10/8/22 Setubal, Portugal

The day started with the usual planning and Orca checks. Some new Orca activity west of us, but we were headed south today. I did take the time to post our progress on the Orca Tracking site, happy to post progress and no interactions.

We were underway by 0830, it is staying dark longer in the morning as fall approaches, now that I think of it, fall is here! It was a 2.5 mile run west just to get past the shallows outside the river mouth and turn south. We stayed under the 30m contour as this was the most active Orca region so far. The wind and sea started out calm, but the swell built to 1-2m and the wind picked up to 15 behind us. We motor sailed for about an hour before the wind died off.

It is amazing how many fishing boats there are; big ones, small ones, commercial, personal, nets, traps, rods, hand lines…you get the idea. The priority in every port is given to fishing, understandably. Being close to shore we had to constantly dodge boats and traps.

I was relieved when we rounded Cabo de Sines, this puts us well south of the Orca activity. Sines is a huge shipping port with a great little basin for yachts to anchor and berth. We anchored at high tide in 7m expecting a 3m drop with low tide. There were several other boats at anchor, French, British and German. We secured the boat, launched the dinghy and headed for the beach to go ashore.

It was a perfect beach with colorful changing huts and clean sand, situated well below the coast road. It was high tide so we did not drag the dinghy very far up the beach. I always worry a little bit just leaving the dinghy on a public beach, but so far so good.

There was a stairway that took us up the steep incline to the old part of town. There was also a very modern glass elevator that would whisk you to the top, it looked out of place. The old town looked…well, old. Not ancient, just old and somewhat abandoned with empty houses and a lot of graffiti. We walked the empty streets and it reminded me of a scene from a Star Track episode where they landed on a planet and it looked like this. Unfortunately, they ran in to aliens, we did not.

There was the obligatory ancient church and fort that were well preserved. There were some shops, but mostly closed, and a few restaurants, mostly empty. Having exceeded my excitement quotient for the day we headed back to the dinghy. We toured the marina by dinghy and saw a few boats that we had seen at prior stops, lots of people working their way south; Gibraltar, Canaries, Malaga and so on.

Back on our boat it was time to think about dinner. Just as we do at home, we decide what needs to be eaten. We had about a third of a beautiful loaf of bread and some delicious sausage that needed to be eaten. That turned into French toast with grilled sausage on the side. What goes with breakfast for dinner…Bloody Mary’s! As we ate several boats arrived into the anchorage in time for sun downers.

A quiet night on the hook.

9/9/22 Sines, Portugal

This was the first morning we have awakened to fog. I could tell it would be a wet morning last night and had put away the cushions from the cockpit. We could see on the MFD that there were several boats that had begun their trip south. We readied the ship and got underway. We had 4 hours in calm seas and wind to get well acquainted with our radar. Made a few adjustments to the radar read out and added an AIS overly. The visibility was about 250m as was proved out when we passed the boats that left before us.

And just like that it was a clear and beautiful day. The layers were shed and the camera came out to document the rugged and desolate coast we were passing. The swell picked up to 1-2m, more from the west than north, making for a pretty good roll. We passed Christella, a Bavaria 50 that we had chatted with back in Cascais. We could see paragliders flying off of the high cliffs along the shore.

The wind was compressed and blew up to 20 as we rounded Cabo de Sao Vincente and started to head east. Cabo de Sao Vincente was once considered to be the end of the world by the ancient Europeans.

Just beyond the point is Sagres with a well protected bay. We pulled into the anchorage with 3 other boats anchored. We found the 7m line and dropped the hook as the wind rushed over the hill at 20 knots. It did not take long for the wind and the boat to settle. Being Sunday, it was pizza night. We have got the boat pizza wired. The secret…put the dough in the warm engine room to rise. We are now in the Algarve region of Portugal, the Portuguese riviera with south facing beaches, great surfing and resorts.

9/10/22 Sagres, Portugal

It was a beautiful clear, dry and calm morning. The prediction was for rain and lightning in the afternoon. We pulled anchor about 0900 and motored along the coast east about 20 miles to Pontimao. We headed up the Ria Arade about one mile and found an anchorage off of the old town of Ferragudo. It felt safer to be in a crowded anchorage and inland for the predicted rain and lightning storm.

We took the dinghy into Ferragudo and toured the small town. The town square was surrounded by small restaurants and lots of people. There was a musician playing his electric guitar for the crowd. What caught my eye first was that his guitar was just a frame in the shape of a guitar body. We sat and listened as he played Lennon, Santana, Eagles and some jazz that I recognized, but could not come up with the artist. It must be an American thing, because we were the only ones to clap at the end of his songs. Eventually a couple others joined our appreciative clap.

We took the dinghy up and across the river to the old part of Portimao, a huge city. It looked a bit like Sine where there were lots of empty buildings, graffiti and lack of maintenance. It seems that Portugal is a somewhat poor country, not unlike Mexico. We stopped at a grocer for some fresh fruit and found the “Chinese Store”. Most of the cities had a couple of these stores where you could buy just about anything and it was cheap in all senses of the word. I found some electrical connectors at the first store. In the second store, there under a shelf, in a plastic container that had been taped together and turning yellow with age was my long sought after cable to lock up the dinghy to a dock. Never mind that it was actually intended to tow a car, it had big hooks on the ends, never mind that it will probably rust, who knows what it was made of…it was only 8 euros and they were probably happy to get rid of it!

Sun downers on the boat as we enjoyed the view of the old town, the fishing boats going by and the beautiful full moon rising above the church on the hill.