We arrived in Porto on October 1^st after a frustrating light wind sail/motor from Baiona. The fishing pots were far less dense than we feared – I guess once one has sailed in Maine, anything else is just plain tame – though it was frustrating here that while some pots were very clearly marked, others were definitely camouflaged!

Not knowing any better, we’d arranged a berth at Marina Douro – a nice enough marina, but we could have stayed outside the marina on an anchor – or even gone up river and anchored right in the heart of Porto, which is a delightful city. Marina Douro is a couple of miles west of Porto and right at the entrance to the river – which meant that we’d be able to cycle into Porto. One good thing about the marina was that they offered a free Port tasting at Churchill’s!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Porto is a lovely city and we enjoyed just strolling around – but managed a port tasting at Kopke – the oldest Port wine house as a precursor to the following day’s visit to Churchill’s. We also got to spend an evening enjoying a fantastic musical evening listening to Fado. We were treated to a traditional Fado trio of Guitarist, Portuguese Guitarist and a singer in a small cellar environment which turned out to have perfect acoustics for the event. If you’ve not listened to Fado, it’s a somewhat acquired taste – we can’t understand a word of what she’s singing, but are absolutely aware that the songs are totally and utterly tragic 90% of the time! This group did not disappoint in any way.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We met up with a couple of Dutch boats: Karin and Eric on Mareliefs and Frans and Femke on Skellig. We enjoyed an evening aboard Toodle-oo! and would find ourselves bumping into them again and again as we travelled south.

We only spent three days in Porto – which could have easily been a week – but a weather window opened up with very favorable wind for heading south to Cascais – 170nm or so to the south, so we departed early on the 4^th, followed out of the river by a 44ft catamaran ‘Windwatcher’. With fairly light wind, we wasted a bit of time with a spinnaker for a few minutes, but then decided our code zero would work better and set off with Windwatcher on our beam having caught up during our change of sails. It was like the two boats were on a long bungee cord for the longest time – he’d get ahead then we’d catch up… he finally blasted away from us as the wind strengthened and we were forced to furl the code zero and set a genoa. We lost sight of them during the night, but as we turned dead downwind for Cabo Rasso in the morning, sailing wing on wing, we quickly caught up to Windwatcher and blasted past them as they gybed each way on their way south. As we rounded the cape, the wind died completely and we motored into Cascais and anchored outside the marina among a good crowd of cruising boats.

Cascais is another very pretty town – this one quite affluent and rather more modern than those in the Rias. Simon and Jenny on Fenetia were in the Marina and know Cascais well and were able to act as wonderful tour guides – so we spent the next 10 days there in Cascais – including a couple of nights in the marina while some nasty weather passed over us.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We broke out the bikes for a ride along the coast – but unfortunately, the finger piers of the dock are narrow and wobbly and my new Brompton bike ended up in the drink! I dived to get it but couldn’t see a thing in the murky water, but with Simon’s help, managed to retrieve the errant bike with our new dinghy anchor! After a good hose down and liberal spraying with anti corrosion stuff, we were able to get in a couple of enjoyable bike rides.

Our new Dutch friends were also in Cascais, along with another Dutch boat – Blue Beryl, with a  lovely young couple aboard, setting out on a circumnavigation… As I write this, they have already arrived in St. Lucia in the Caribbean! We tried to organize a Dinghy drift in the harbor, but then realized that we’d be violating all sorts of social distancing mandates, so unfortunately scrapped those plans – and instead gave our livers a workout with Fenetia!

We sailed over to Lisbon and took a berth at Parque de Nacoes – a marina built for a past world expo – and stayed a couple of nights only so that we could go into Lisbon (by bus) to rekindle memories of our visit there in 2003. Turns out very few memories remain! We like Lisbon – but it left us with a feeling of being somewhat exposed to C-19 with significant crowds and having to travel by bus – so we decided to make our way south on another overnight sail to the Algarve.

 

 

 

We had a fast and bumpy dead downwind sail for most of the way, but with few other boats around us, so no racing opportunities! We were planning to head to Lagos, but instead saw what looked to be a decent anchorage right after Cape St. Vincent (the southwest corner of Portugal) – called Enseada de Sagres.

Our pilot information said that this anchorage is very rolly, but when we arrived there were other boats there and everything was very calm. We spent 3 nights at anchor, getting off to explore the small village and have a decent clifftop walk – but by the 3^rd night, the wind had swung towards the south east and we were experiencing the heavy swell – so we moved around the corner to Baleeira where we hoped we’d get some relief from the sea wall. It worked, but by morning the wind had come up significantly and there was now a large swell in the harbor breaking dramatically on the rocks just a 100M behind us! Time to leave!

We arrived in Lagos – just 13 miles away – with a strong onshore breeze and swell. As we approached the entry, we were following another sailboat into the harbor – and it was difficult to know what to watch – the sailboat in front of us that had just been rolled broadside in a big roller, or the numerous surfers enjoying the rollers on either side of the harbor entrance!! It took a certain amount of concentration but once we were in the channel to the marina, everything calmed and we were able to easily tie up to the reception pontoon.

We’d stay in Lagos for a couple of nights…

 

 

 

We spent the whole of September in Spain – starting with a welcome weekend off the boat visiting Bas and Agnes in their new Spanish farmhouse, while Toodle-oo! was moored at Portosin Marina. Their new farmhouse is quite the place with lots of land with mature apple and fig trees and vines, a lovely old building with 2 kitchens plus a huge wood burning bread oven in it’s own dedicated shed – Laurie was swooning over it but apparently neither Bas nor Agnes are into the idea of becoming bakers! Their whole cruising plan aboard Tisento has been completely upended as their boat is still in Australia, but they’re not allowed in! So they purchased this place and plan to renovate in stages. We had a lovely weekend and they gave us a wonderful tour around the impressive scenery – so much more rugged than we had anticipated.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once back on the boat, we moved just a short way south to an anchorage off a lovely beach and found ourselves surrounded by 6 other foreign boats – French, British and Swiss. We tried to get some social activity going with the Brits, but sadly, they were feeling rather exposed to C-19 and declined.

We dodged around various anchorages according to wind direction – which gave us opportunities to visit various different locales within Ria de Muros and finally returned to the first anchorage we’d visited: Ensenda de San Francisco which was convenient for our next hop south to Ria de Arousa – but the swell forced us to put out a stern anchor to keep the boat pointing into the swell – so as not to get kicked out of bed! Overnight, we got inundated with a bazillion tiny little black flies – the boat was covered in dead or dying bodies!

We motored south to Ria de Arousa, through a pretty narrow but easily navigated channel and anchored off the beach at Rubeira with 1 other boat. (I can imagine that in normal years there’d be more like 50 boats anchored here!) There’s a decent marina at Rubeiro, which we were able to use to land the dinghy and go walkabout. Ribeira is a larger town, not so touristy, but with good shopping opportunities.

On our second night at anchor, I was out in the cockpit and suddenly realized things were quiet – too quiet… the dinghy was gone! The painter was still attached to Toodle-oo! but the shackle at the dinghy had loosened up. I made a frantic call to the marina (at 10pm) and had a barely understood conversation with Manuel, but concluded that he didn’t understand… Not much to be done in the dark, so we went to bed… In the morning, I called the coast guard and after about 30 minutes of trying, finally managed to raise them. Half an hour later, I got a call back from them that the dinghy was located and would be towed back to Toodle-oo! in an hour… and an hour later it was tied alongside again!!!  Turns out, Manuel, using binoculars the previous night had spotted the dinghy heading out towards the Atlantic, got into a rib and towed it back to the marina – where the coast guard “rescued” it the following morning! Needless to say, Manuel was thanked profusely and hopefully enjoyed the liquid goodies!

Once again, we moved anchorages according to wind direction, thereby getting a good looksee around the various aspects of the ria. Initially we headed up to Enseada do Caraminal where we anchored off another far too deserted beach where there were just three other boats anchored – including ‘Acid Rain’ with a young couple aboard, Alex and Irena, fresh out on a cruising experience…

Across the ria from there, there’s a little town Xufre, with an anchorage on north and south sides of a causeway-like feature… we were able to stay on the north anchorage – but it was rather bumpy with fishing boat traffic. Unfortunately the southern anchorage was too small to accomodate our final nights in Ria do Arousa, so we ended up moving back to Ribeira in preparation for our trip to the next ria.

We managed to actually sail to Ria de Pontevedra – almost right up to the very pretty town of Combarro – where we anchored close to Acid Rain again in just 2.5M of soft mud. Combarro is a beautiful old town with numerous little back alleys and cut-throughs with bars and restaruants hidden away – but sadly unpopulated due to C-19.

Our final stop in Spain was in Baiona where we anchored outside the marina. We’d been warned of sunken moorings which come up to attack at low tide – and indeed, one very large mussell infested buoy showed up the morning after our arrival, but fortunately just outside our anchoring circle!

 

 

 

 

 

 

The fort at Baiona is very impressive and must have been really interesting during it’s heyday. We enjoyed an overly priced drink at the hotel now situated within the fort’s walls – with a stunning view across the bay. We also managed to find an excellent Paella in town!!!

We’d have stayed a day or two longer in Baiona, but a weather window was very favorable for a trip south to Porto – a full day of sailng we were anxious to complete in daylight so that we could watch for fish pots – which apparently are all over the place on this passage…