Thursday's Child's Battle off Cape St Vincent

Thursdays Child
Robin & Joanna Minchin
Sun 16 Nov 2014 21:06
37:06.577N
008:40.461W

Marina de Lagos

The children were excited to see where we were this morning. A drawbridge opened to let us enter the large, very organised Marina de Lagos where Brits and Germans seem to run the place. Plenty of live aboards including several boats from the Solent. Lewis and Theresa kindly let our lines go in Sines and some kind folk caught them today in Lagos, a nice feeling.

Bol and I are still pretty shattered from yesterday. We left Sines in the forecasted 12 knots of breeze, rounded the sea wall with full rig up and Harry's rod out, to be pounded by a 30 knot squall and 5m swell, quite a rude awakening. The nerve racking thing about squalls is not knowing how high the wind will reach and how long it will last. Three more squalls hit us before dark and the children proved very helpful when it came to 'tailing' the sheets. 

Harry's tuna brought a pleasant distraction and we've just had it for supper this evening, absolutely delicious grilled with garlic butter. Lovely to see the children scraping the bones bare. We think it is a Bonito.

Sadly Bol got sick despite the ear patch. Thank you to Thomas for kindly supplying Buccastem M Buccal tablets which Bol tried (tucking them up into the gum), they were quite miraculous with colour returning to his cheeks and conversation flowing again. Unfortunately he then chilled down so needed to go below to put more clothes on... I didn't see him again until we were a few miles off Lagos. He didn't see the rounding of Cape St Vincent, he had his own battle going on. However, once we were here the two of us sat in the cockpit in a heap of relief and he was in good spirits again ~ mainly at the thought of sitting under one of the trees that line the entrance.

Harry was with me in the cockpit as Cape St Vincent lighthouse appeared and grew larger and brighter. It was too cloudy to see the star constellations we had prepared, and the loom of Lagos lights lit the night sky which didn't help.  I always find it miraculous that out of the hundreds of lights on the shoreline, eventually you pick out the red and green lights that are your leading lights to safety.  Then you tie up, and the calmness of port is a world away from the maelstrom that you've been in. When you climb a tall ladder you tend to think 'don't look down', when we rounded the Cape last night, I thought to myself 'don't look back'. It was so comforting to have the GPS, the Navionics and the laptop all buzzing away confirming our position.

A lovely relaxed day today exploring and learning a bit about Lagos which used to be the capital of Portugal.


 

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