PORT- PORT- PORTUGAL!
20 July 2017 | Póvoa de Varzim
Ag/sunny but blowing a hooley
We sailed out of Baiona at dawn - a dirty grey wet miserable start to a 50-odd mile sail down the Atlantic coast and just to remind non nauticals that's at least ten hours as our crow crawls... but it got better. We tacked and we tacked and we were doing 7knts and the rain stopped and we crossed the maritime border and hey the sun came out, the skies turned blue and it was bliss. Portuguese bliss. But obviously there had to be a drama and once again I did it. Having landed beautifully in one of our best and definitely cheapest marinas so far, the big boys were playing with mooring lines which can take a while/days/weeks so I decided to take on the awesome responsibility of turning off the engine....yip, I reverted to car convention and turned the ignition key off. Nothing happened. So I shoogled it. Still nothing. And I then I thought (unusually technically for me): bet it's still in gear! So I shoogled that. It wasn't in gear. Only then did it come back to me that you MUST depress the red Stop button first then it beeps at you, then you turn off the ignition. And that's how you switch off a Boat engine.
Otherwise major major catastrophe involving every orifice opened up, extensive use of foul language and predictions of death, pestilence and plagues of locusts ensue....all to the hideous soundtrack of Diesel engine-without-its-off-button...
An hour later, after fuel line disconnected and the reconnected or some sort of boaty black magic, we're back in the boat business. But another v close call for Brag - she was nearly back on the market there...
Pic is of my browning legs and the Portuguese courtesy flag flying on Brag's mast from my favourite sun lounging position! Happy days - we're here for a while...Porto and Douro River to explore = port and wine tastings forever!🍷🍷🍷