Arrival at Cascais and Happy Birthday Dad!
Stargazer of Southampton
Susie and Adam (both think they are skipper)
Tue 14 Sep 2010 09:40
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14:09.10,
38.41.87N 09:24.77W
HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD - Hope that you have a great
Birthday lots of love from both of us!! x x x
 After an extra days recuperation at Nazare the
forecast looked good with moderate NE winds so we set off at 6 in the morning
for Cascais, a trip 70 miles south.
We expected to be motoring in the morning as the
winds are often non existent then - but by late morning should have picked up
the alleged 'Portuguese trades', as we approached some little nature
reserve islands off the coast of the peninsular of Peniche (Ihla Da Berlenga)
the wind did start to pick up and we needed to go dead downwind so
excitedley got our our pole so we could pole out the genoa and mail on opposite
sides and wing down the wind.
If we had known the wind would only last 2
hours then we would have anchored at the islands - we would have been the
only boat there once the bird watching day tripper boats had gone. So we
got 2 hours of wind before it vanished and it was back to motoring - for the
rest of the day!
We arrived in Cascais at about 9pm in the darkness
but it was fairly easy to find the anchorage and we anchored off the
beach. Not much wildlife spotting (either dead or alive (see note on
whale from a couple of days back) on the way down although the highlight was
where we assume dolphins and large sea birds were chasing a shoal of fish - the
dolphins were leaping out of the water all over the place and the birds -
Gannets and other big brown birds that look like gannets, were diving straight
into the water like darts. We watched this for 15 mins or
so. We also had 3 dragonfly's hitching a ride on our boat -
not really sure what they were doing 5 miles out to sea - but they came and sat
on the boat for most of the afternoon for a ride - assume that they got off at
Cascais!
Cascais so far looks great - lovely place with
Lisbon just 30 mins on the train, think we'll spend at least a week
here.
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