(No. 8) Final run to Lisbon
Catou
Paul and Sylvie Tucker
Fri 23 Jul 2010 21:55
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Tuesday 20th July (At
Nazare) We were up early(ier than usual), since Dave and Jill
had to catch a 9.20 am bus to Lisbon. They had taken us out for
a lovely meal at the marina restaurant on Monday night, and it was very
enjoyable. Though their flight was on Wed morning it was early, so they
wouldn't have made it if leaving the following morning. It
also gave them a chance to see a little of Lisbon, since we had
felt a bit guilty when we had whipped them away from Oporto last week
without giving them a chance to see the city. We had a great week with
Dave and Jill, with one really good sail - but it was their first one, and
poor Jill had succumbed to the mal de mer, but by the last trip to
Nazare had found her sea-legs.
After we had waved them off at the bus station, we did
some shopping and strolled back to the boat late morning and had an
afternoon bumbling on board and some cleaning. An early night ready for
early start on Wednesday.
Wednesday 21st July Nazare to
Cascais (10' west of Lisbon) Up at 0530 to a grim overcast
and slightly damp morning. It wasn't yet light and the fishing trawlers
had been in and out most of the night (v. close to the marina) with plenty of
noise and wash. We cast off at 0600 and motored out beyond the
breakwater, hoisted sail and set course south. For a short while
the wind died on us, but soon it came back, and we had a lovely sail for 12
hours. The coast south of Nazare was quite different to the sand dunes
further north. There were cliffs and headlands, more reminiscent of the
west country coast in SW of England - and wow! even some islands to sail
between! I took the first 3 hour watch while Sylvie went back to bed for a
sleep. I didn't see a single vessel, either small or large for 3 hours -
when I did see the first ( a fishing boat), we were on a collision course with
it - in all that ocean! When Sylvie came on watch, it was time to alter
course, and with the wind direction the new course slowed us down a
little, so we took a tack down-wind (this is so you can get some wind in
the for'd sail - the genoa, otherwise it is masked by the mainsail). This
added a few miles to the trip, but at least we kept our speed
up.
At about 1800 hrs the wind increased very suddenly,
and just as I was dozing off, Sylvie gave me a call, since she couldn't hold the
boat on course, so we hove-to and put two reefs in the mainsail before
continuing the last 7 or 8 miles and a cracking pace. We rounded up into
Cascais bay, about 10 miles west of Lisbon at about 1900hrs and sailed up to the
anchorage and dropped the hook. We had a quiet supper. However,
there were some violent gusts off the land, and they continued all night.
Our anchor was well dug in and held throughout the night in spite of gale-force
gusts which heeled the boat over.
Thursday 22nd July Cascais bay - Lisbon
(Alcantara marina) We weighed anchor at 1030. A problem
arose, since I was a looking over the bow at the direction of the chain, and
failed to notice the chain somehow overriding itself on the 'gypsy' (drum) of
the electric windlass. It got in an awful tangle, jamming solid and
damaged an aluminum chain guide that helps guide the chain into the
locker. As I was trying to sort the chain out Sylvie,
who was on the wheel and was battling with a strong gust of wind,
since we were drifting by this time (the anchor was off the bottom).
Anyway, I pulled it up by hand and a job to sort for tomorrow. We had an
amazing sail up the Tagus river on the flood tide all the way up to
Lisbon city. The wind was strong and gusty. We only had to put
in one tack and then had a lovely sail up passed the famous Torre de Belem
(The Belem Tower), racing a container ship up river that was entering the river
at the same time as us. It was a wonderful sail and we were the
only yacht on the river that morning. We sailed under the
enourmous new suspension bridge (apparently the biggest in Europe) and soon
arrived off the container terminal (our marina was just behind), so dropped
sails, motored in and found a berth.
Sorry about the non-horizontal horizon in 1st pic and the out of focus one
as well. It was a hairy sail up the river, and we didn't have much time
for artistic photos!
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