40:38.8010N 8:50.5900W

We said good-bye for now to Spain and spent Monday night in our first Portuguese marina, Viana do Castelo, a bustling commercial harbor with an old town and finally a change of food from the Galician restaurants in Spain. Not much to tell other than that we are continuing our workouts together and had a tough training session before setting sail and heading towards Porto, the home of port wine. I am happy that once again we have a group on board that functions well and has fun together.

 

Porto was rather negatively described in our guide book to Portugal and we had even considered skipping this second largest city in Portugal altogether. Luckily we didn’t, because it turned out to be a very interesting and great place to visit. We stayed at a marina North of the city, in Leixoes, and took a bus into Porto. Good food, very picturesque buildings, narrow streets, and Port wine everywhere. We even took a Tuk Tuk tour with a crazy and fun guide who covered much more ground than we would have managed on our own. Stops and Crofts and Sandeman for Port-tasting were important highlights.

 

Back at the harbor last night we met the crew of an old classic racing boat from Latvia, and also a high-tech Russian racing boat, Anna from St. Petersburg, on it’s way towards the Mediterranean after participating in the Fastnet race in the Irish Sea.

 

Next stop will be Figueira da Foz. We are halfway there as I write this, after several hours of very varying winds, from 18 knots to nearly dead calm. We have had the gennaker up a few times and now the wind has settled from the NW and we are cruising along under genoa and mainsail at about seven knots. The sun i shining and everyone is happy on board.