We spent the rest of the time in Lisbon getting the jobs finished. Small things for once, our shower resealed and tidied up, the outside table varnished which looks lovely and the anchor galvanised. BB’s looking great and everything working, long may it continue. Some chasing needed to get things finished but on the whole not too tiresome. We visited a few roof top bars on the recommendation of Joao who had been doing jobs for us and providing great tourist information. We went across the river to Seixal for lunch, did some more hanging out in Lisbon and generally had a lovely time. We went to the cinema a couple of times as we found that all the films are shown in English with Portuguese sub titles, another big tick in the Portugal box. They also have intervals in the middle of the films which was a surprise. We were running every other day along the broad walk and doing some arm strength with the public machines on the front. We’re gradually getting fitter but I’m still struggling to lose the crossing flab, not easy when it is so nice to sit in the cafes and eat and drink. We did a 20 mile cycle to pick up a part and unfortunately I seemed to hurt my back, it has been so good for so long I had started to think it had completely got better but apparently not. A couple of days off on the move should, hopefully sort it out.
We finally left Lisbon on 11th August, very sad to go but ready to get going. We were not going far, Sesimbra along the coast about 35 miles. Our friends, Jan and Ian had told us they like it there so we thought we’d stop in. We had a very relaxed motor with no wind, hot sunshine and some dolphins that came to play for a while. It was a lovely return to travel even if we were under motor. We arrived in the early afternoon and anchored, having to remember the drill without having young, fit crew with us. We went for a walk around and found a very busy seaside resort, full of Portuguese holiday makers enjoying the beach and the sunshine. We debated whether to eat out that night and also whether to stay the planned one, or maybe an extra night. We looked into getting a car for a day and driving into the hills but there were none available. In the end we decided to eat on board that night and but stay for the extra day. It was lucky that we did because that night as the evening wind got up and we were sat watching Boardwalk Empire, the anchor alarm went off and we realised that we were dragging. We got the anchor up to find it caked in solid clay/mud which wouldn’t wash off, we tried to reset but it again dragged and when we pulled it up again the clay was still there. I couldn’t move it even with the boat hook and James had to attack it with more force. Eventually he got enough off to try again. We moved spots to try to get out of the clay and this time the anchor held. Of course, for the rest of the night though we were worried and James set the anchor alarm with a fairly close boundary and it went off three times in the night. Each time was just a move of position in the wind and tide, the anchor held and by the morning we were feeling confident about it again. How lucky that we had been aboard though, if not we wondered where BB would have ended up if she had drifted off on her own? Would someone have noticed? Would she have hit another boat behind us or just drifted out to sea. Obviously with the anchor full of clay it wouldn’t have dug in again as she moved and either she would have hit the rocks on the headland or just floated out to sea. Either way it would have been a big shock when we had come back in the tender to go to bed. It doesn’t bear thinking about, we weren’t sure who we’d have contacted for help or what we would have done to start a search for the boat, probably nothing could have happened until the morning, what a nightmare!
We went for a good walk around the harbour to make up for not running and then into town to find a lunch spot. Everywhere was busy and buzzing and we settled on a restaurant, had a fab fish stew and a plate of sardines with green wine, delicious. More walking on the beach afterwards then back to the boat for more Boardwalk Empire ready for an early start in the morning and the next hop.
We had a good trip to Sines, somewhere that we had stopped on the way down but didn’t get off the boat. We decided to stay for a couple of nights and as it was a cheap marina we booked in. Sines is an old fishing/industrial town up a steep hill from the beach. It has a sheltered harbour enclosing the marina, the fishing harbour, a beach and a large anchorage. At the top of the hill is an old Castle with views out over the bay. The Marina staff told us there was a festival on Monday which was always interesting and we were keen to have a look around. The town was much quieter than Sesimbra with a nice old area around the harbour and castle. We went out for a drink in our first evening, and the next day went to the shop and out for lunch. We met a Portuguese family away for the weekend from Lisbon and enjoyed chatting to them over lunch. We got back to the boat and there was a procession of fishing boats around the harbour decked out in bunting and looking very festive, we didn’t see anything else going on so think we must have missed out on the land procession.
We had both been struggling with aches and pains, my back and James with a sore knee so had not run for a few days. We had heard about a 20k cycle along to a nice fishing village and so decided to head off there on the 15th. The promised cycle track turned out to be some busy roads, a dirt track and a duel carriageway at one point but we kept going. It was worth it and Porto Covo was lovely. We had lunch and a look around the shops and headed back intending to sit on the beach for a couple of hours. After a brief, and quite rare, squabble about where to go we found that everywhere was actually head on into the wind so no shelter from the sand or stiff breeze. So after all that we headed straight home. It was a good ride and a nice day out so all was not lost, we even encounter a couple of Ostriches in a field.
We had met two Swedish people who had been delivering a small boat back to Sweden, over the first few days they realised the boat was unsound, literally coming apart and felt it was unsafe to carry on. They had had no joy from the owner who wouldn’t hear any criticism about the boat and was threatening to sue them for the non-delivery. It certainly didn’t look to me like a vessel I would want to leave the harbour in. Lotta and Magnus were understandably very upset and we spent some time with them trying to give support, drinks and chat. They, in return, emptied the boat of food and gave a large amount to us when they left. In a strange boaty coincidence, Magnus remembered us from Antigua and Nelson’s harbour where we had been moored up near to each other when he was doing a previous delivery. We felt very bad for them as they were going to lose a lot of money and were worried about the long term issues but the boat was just not safe to continue in.
Having only planned to stay for a couple of nights, the weather again stepped in, the wind had got up and as we didn’t fancy fighting our way around Cape St Vincent we were forced to stay on until the weekend, nearly a week. We managed a run again and saw Magnus and Lotta off, they had had to buy tickets home but had no idea what would happen when they got there. We had been working on a business plan for an opportunity with Sheri from Nanami which will be interesting if it works out and also looking for house sitting opportunities when we go to Dubai. I had been following the adverts on a website we had joined and realised that we could travel the world house sitting if we planned it right. How lovely to go somewhere and settle in as if at home, definitely something we look at more seriously.
One of the things we have needed to get used to is living without income. We had, up to the time we left, been used to having a pretty good income that allowed us to do, more or less, whatever we wanted but with little time to do it. Now, part of our decisions about the future are about that balance, time versus income. Our travel fund is rapidly running out, do we want to trim our lifestyle to our small remaining income from the rental of our house or do we want to give up some of our presently unlimited leisure to make some money. As I said, we do feel we need something to do and to think about beyond floating around the Med. We definitely want to travel and see places further afield, we want to be able to visit Ruby in Dubai pretty regularly, make sure we can see Davey and be able to go back and forward to the UK. We know that we can live very cheaply, we have been with lovely people who are sailing on a shoestring and loving it but, honestly, that’s not for us. I’m happy to find some money saving options, like house sitting, to enable us to do some of this, and if we can find a way of earning some cash in a flexible way I think that will be the ideal option. I think also that we need some stimulus beyond the boat and sailing to keep life interesting and our minds functioning. The only thing now then is to find something that fits the bill!
We finally left on Sunday 20th August at dawn in little to no wind. We had a very calm day although the wind got up as we approached the Cape, typical, and from the opposite direction than that forecast so on the nose for us, again, typical. This meant that the anchorages that we had thought we would stop in would be very uncomfortable so we pressed on to Portimao arriving at 8.30pm after 14 hours of motoring. But at least we were round the corner and in the much more sheltered waters of the Algarve. The day at sea had been much helped by many dolphin sightings and they often came to play around the boat. Also, Ruby had posted on a Brits in Dubai website offering our house sitting services over Christmas and got us two sits covering 3 weeks of our stay in a lovely part of the city near to them. Perfect, we would be able to all have our own space and enjoy our 6 week stay without outstaying our welcome anywhere, although Nicki and Mick were putting us up for the remainder. The old saying goes that you can pick your friends but not your relatives, and you certainly can’t pick your children’s partners and families, luckily our daughter had picked ‘in law’ relatives for us that we loved as friends straight away and we were looking forward to seeing them all.
It was a long day at sea though, the longest we should have to do this side of the winter lay-up and we were glad to put the anchor down. The evening was considerably warmer than we had been getting in Sines where the northerly wind had seen us in jeans in the evening, we could see flashing coloured lights and hear music from the beach bars. It is still very much the holiday season here and we felt that we had definitely hit a summer resort, very different from the Atlantic coast.