We got delayed a few hours more due to the weak, sorry, non apparent winds and left Leixoes 8AM local time in the morning the 9th Oct. Motored in the calm for couple of hours before the wind slowly came into the scene from NW as predicted. Hoisted the spinnaker and leisurely moved on at 3-4,5 knots for a while. The wind increased steadily though and soon enough we made 6-7,5 knots with the spinnaker as the only canvas. My plans of hoisting the mizzen staysail were never realized. Otherwise this makes a great combo in light air when there is a bit of swell, since there is no booms that swings back and forth as he swells move by.

On board Röde Orm we have a very nice set-up for crusing with a spinnaker. (important with a heavy dsiplacement boat to be able to keep moving at light air. Personally I like lightwind sailing since it's challenging to keep the boat at a few knots as opposed to fire up the engine.

Back to the set-up. We have got two spinnaker poles that runs on tracks along the front of the main mast. Thus no need to 'fight' a bulky and heavy pole on fore-deck. With heavy swells, or waves for that matter, this makes a huge difference. We also have a sock for the spinnaker that makes hoasting adn dousing it a very non-dramatic procedure even single-handed.

We were able to keep the spinnaker up until at midnight. I hand-steered all day and until midnight simply because it was great sailing. At midnight the wind had increased to at least 20 knots though at it seemde prudent to douse it before Isabelle's first night watch. Otherwise a lovely nght- starshine, warm, dolphins from time to time and later on the moon helped us see what we were doing on deck. Talking of dolphins I must tell you that we caught a maqurerel on one of our fishing lines that provided a lovely filé for each of us for dinner.

After getting the spinnaker down, and sorting out all those lines on a dark foredeck, we hoisted the main sail with one reef. Before we even thought of hositing the jib, we noticed that the boat balanced prefectly and the wind vane took over the steering. We made around six knots during the rest of the night under the reefed main only, and didn't see any point in increasing the sail area. I'd anticipate the wind speed to around 25 knots ( Force 6) and the seas started to sound mighty when they passed by with a foamy crest on top.

This meant that we moved ahead of the 'schedule' passing Peniche and the offlying Ilha Berlenga with it's light houses while it was still dark. we never saw the island as nothing but a vague dark silhouette with a light on top.

After sunrise, the wind decreased for a few hours, so we shook out the reef, but didn't bother more than that since we still made in excess of 5 knots of boat speed. the wind veered to NNE and strenghtened to a good 25 knots or maybe a bit more. We took 2 reefs in the main and still did 5.5-6 knots so all was well. Soon enough we sighted the mighty 'Cabo Raso' some 8 miles north of Cascais.

Here, we joked about getting 'Cap Blasé. as Cabo Raso ,, as mighty and beautiful as ut is, looked like a close 'realative' (cousin perhaps) to Finisterre in Galicia and a couple of others in both Galicia and Bretagne.

In the early afternoon we slowly entered the anchorage outside Marina de Cascais and just opposite a beach and some old style and very classy hotels. We dropped the hook in 18 feet of water just behind *Zephyr', whose crew apparantly were on shore.