Started our way down the Portugal coast out of Baiona, we
made a big hop of 69 miles luckily all downwind as we had a window in the
weather, we tried all the sails out even the Big Blue Cruising Shute for a
while until the wind dropped completely for about 2 hours, we lost a winch
handle over board when the wind got up in the afternoon, luckily David
has some in stock, but we put that item on our shopping list of things to
get, we were sailing along going through 10 knots toward Leixoes Porto (
said like Layahoinsh ).
Holding on tight, a bit rough
The harbour is small but ok and when we arrived it was
full, so we anchored in 27 knots of wind outside the harbour wall. We had
very good holding and had lots of swinging room so we were all happy. The
Harbour office just required our passports and a look at our ships papers and
took about 5 mins.
We had a windy night at anchor but right on the nose all
night, it didn’t ease off until early morning where we ribbed ashore in
beautiful sunshine and caught the no 507 bus to the centre of Porto
to the Ribeira district which is on the Ria Douro. The Riberia District
is a Unesco world heritage zone of winding lanes, zigzagging staircases and
tiles churches peering around every corner. The city centre is quite
dilapidated and has been left to crumble in parts, which is sad.
A bit of history - Porto put the ‘Portu’
into Portugal, the name dates back to the Roman times, and is where Port wine
comes from.
We sat and had lunch at one of the popular street cafes
along the riverfront with Robin & John from Panthera, people watching and
deciphering the menu, we chose squid and salad, which was excellent washed down
with a bottle of Douro white wine.
Later we were walking back up to the bus station when David spotted
another tile shop and suggested Robin goes in, so we pilled in, next thing we
knew Robin had her arms around a young man exclaiming “My god I
don’t believe it” Well the short story is the young lad
is her best friend in NZ son and girlfriend, they are travelling around Europe
and they happen to meet up in a tile shop in Porto. Spooky…..David
using his physic skills again….ooh..
Another church
River front area
We left them all to reunite and David and I caught the
metro back and walked through the small Lexioes town and past the beach to the
boat. Early night was had as we had another 70 miles to sail down to
Figueira da Foz
Love
Suzanne & David xxx
