Wednesday 8^th June, 2016

Off Portugal  42 10.6N  9 07.1W

Today's Blog by David  (Time zone: BST+1; UTC +2)

Our arrival in Baiona on Monday evening at the ‘Monte Real Club de Yates’ coincided with the high water swell causing us to bounce around in our berth while we worked out how, (with advice and encouragement from Pedro in the boat alongside us), how to knit our mooring lines to minimise the movement.  A compromise agreed, the crew declared themselves ready to stay aboard for a bangers and mash supper before eventually crashing relatively early.

Tuesday dawned with Baiona beckoning – walking tours courtesy of the nearby tourist office, supermercados and panaderias galore.  The problem was that Simon complained of a  tummy bug which was making him decidely uncomfortable and entirely disinterested in tourism.

The tourists toured Baiona in the morning. The historic town tour took us through now familiar architecture:

..and then on to visit the Blessed Virgin on the Rock, high up on a hill overlooking the harbour approaches.

….which was just as well really because the approaches are pretty tricky navigation, as this photo of the Monte Real Fort illustrates:

Some of the views were quite lovely:

We cut short our tour and repaired back to the yacht to check on Simon who was by now feeling quite under the weather.  Although he had visited  a pharmacist, and had taken his medicine like a man, this morning the prospect of 36+ hours at sea in a small boat was not appealing and, discretion being the better part of valour, he decided to stay ashore in a  hotel when we set off south today. Shame, because he had become an integral member of the crew and will be sorely missed   -   wish him a speedy recovery and a safe journey home.