Saturday 2nd July
Whitesatin
Sat 2 Jul 2016 18:31
Greetings from Portugal!
We pulled up the anchor at 08:00 this morning and have had the most glorious
day with 20 knots of northerly wind for most of the day - in fact we think
this is the first day that we haven't used the engine at all (apart from
coming out and in the ports of course). David put up the pole for the genoa
on his own and we have spent most of the day sailing with that alone.
Portugese time matches BST, so we have gained an hour today. We run two
clocks - a boat clock on BST and another one on local time.
We are now moored up for 3 nights in a marina in the centre of Porto, a
water taxi across the river from the old town but round the corner from the
Port distilleries. It was a 'challenging' entrance with strong winds and a
transit to follow to ensure we didn't drift into shallow waters. (Quite scary really - David)
It seems to be 'Festival' today so there is a large stage with music
adjacent to the marina (we'd better find the ear plugs); we are promised
fireworks at midnight and as the water taxi is running until 04:00 we are
off to explore the old town and to find a restaurant.
The marina staff are incredibly helpful. We were shown in by a lad in a
dinghy who helped us to tie up (and who complimented David on his
manoevering). The marina office lady has given us all sorts of tourist
information. She asked me how to pronounce something and after I had
explained the 'short vowel double the consonant' rule she asked me if I am a
teacher - I wonder why! Yet another discussion with the continentals on the
woes of Brexit - she told me there has been a big demonstration in London
today so we will shortly go on the internet to catch up on the news.
We still have 3 days of sailing to Lisbon and 7 days in which to do it so we
will stay here until Tuesday morning.
Loads of love
Vicki