother with the raggy
bits. Two rods out this time one trolling deep and the other on the
surface and needlefish number three was landed (surface lure).
We had many dolphin encounters today, they really are so
sleek, fast, playful and clean looking we never got bored with seeing
them. This time we did manage a few photos.
    Another cape to our credits, we rounded Cabo de Sao
Vicente the South Western corner of Europe , from here on it's East we go
for a while. Approaching the cape the winds and sea state increased
steadily and we were at last able to hoist the sails and quiet the
engine. There was a strong Easterly blowing so Moxie was on her favourite
point of sail, Denise was having the drive of her life with hoops of 9 knots,
wow! 9.5... 10 we are doing 10 knots 10.5 - 11 - 11.2 ... maxing
out at 11.4 knots! a new Moxie speed record. Funny how my perspective has
changed with boat ownership, back in the superbike days (not that long ago) 11
miles an hour was stalling speed.
 Cabo de Sao Vicente, apparently there's a phallic shaped
rock somewhere near here but we could not spot it.
Our intention was to anchor just around the corner but
in the howling easterly it was not at all tenable so we pressed on (engine on
again) directly into the wind towards Lagos. We hooked another fish but on
the small rod that has no ratchet alarm so by the time it was noticed all the
line had been taken and it promptly snapped off as soon as Denise got the rod
out of the holder.
We arrived at the waiting pontoon at 9:50, just before
the office closed at 10:00 - one wonders if 10 minutes later would have save us
one night of the seemingly extortionate 75Euro per night fee, it only gets
worse the further into the Med you go. It had been a long day, luckily we
were given a nice easy berth and soon had Moxie and crew to bed. This was
AAs first night sail, previously they had always been asleep or at least inside
but tonight we all stayed in the cockpit, warm weather does
wonders.
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