The Life at the Marina
07 October 2009 | Leixoes/Porto
N 41,11 W 08,42
Among sailors a k a 'harbour rot' is a phenomenon that I guess affects all of us. For good and for bad. We took shelter here from a frontal passage that was connected with a nasty low that provided storm force winds over southern Sweden and elsewhere further north. Here, the winds have been in the 30 knot range for 2-3 days now and LOTS of rain. As opposed to the higher latitudes I (Magnus) am used to, it's still warm though. Around 20 degrees so still shorts and t-shirts mostly.
Needless to say the laundry does not dry in these conditions, making the boat look like an alley in southern Italy or maybe an old style gypsy camp. We have been able to take advantage of shore power (for our tools) to rebuild the navigation table. Will post a few pictures in the 'Photo Gallery'.
Functionally, we are satisfied with it, but since we had to reuse the old teak pieces the finish wasn't 100 %, but that can be dealt with later with some teak trim...
We've also explored Porto - a very charming city- and in the middle of the city, on the river, we found 'Zephyr' from Jersey again and reunited with Steve and Colin. We did the day trip to Porto (by bus) with Alistair, an English single-hander in a Tradewind 35 and had a very nice evening in the cockpit of 'Zephyr' over a glass of wine, or erhhh, maybe two ;-)
As it seems they will sail to Cascais before us since they will have friends flying in who are supposed to sleep onboard. We do not envy them the 170 miles beating to windward....but wish tehm good luck.
Being on a schedule is always what makes you end up in the 'bad stuff' when sailing.
We also visitied Croft's, one of the many usually English own Port wine caves here. A guided tour through the cellar with all it's casks and barrels sharing their special smell with us. After the tour a sample was offered us for free consisting of one white Port and a Ruby. We decided to add to the experience with a Vintage 1995. Cream of the crop to say the least.
Tomorrow the wind will calm down a bit and turn NW, so we'll do the 1,5 day passageto Cascais then as it seems now