Heading north

We planned an early start from Vilamoura as we wanted to get to Cascais on one overnight hop. Cascais is to the west of Lisbon and we hope to get there sometime tomorrow.
The pilot book says the the marinas near Lisbon were mostly full with local boats and the only one that seemed suitable needed a bridge across its entrance to open for access, so we picked Cascais and would instead visit Lisbon by train. Cascais was also further west and which would shorten the distance to wherever we were heading for next.

We left the marina at the early hour of 07.00 with everyone was on deck in good time and were was a nice breeze as we nosed out of the harbour.
Maeve and Dave already knew each other as they had both worked at GSK and also from meeting regularly at East Ferry Marina where Dave keeps his own boat ‘Romany’. There was an easy going feeling on the boat. It was a case of ‘two’s company and three is a crew’.

We hoisted the main before we had passed the outer breakwater but typical, as soon and we were out in the open sea the wind died completely. After about ten minutes we dropped the main again and we ended up motoring for the day on a flat calm sea.

About three hours later as we passed the headland of Cabo Carvoeira we could see a large golf club up on the ridge over the sea. The Algarve is a popular destination for Irish golfers but I thought that some of those golfers must have been glancing out between shots and enviously wishing that they were instead out here sailing with us.

By 15.00 we had rounded Cape St. Vincent with its seventy five meter high cliffs topped off with a twenty four meter high lighthouse which was built in 1846 on the site of a ruined Franciscan monastery.
This was the location of a famous naval battle between the British and Spanish navies in 1797 and where we left the Algarve behind and at last turned north towards Ireland.

As we rounded the cape I had the feeling that the adventure was coming to an end. I knew we still had over nine hundred miles to go but now we were out in the Atlantic proper and you could tell that the weather was changing and beginning to feel a bit more like at home.
By that night the oilskins were back in use for probably the first time since the leg to Menorca.

It stayed windless and calm until the evening when a gentle breeze from the north came up but it was no help to us and was only enough to cause a lumpy sea.
Maeve prepared dinner and as usual we began the watches on full stomachs.
During the night the breeze strengthened but was on the nose so still was no use to us and just caused the sea to become worse and slow our progress.

Maeve stood her first ever night watch. It wasn’t a pleasant one with the lumpy sea and a light fog that came and went during the night making everything on deck wet and cold. She was the first one to put on the oilskins but we all wore them overnight until the sun came up and dried everything off again.Leer más