Oeiras to Sines
21 June 2015 | Sines
Sean
Vasco da Gama
Out of the 9 boats that started the rally, 7 were left. Kinni Rossi had put into Breast and now Windbourne was stuck in a boat yard near Lisbon awaiting a new gearbox. So we were glad to still be OK and all going well.
The trip to Sines from Oeiras is about 55nm and again light winds were forecast for the passage. The first part of the passage took us out of the river Tejo estuary which was shallower than we were used to....more like the good old East coast. The bigger boats went out through the channel and were soon out of sight.
Making 3kn over ground and a fairly long passage is not good so once again the engine was on.............then the wind would pipe up so off again........then on, eventually at about 15:00 the wind picked up from WSW enough to keep our speed around 5 kn .
We got into Sines at around 19:00 and a very easy berth. Pauline had been taking advantage of the flat sea and motor sailing and produced a mmm lovely curry! and pasta for me. We invited Chanto over to dinner and had a great evening.
The next day we had a guided tour of Sines and the fort followed by a welcome reception. The guide was very informative and almost knew as much as John!!
We decided to eat out this evening and walked up the steep hill towards the town. We found a small typical Portuguese restaurant that was really busy with local people. After an hour we managed to get in and had a great meal with T-Bone steaks had by most at great value.