Trip Update - 22nd September 2008 Figuiera da Foz, Portugal
Position: 40:08.85N
08:51.58W Another day, another 65M sail down
the coast – and another day without wind!
So much for the Portuguese Trades.
We pressed our 40 horses into service instead and rocked and rolled our
way down the coast in a 1.5m swell.
A bit different to the motorsail to Leixos where it was so calm I was
able to have all my tools out on the foredeck, fitting the
preventers. No dolphins today, but something new
to keep us amused – fog! Suddenly
the visibility dropped to 50m and we were all alone in a small grey world. We put lifejackets on the kids, watched
the radar and carried on, and Sarah cooked the most amazing lemon & orange
sponge cake. The fog cleared just
as we were heading into the harbour, fortunately, and we followed Saeftinge, our
friends on a 76ft Dutch ketch, into the marina. Figuiera was a fairly non-descript
town but rather than push on we decided to try to do a “routine” day to try to
give some order to the kids, who have started to be a bit naughty. In retrospect, I think Jemima was
perhaps a bit poorly as her behaviour improved the next day. 90% of the time they are just superb and
their ability to improvise in their play appears to know no bounds. Their role-play is a joy to watch and
has involved all sorts of scenarios taken from the boat and sailing, family at
home, playschool memories and various others. One of the tragicomic ones is when they
pretend that their dolls are seasick and they get the bucket out and go through
all the actions! The girls have found a large number
of places to play in on the boat, from the “den” under the forecabin bunks, to a
new one they have discovered in the last few days, which is the “treehouse” on
the aft cabin top. They climb up,
inside the cockpit canopy, and make a den on the top of the hatch with cushions
and various toys. So, following our “routine”
perfectly, we were just about to put the kids to bed at 1900 when our friends on
the four Dutch boats arrived into the marina, along with Zita who had just flown
back from England where she had been at her brother’s wedding. Of course, with the Dutch kids to play
with, there was no chance of getting our two into bed (to be fair, they were
still dressed up as princesses) and very soon they were onboard “Tyche” watching
a Barbie video sitting on the laps of the older children. There were 5 kids sitting at the nav
station on each other’s lap – very sweet! The adults joined on the pontoon for
an impromptu party and we had a really nice evening chatting to the others. Zita very sweetly brought us the Sunday
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