Lagos
ULA
John & Jackie Richards
Wed 27 Aug 2008 11:00
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Position 037:06.656N 008:40.536W
We are now back to our original crew of three as
Andrew jumped ship early this morning to head off to his villa in Vale de Lobo -
poor Captain John is now outnumbered 2:1 again!
The trip from Sines began, as forecast
in the last blog, just before dawn, around 5.30am. We had no wind for
quite a while and had to motor but then a Force 3 set in - unfortunately
this wasnt enough to keep us moving in the swell and we motor sailed
for most of the way South to Cabo de Sao Vicente on the SW corner of Portugal.
Once round the headland, (which is very impressive) were able
to head up along the South coast of the Algarve and had a cracking sail,
eventually having to reef, and arrived in Lagos around 5pm. While moored up
on the reception pontoon, we were surprised to suddenly see Nick from Libertad
waving at us - weren't they supposed to be in Madeira by now!? It turned out
that they had set off last Friday but had experienced very bad conditions,
culminating in Paul sustaining a knock to his head, and had turned
round. They have now changed their plans, leaving the boat in Lagos for a few
weeks before returning to continue their trip. We were sorry to hear their news
but pleased to meet up with them again. Yet another good night out
ensued!!
As we made our way to our allotted berth we also
saw a Dutch boat, Finborg ( a Grand Soleil 43) already moored up and they
shouted to us as we went past. This was the boat that had moored alongside
us in Nazare and we had 'raced' them down to Cascais - they beat us in by about
30 minutes! We then saw them again in Sines although they left the day before us
and there has been some ongoing light hearted banter with them
about how much each of us is using the engine to motor sail/actually
sailing! John shouted 'We sailed all the way!' to much laughter
as we went past.
Andrew has been awarded 'Competent crew'
status having mastered bowlines, fender knots, locking turns, roving fender
duty, sail trimming, steering in a straight line and choosing the wine. We are
not allowed to mention The Battle of Trafalgar ever
again.........
Jackie
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