Swallow's adventures

On 26/10/2016 we left Leixoes at 0600, accompanied by Millie, Ula, Lotta and Kady, with only the lights of a crescent moon and the port to guide us; we had a 12 hour journey ahead of us and wanted to arrive in Figueira da Foz in daylight - Portugal is on British time and the days are getting shorter! Apart from a slight altercation with a large tanker entering the port at considerable speed we managed to navigate our way out to sea without hitting any pot buoys. The sun came up at about 0745, it was a beautiful day with little wind,; the sun sparkling onto the water gave the impression of an array of flashing fairy lights laid on top of the sea's surface. Paul enjoyed watching the gannets diving for fish. The wind was very variable but we managed to get a decent sail for the last hour and made it by 1845.
We didn't see as much of Figueira da Foz as we would have liked; the general consensus was to keep on moving south whilst we still had good weather. As it turned out we could have lingered slightly longer ; we are now in the second week of November and the weather is still glorious- hindsight is a wonderful thing! There is a colourful covered market across the road from the marina here where you can buy fish, fruit and veg, olives, bread and pastries, bric a brac and clothes- I enjoyed trying to use my very limited knowledge of the Portuguese language here as the locals did not speak English; The language in the written form is similar to Spanish, but the pronunciation is quite different- it sounds more like east European, I am really struggling to understand the spoken language at the moment- am hoping it will suddenly become clear! We didn't think that we could find a nation friendlier than the Spanish but the Portuguese are lovely; apparently there is an Anglo/Portuguese alliance, signed in 1373, which is the oldest alliance in the world and still in force. I'm sure that by spending our winter in Lisbon we will learn a lot about this fascinating country.
After two nights in Fig da Foz we all moved on to Nazaire, apart from Lotta who stayed behind - we had a farewell drink on Swallow the night before; ten of us up on deck - the bow lifted out of the water considerably! Apart from a rather overpowering, pungent smell wafting out from a processing plant on the coast it was a very pleasant day's sail- the wind was in our favour at last; it was good to hear the gentle lapping of the water hitting Swallow as she glided along on a close reach. A ginormous bee hitched a ride with us. I was rather nervous about this part of the coast as I had read that Nazaire is famous for the tallest wave ever surfed, at 100ft; a deep water canyon runs to the shore and funnels the large Atlantic swells; two lovely marina guys took our ropes and told us that the wave had visited them three days ago!
The following day, still taking advantage of fair weather, we sailed to Peniche; not a lot of wind resulting in the engine being on and off a lot. There were lots of unmarked pots to dodge and we saw several fish jumping which was a shame as Paul had given up with his fishing gear weeks ago! There was not a lot of room for the British Armada, as we like to call our collection of four boats, here; we all had to raft alongside other boats and we had a very bumpy night due to the fishing boats coming and going at great speed at all hours. Hence, it was a unanimous decision to move on the next morning to Cascais.