28th June Cascais - 4th week
Nightsong
Sat 27 Jun 2009 12:19
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Hi blog
Another busy week working our way down the
Portuguese coast from the Spanish Baiona to Cascais near Lisbon ( very smart and
expensive resort). Tomorrow we go on to another and cheaper marina nearer
Lisbon, having cruised over 900 nm from Plymouth.
 The weather has been good (tho' winds have been
light and largely contrary & it has not been so hot as last
week) and the 250 mile long Portuguese coast with the honourable exception
of Viana do Castello not very interesting - featureless coast of sand dunes and
only one island Ilha Berlenga. This however is a jewel, transported from the
Hebrides to warmer climes, very rugged and unlike the sandy gems of islands off
the 4 southern Spanish Rias, Ria de Musos, Ria de Arosa, Ria de Pontevedra and
Ria de Vigo. At Berlenga, we anchored in 40ft of water and I set the anchor
alarm for drifting only 150ft (which we didn't till 7am and then only 'cos the
boat swang). Despite no wind we rolled all night - in fact I thought it was
worse than at St Kilda. Anyway photo attached shows some
The other highlight of the week was to hire a car
from Povoa de Varzim and go up into the hills to see the magnificent town of
Guimaraes (the former capital of Portugal - a 16/17th century gem) and the
wonderful church at Braga, a picture of which is attached. Povoa incidentally
was the cheapest marina I have ever used - it cost Euros15 for 2 nights about
1/4th of the normal and 1/8th of Cascais
 A 2 week break to pay the bills and then back to
take the boat to the Algarve firstly with the Nicholsons and the with Thomas and
4 friends for a couple of weeks. No major problems with anything but we must
have the wind thing fixed before the ARC
AJB
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