Figuera do Foz and beyond
Persephone... Cruiser/Racer
Nigel & Karen Goodhew...
Fri 15 Jul 2016 10:57
The next morning all 3 of Tivolis guests departed. We had a fantastic sail in real Portuguese trade conditions...fast and reachy with a kite up all the way. Our intention was to pass Figuera do Foz by and head on south,but we changed our mind after sailing away from Silver Lining, and diverted in to enjoy an overnight stop there, where we recovered the social circle and swopped stories of our respective sails...
The Marina was much nicer than I remembered and the town was a delight as well, with a great market and all spick and span...it seemed a surprise that we had elected to pass on by. So great was our delight that we stayed a second night and went out on an excursion by train, to visit the historic city of Coimbra. This is an ancient university town, with the old royal castle apparently donated by the King to create the university in 1544. The university campus is full of tourists as it dominates the town from its lofty perch high above the narrow and steep streets below....great to see, and fun to penetrate some of Portugals interior. And a lesson too, for the British public transport industry....the 1 hour train journey was under 5 Euros for a return, in an air conditioned train which ran on time, both there and back. Compare that with a day return from Winchester to London...!...£74 the last time I went, in May!
After a couple of days, each punctuated by an evening get together with Venture Lady and Silver Lining, we parted company and had another cracking days sail down the coast about 50 miles for a quick overnight stop in Peniche. Which was cold. A guy from Troon whom we tied up alongside said the weather reminded him of home...without the horizontal rain, of course.
Then yesterday, another 45 miles south, around the little point and into Cascais, where we now sit quietly at anchor.
Off to restock the larder in a few minutes. One quick tale to tell....it was windy last night, so I thought it would be expedient to reconfigure our trusty towing generator into its wind generator mode. That took hours! Some little black bushes needed prizing out of the casing in order to make the change, but would they budge?....no! Eventually, after dark, I had to make a sort of "puller" from bits and bobs I had on board, to extract the little beauties, and just before midnight, we hoisted a wind generator.....well that is the sailing life, sometimes.
Our current position
38 41.797N. 9 24.907W
And it is getting warmer....
N
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