21/07/2008, Nazare
The Pilot Guide for the Portuguse coast indicates that it can often be very foggy along the coast until about 3 pm when it clears with a brisk wind. We were beginning to think that this advice may have been exaggerated somewhat and the 'severe' fog referred to did not really exist. How wrong could be have been! Over the past couple of days, we had noticed that it was quite misty in the evenings and mornings, but fairly clear by about 10 am. We got up this morning ready to depart at about 8-30 am for Peniche went up on deck and I was no longer sure whether we were even in the same marina! Visibility was less than 50 metres and a quick trip up to the marina office to pay up was followed by some good advice from the Harbourmaster along the lines of '...you are going where...?'. The local forecast for Martinho Do Porto f(about 5 miles down the coast) from Lisbon Radio was for visibility between 'zero and 50 metres'. This is a first for us, zero visibility. The Harbourmaster explained that what this means is that, in a small ship, you need your radar to tie up on the pontoon as you cannot see it! We stayed put for the day and walked into the town of Nazare where we explored fully all of the many winding back streets, headed up the local mountain in the Ascenceur (a type of funicular railway) which gave us a spectacular view of the beach and town in the 2 hours of reasonable visibility we had today. The town was buzzing with tourists and had more restaurants per square metre than I have ever seen in a town. A quick spot of lunch to sample the local sea food which was excellent, some more exploring, then a walk back to the boat for bangers and mash, again... Tomorrow's forecast looks much better and the plan is, again, to head towards Peniche, about 30 Nm south west of us. We'll see...hopefully!
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20/07/2008, Nazare
Tracey and I finally left Figueira da Foz this morning at about 9 am, our destination hopefully being Nazare, 40 Nm further south. I remember saying to Tracy as we set off 'don't worry about the fog, it'll be gone by 10 o'clock'. Well, at about 3 pm, the visibility slightly improved, but not much more than 2 miles. We have not seen a sausage today, apart from those on the instant mash for dinner tonight! Not a ship, fishing boat, or other yacht. For most of the journey, we could not see any land either, despite only being 4 miles offshore! Two dolphin visits today more than made up for the rest of the trip which was definitely in the 'very mellow' category. Even the sea was not too rough and the swell was a nominal 1.5 to 2 metres with the odd biggie at about 2.5 metres. The entrance to Nazare was easy to spot in these conditions and as we motored in, there was one mooring left on a pontoon which we immediately tied up to before the yacht behind us got there! It is a competitive sport, mooring! The pontoon is very rickety, but customs, immigration and the police have all been very friendly so far; they all visited the boat one at at time within several minutes of us arriving here! So tonight? A quiet night in after last night's very late night out in Figueira da Foz as it was our last night there. Straight off tomorrow morning towards Peniche where we plan to stay for a couple of days to check out this interesting mediaeval town.
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16/07/2008, Figueiro da Foz
Mark T has now disappeared back to the UK for 10 days leaving Tracey and I on the boat with the aim of getting to Cascais by the 24th July. We are still in Figueira da Foz for a few more days for 2 main reasons. I have had to have a dental repair job done to fix my fractured crown and need to return to the dentist in another 24 hours time to check on the work carried out prior to working out a more permanent solution which is likely to involve a short return trip to the UK. Secondly, the forecast for the next two days in the Porto sea area is for wave heights of 3.5 to 4 metres. In a nutshell, these are BIG waves when you are relatively close to shore as we discovered the other day in a mere 2.5 metre swell. Given that a breaking wave of 4 metres has the ability to capsize QUASAR IV, we are staying put for a couple of days and making good use of the time by constructing our long-awaited sun awning from a large roll of canvas we bought back in the UK. So, it looks like a sewing factory on board today; material everywhere, threads handing around, reinforcing ropes, grommets, and the sewing machine instruction book for moral guidance. The material we are trying to sew, hem and turn into the shade is about 4 by 3 metres and a bit of a monstrosity to manage under the sewing machine, but we are getting there...slowly! Should be complete by lunchtime tomorrow we reckon. The temperature has soared here over the past two or three days and is well into the 30 degC in the shade, hence the sudden urgency for the awning which was planned for completion in Gibralter. Still, spare, unplanned time in Fig.Foz (as the locals call the town) has allowed us to do the job early and leave more time in Gib to visit old haunts of mine, many of which remain from my 3 year time in Gib with the RAF back in the late 80's. Wow, doesn't time fly?!
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