Trip Update - 30th September 2008 Cascais, Portugal
Nutmeg of Shoreham
Ollie Holden
Tue 30 Sep 2008 09:08
Cascais, Portugal
We had another light-wind motor sail for 65M down to Cascais. This gave us a chance to try out the downwind preventers and pole configuration, which worked well, and we even got the cruising chute up for a little while (more to give it an air, than because we thought it would make a difference to our speed!)
Doing school on the deck
Face-painting with Emilia
Face-painting with Jemima
Two lovely sisters
Sunset on the final approaches to Cascais
We reached Cascais just after sunset, and anchored in the bay outside the marina. There were lots of other boats in the anchorage, and we were soon visited by various dinghies, including our Dutch friends, and a new Norwegian family on a Moody, with a 1 ½ yr old boy. They are going the same route as us too, so hopefully we will bump into them again. It is definitely becoming a floating village and very sociable.
Cascais is a beautiful town – quite touristy but very pretty. As it is only 15 miles out of Lisbon it is also well-connected and full of shops. We spent the first day having lunch in a local restaurant, then the girls went to the beach whilst I did a mega-shop in the local grocers, buying massive stocks of fruit anf veg. We have come to the conclusion that we have had enough of motoring and have no real inclination to go any further down the coast of Portugal because time is ticking on – so we think we will leave from here to Madeira.
Hence the need to stock up – clearly Madeira (and anywhere further) will have no shops, no food, nothing (yeah yeah) so we have an excuse to buy all sorts of lovely things whilst there are shops here. I think we are hoarders!
When I went back to the dinghy, I found it was trapped by a rising tide under the concrete fishing pier – durr! I couldn’t budge it as it was very much squished half-under the water! So I squeezed the fruit & veg in to the one corner I could reach, and headed off to the hypermarket to let the tide do the work. An hour and a half later I was still only halfway round and knowing Sarah was probably facing a mutiny on the beach, I cut my losses and headed back. The dinghy was now floating freely with a few additional characterizing scratches, so no harm done.
Sarah and the girls were duly picked up after a sunny and hot afternoon on the beach and we all headed back to Nutmeg for tea.
That night, the wind blew up and in the morning the anchorage was getting a bit wild. By lunchtime we were seeing gusts of 30kts and when the windsurfers appeared on 5.5m sails and were doing jumps between the boats in the anchorage, we knew it was probably time to bail out. Our anchor was holding fine but there were other boats who had anchored close (mentioning no names :o)) and it was very uncomfortable. So we managed to get the anchor up without issue and headed into the marina.
Anchored off Cascais
Once inside the marina, we filled up with fuel and tucked into a secure berth, glad to be in shelter. During the day, the anchorage empted out until there were only 2 or 3 boats left! Lovely to have the option of a marina – sure there will be times when there is no choice but to tough it out.
Cascais marina is very big and is more like Brighton or Gunwharf Quays, with lots of cafes & shops within the marina complex. It also has a lovely park with chickens and peacocks wandering around, just opposite the entrance. So we were happy! The other thing Cascais has is three Indian restaurants, so we made full use of the delivery service to have a proper Dhansak and Madras delivered to the boat! Well, why not?
We are now making our final preparations for leaving to Madeira. We plan to leave at 1400 today. It is about 480 miles to Porto Santo, the small island to the NE of Madeira, where we plan to make landfall. The forecast as of last night show the Portuguese Trades filling in and I think we are in for a boisterous sail, mainly with the wind behind. We are nervous but excited at the prospect of our longest sail to date.
We have also decided to make it into a race, and “Tyche” and “Duende” are setting off at the same time as us, with the bigger boats (“Samba”, Walrus” and “Saefthinge”) leaving 24 hrs behind us – a bit of a pursuit race, I suppose. The rules are unwritten but you don’t just win by being fastest – the size of the fish that you catch, and the amount of diesel that you use, are also factors!
I will try to send out some updates en route.