Friday 26th October 2012   39:21.15N 009:22.62W

Tuesday morning brought bright sunshine and a westerly wind to Leixoes, so we took advantage to make progress down the Portuguese coast to Peniche, about 50 miles north of Lisbon, a passage of just 110 miles. The weather forecast was good for the next 24 hours, before the wind was expected to turn against us.  Well, it was nearly right.  We left in winds as forecast, but half an hour later were motoring in a virtual flat calm, compensated by the sunshine.  A few hours later, the wind did pick up and we enjoyed some good sailing.  In the early hours of Wednesday morning the wind not only backed to the south (against us) but increased to force 6, reaching 35 knots at one point.  Nothing for it but drop the sails and motor into the rising seas and stiff wind; only 20 miles to go.  Despite using two engines, we only managed 3-4 knots in these conditions, but managed a safe arrival at Peniche at 14.30 where John was waiting on the pontoon to greet us.

 

Peniche has a large fishing fleet, many restaurants and a reasonable supermarket, although facilities for yachts are limited.

 

Thursday night found us inadvertently sharing a restaurant with several dozen students celebrating their graduation in boisterous, but friendly, high spirits.  Whatever the future holds for these young people with Portugal in the grip of a deep economic recession, one could only admire their happiness and obvious camaraderie.  We wished them well.

 

Sadly, Kevin has been experiencing a lot of pain from a pre-existing medical problem and left us today to return home for attention.  His good humour and competence will be missed, but John has arrived in time to take his place and we shall continue as fast as the weather permits.

 

Our paths to both Madeira and the Canary Islands will be blocked in a few days, before we could reach either, by a forecast large depression carrying gale force winds, so we will head 100 miles further south tomorrow to Sines (Vasco de Gamma’s birth place about 60 miles north of Cape St Vincent which we should reach in good time ahead of any bad weather. Given the rapid changes of forecasts recently, we will check the weather as we go in case we find an opportunity to shape a passage to Madeira or the Canaries, but remain wary.