Trip Update - 25th September 2008 Nazare, Portugal
Nutmeg of Shoreham
Ollie Holden
Tue 30 Sep 2008 08:36
Nazare, Portugal
We have motored the entire way from Bayona. Grr.
A 34-mile motor (actually we did manage to turn the engine off for 45 mins!) took us down to Nazare, which is a man-made harbour in a bay round a small headland – a pimple on this ruler-straight coastline. Bizarrely though, there is an underwater canyon that runs into this bay which appears to be a crack in the continental shelf, and we dropped off soundings only half a mile off the coast! This cuts out some of the swell but despite the lack of wind there were still monstrous breakers hitting the beach either side of the harbour mouth.
We were met on the pontoon by the local police and customs men, who before we had even got the boat tied up, were after ships papers and passports. They even wanted to see the girls – apparently everywhere the police should be visually checking people against passports, but it is the first time we have had this.
Nazare has a very small marina at the end of a large fishing dock. Consequently it is dirty and noisy but other than that, perfectly pleasant. The shore facilities reminded me of something from the third world, with acres of space and a few run-down concrete buildings. However the marina turns out to be run with military precision by Capt Michael Hadley and his wife Sally, a couple who apparently stopped here for the night on their way back from a few years in the Mediterranean, and never left!
Capt Mike appeared at our boat at 0730 the next morning and having dragged us from our bed, berated me for not following proper procedure in checking in (I had thought that seeing off two sets of port officials in the gathering dusk would have been enough). Apparently I should have taken my papers/passports to a third person in an office at the entrance to the compound!
As is probably clear, this guy has clearly carved out his little niche in this small pond (to mix my metaphors) and is enjoying being Very Important. As we got to know him, he turned out to be a very kind and helpful person, but I can imagine his style running a lot of people up the wrong way, especially the non-British.
Given there was no wind and none forecast, we settled in to Nazare, which turned out to be a lovely place. It was a 20-min walk (or 5-min bus ride) into town, and we went in and wandered the lovely narrow cobbled streets before flopping on the beach and watching the surfers. Despite there being no wind there was quite a ferocious swell dumping on the beach, presumably as a result of the steeply shelving seabed. The Portuguese beaches often have a children’s playground at the top of the beach, so the kids can play whilst the adults laze on the beach.
We stayed an extra day to do our laundry (how thrilling!) and it was funny, because it feels like one of those places where everyone is surreptitiously trying to make you stay for longer, without ever being explicit about it. Michael kept telling us that we should be going to an anchorage 5 miles up the coast, although it was very dangerous and we could only get over the bar a few hours either side of HW. The Portuguese manager of the marina told us that it was too dangerous to go there at all, and Sally (Michael’s wife) would then tell us that the anchorage was lovely. The underlying message that we got was that it was better to stay here and go to the anchorage by bus!
We got up the next day and were very glad to get underway, away from outside influences!