“39:21.128N 9:82.608W”

1235 Miles since leaving Sandwich

Lots of things have happened - Povoa de Vazim to Peniche - 1st October 2022

Povoa de Vazim is a very nice small town with a very friendly marina, and it provided us with a couple of days rest and recuperation plus a few good meals ashore. What it didn’t provide unfortunately was a refrigeration engineer to fit our new compressor and so that saga goes on. We thought we were in luck when the helpful lady in the boat yard said they had a man on call, and she would contact him with a view to coming down the next day and looking at the job. The next day came and went without sight of the engineer, we did however get a call from the boat yard to apologise and say that the man had been delayed and would be down the next day. We asked them to confirm a time which they tried to do but the best they could get out of him was sometime after 0930 as he had another job first. At that point we thanked them for their help and decided that we would head out for Porto in the morning as we had a very worried Sue and Tommy waiting for us down there.

Bright and early (09:00) on the morning of the 24^th we headed out to sea once again. I must admit that I was a bit stressy on this leg as we hadn’t been able to confirm a berth at either of the marinas near Porto, the best we had managed to get was, “We are full now, but call us after 11:00 and we will let you know if anyone has left”. At 1 minute past 11 I started badgering Norma to call the marinas, by this time we were just north of Leixoes marina which was our fall-back choice. At 11:10 I was level with the harbour mouth and easing the sails to reduce speed when Norma managed to get through to Duro marina, the very happy lady on the phone said a berth had just emptied and if we wanted it was ours for a couple of days. Phew that was close! I reset the sails and we carried on the extra 5 miles to the mouth of the Duro river. Duro marina has expanded considerably since 2014 when we were last here but the welcome was still the same. We were quickly ushered into our berth by the marina guy in his rib and no sooner had we tied up that Sue and Tommy came walking up the pontoon dragging two steamer trunks and assorted baggage with them. Its always nice to meet good friends again after a break especially as you seem to fall into the exact spot you left the conversation at a month or two ago. They were soon installed into the forward cabin and the overflow luggage was put into the side cabin. The team of sherpas and the camel train that transported it all aboard were sent on their way and we opened the first of many bottles of beer and said hello properly. 

The first night we ate ashore In the fishing village and made a complete mess of our meal choices. The food was good, but we totally underestimated the size of the portions ending up with a veritable mountain of food in front of us. Shame that as I hate waste and it was very nice, but even I can only eat so much in one sitting. Porto is a 3 km walk up the Duro river from the marina which we accomplished the following morning before having a rather nice lunch on the Porto side of the river virtually beneath Mr Eifel’s bridge. On the way back Tommy and Sue walked while Norma and myself jumped in a cab as her foot was playing up and I had to keep her company of course. We managed a much better proportioned meal that night in the village although it was a bit odd eating at the side of the road behind a transit van, ho hum, all part of life’s rich tapestry. What was excellent was the sardines, although again the portions were very generous at 9 large sardines each. That was it for Porto we have been there before, plus Tommy and Sue had already been in town for three days and so we decided to up sticks and head south the following morning.

This time we were up early and slipped our berth at 0700 just as the sky was beginning to lighten. With the out going current and dropping tide we popped out of the Duro river like a cork from a bottle doing nearly 10 knots over the ground. That wasn’t to last unfortunately as there was a 2-to-3-meter swell running and the light winds were directly on our stern. I tried several sail combinations including our Mizzen stay sail/spinnaker, but nothing came close to stopping the rock and roll as we wallowed down the coast, Sue was definitely not impressed.  Even with the light winds and swell we still managed to make reasonable time and only ran the engine for 2 hours before arriving in Figuera da Foz at 18:30 having covered 60 miles in the day which wasn’t too shabby at all.

Two days in Figuera da Foz followed the usual pattern of meals ashore beer in the afternoon and putting the world to rights as the sun went down. One down light of the visit was my new phone sim which Tommy had carried out with him. It all set up correctly, I had the app downloaded and I could see my whats Apps and get SMS messages plus my number had ported over all seemed good with the world, that was until I tried to make a phone call. No luck, the call just cancelled immediately. After several failed attempts I contacted the help desk only to be told that I could only activate the service from within the UK, so that makes my new SIM about as much use as a chocolate fire guard. I tried to get them to find a work around but no I had to be in the UK to activate the phone, the end result is I have asked them to give me my PAC code and I will have to find a plan B somewhere, very frustrating. Actually, that reminds me, I still haven’t activated my new credit card that Tommy also carried out here with him. But that’s a job for when I have a good Wi-Fi connection, which has been sadly lacking over the last few days. 

Figuera da Foz was followed by a 35-mile motor sail down to Nazare, famous for its giant surfing waves which were thankfully missing on the day that we arrived. We were moored in the North end of the harbour which was cheap but very run down and included a resident cat colony who had been provided with little homes made out of polystyrene fish boxes, we decided to only stay the one night.

Nazare marina cat sanctuary

Of course, that didn’t happen, and we stayed for two as the plan to move 5 miles down the coast and anchor in a small bay was scuppered by the swell and the wind moving into the west which would have made the anchorage untenable.

Nazare with mist from the waves over the headland. Largest wave ever surfed was off that headland!!

We did however have two highlights of our stay. The first was meeting up with the bright red Nicholson 55 Yawl Cappella which was moored near us in Ramsgate for many years.

Capella in Nazare marina

The second was a rather nice meal ashore in a family restaurant and an interesting conversation with the lady who owned it. There was a picture of a young girl on the wall aged about 13 and dressed in black standing on the beach with the villagers pulling in nets behind her. We asked the lady running the restaurant if that was her as there was a striking likeness, but she said that it was her grandmother and was taken in 1921! She told us that her grandmother was dressed in black because her father and brother had both been killed in fishing accidents which unfortunately were extremely common at that time. I could only imagine the risks of operating out of open boats on that exposed coastline, the death toll must have been outrageously high. We took a picture of her standing below the picture in the same pose which she was very happy to do, and she was also very happy to tell us all about life in the village in the old days which was a lovely end to a lovely meal.

Restored traditional open fishing boats on display along the beach

Final leg of this saga was the 35 mile trip down from Nazare down to Peniche which followed the usual rock and roll pattern with the added bonus that now the swell was over 3 meters all day. One highlight though was that the wind was steadier and settled at about 18 knots which allowed us to sail along at a decent clip. So much so that we arrived in Peniche about 14: 00 to find no empty berths in the marina. This wasn’t totally unexpected as Peniche only has a small marina and only provided one long pontoon for alongside berthing for visitors. This means that rafting out is the norm which isn’t a problem normally. We stooged around the harbour a bit before selecting a yacht to come alongside which would have put us three out from the pontoon. Several Canadians from a stack of three boats further along came over to lend a hand and we gently settled against the yacht. Unfortunately, it was a lot smaller than Spectra and also turned out to be made of wood which isn’t really strong enough to support our weight should a swell build up. Next along the pontoon was a French boat which although only about 36ft was made of steel and so after a conflab with the helpful Canadians we decided to pull Spectra forward and lie alongside that one. No sooner had we started to move the boat forward than an irate young French man burst onto deck shouting no you have to go somewhere else go away. He then said he was leaving at 7 in the morning to which I replied, “that’s fine we will move for you”, as that’s the normal courtesy thing that you do when you are rafting. By this time, he had got his knickers in a right old twist and shouted, “No you just F… off” to which I replied, “No you F…. off” and went alongside anyway. Not the kind of welcome that you expect of that makes you feel welcome. His girlfriend had a word with him, and he seemed to calm down to the point where he was a bit sheepish later that evening. Anyway, it left a bad taste in the mouth and rather soured our visit. We went ashore and paid up for the night €24 as we are now officially on the winter rates and had a beer in town. By the time we came back to the boat another smaller yacht had moored on the outside of us which must have really annoyed the Frenchman. I asked him if they were aware that he was leaving at 7 to which he replied, “yes but it will be 7 or 8, something like that”, which rather says it all really. Not to be too negative they had a yellow Labrador on board who was very friendly, and they also performed an impromptu folk song on the pontoon. He sang and played the guitar while his girlfriend accompanied with the accordion, it would be churlish of me to not admit that they were actually rather good.

The young couple next door on the outside were up and about at 0630 and after a friendly chat slipped their lines and set off almost spot on 7. We then got our lines sorted and were away by 0720 leaving the French couple still walking their dog and vacuuming the boat, all part of the rich tapestry of cruising life. We are now underway motoring towards Cas Cais where I am sure I will find a refrigeration engineer or maybe even two…...  

Finally, and as an add on because I forgot about it above, we have been catching up on some maintenance. One of the mizzen sail cars broke which meant I had to go delving through my spares boxes. I couldn’t find one amongst the pile of this will come in useful one day bits and bobs and so I have taken one from the spare mizzen sail and installed that. My thought process is that should the mizzen sail get blown out or some such disaster I will have as a minimum a car left on the sail that I can swap to the backup sail before hoisting it. Anyway, while doing that we decided that the mizzen sail stack pack was in dire need of some TLC via Norma and the sewing machine. Tommy and myself removed the sail cover and passed it down the hatch for Norma to do her magic, it is now looking like new again. While this was going on I hand sewed some leather chafe pads to the new mizzen sheet attachment point which should increase the lifespan of that rope and if I say so myself they look rather good.

All neat and Bristol fashion

Norma makes things better with the heavy-duty sail makers sewing machine

And that is definitely it, very smooth sea now and next to no wind meaning it has been a long motor down the coast. Still can’t complain, brilliant sunshine, no Orcas and only 6 miles to go…….