Figueira da Foz
Seaduced
John & Jane Craven
Mon 26 Jul 2010 18:48
| From Viano do Castelo we headed south to Figueira. Reading the guidebook, the only attraction for this place is that it was halfway to Cascais our eventual destination for the end of the week - there were only 2 pages of notes in the book and they did not tell of a town of huge excitement! However, there are limited places to stop on this coast, it is marinas only as you can't anchor anywhere, so we left good and early, 05.00, to cover the 80 or so miles. The winds were as ever light in the morning and as we had a fair distance to cover the engine went on and we motor sailed along. The day passed fairly uneventfully until we arrived when the good old 'mooring gusts' picked up. For all you non sailors out there, it matters not how much or how little wind you have when you are out sailing, you nearly always get wind when it it is least convenient, ie when you want to tie up for the night! As we arrived we were called in by someone official looking - he had a uniform on - so we went across. He insisted that we had to moor on his wall and check in before going to the marina. After two aborted attempts due to excess wind we gave up and he agreed we could proceed and check in later, turns out he was nothing to do with the marina at all and seemed only to operate the non-working fuel jetty!! Honestly, give a man a uniform and he thinks he rules the world!! Following a few attempts and much assistance from the jetty we moored up and settled down for dinner on the boat and some much needed chill out time. The second day in Figueira, we cleaned and polished all morning in preparation for a visit from Karen, all the way from Riyadh! We decided to leave the exploration of the town, and this is in the loosest sense of the word, until then. The town was as described and utterly non-existent - we struggled to find even a bar for a drink, a very unusual place altogether. However there was one 'highlight' in that in the evening John lost his glasses overboard and had to go diving to retrieve them, he tried with a snorkel and failed, possibly due to consumption of alcohol and decided to try again in the morning - to be continued......... |