Saturday 5th October
Cascais is the separation point between boats heading to the Med and those crossing the Atlantic. As we set off south others aimed south-west for the Canaries or Madeira.

Another long motor, the wind has gone back northerly but is so light we only managed 45 minutes of sailing before the lack of speed made us give up. We haven't had much weather luck with the Portuguese stretch of coast. The winds look set to stay light and then go southerly again over the next week so we're pushing on rather than risk getting stuck on the Atlantic coast.

Blue skies, wispy clouds. We did manage to use the Hydrovane (named Tonto, yes we name our boat machinery!) for the first time during our brief sail.

The main excitement of the trip was still being slightly inside the danger area for live firing by the Portuguese navy. We could see their war ship lurking in the distance so turned 90 degrees and headed for the eastern boundary of the area. It was only 20 minutes away but we did hear a bang before we were completely clear, luckily they fired in the opposite direction to us!

As we neared Sines the wind picked up to F5 and we briefly thought about pushing on to round the Cape but decided against it and went into Sines instead. Inside the bay the wind and chop eased and there was plenty of space. When we set the anchor it dragged the first two times, held on the third set and with a forth set for luck we were happy with it.