Many lessons and a lot of fun

After a solid rest day, the next day was more about business - but the part of business that turns out to be quite enjoyable.
Since Kiarash needed to record a video for his start-up Explorer Elite, and the day before we found a very cool sunrise spot, we decided to get up early.
At 6:45 when the alarm went off i had the classic moment of regret and doubt, but reminded myself that in the end its always worth to get up to watch the sunrise. A nice little walk along the beach and onto a really long pier leading to a lighthouse, surrounded only by some fishermen and some very early-bird runners, the atmosphere was very calm and peaceful.
Making use of the fact that a couple weeks ago i had, for the first time in my life decided to buy a proper phone, we took some nice pictures and started filming.
Once the sun started coming up, the people started appearing and Portimão came back to life. Time for coffee and natas -cause a day without a pastel de nata in Portugal is a wasted one.
We returned to the pasteleria run by the cute italian old man we found the other day, and had a little breakfast. And then a snack. And another coffee and another nata.. since Kiarash had some work to do and i used the time to sort pictures, get started on my trip blog and also to get in my daily farsi lesson. It might be cause i have my personal coach with me, and since he is on the phone a lot i am used to constant farsi "radio" in the background,  but studying alone with the book is actually really fun and productive. I learned some cool facts about Irani culture and surprisingly the language suggests a really strong matriarchy, contrary to the way the politics and state are run at the moment. According to Kiarash this actually reflects the society though.

In the late afternoon we returned to the boat, which the others had started fixing in the meantime (i felt a bit bad but probably wouldnt have been of much help anyway), and decided to have a restaurant dinner. We went to a Japanese-Mexican restaurant. This combo seemingly promised a lot of flavor but the food was sadly not very well seasoned for the most part - still a nice dinner with the crew.

The next day was take off day, which means another round of big shopping. How many german tourists must be here during the season became obvious when We found "Bio-Vollkornbrot" in the supermarket - but nevertheless we were all happy to have some real bread, after we only managed to find basically brown toastbread in spain.

We tested if we managed to fix our leaking winches and windows - we did. Then stored all the new food in all the different corners of the boat - now we had learned where best to stay what, since we had some very warm vegetables due to random warm water pipes in certain storage sectors in the floor of the boat, on our first leg.
Then filled up our gas tank (again it was sunday, again we got lucky cause we coincidentally arrived at the gas station 10min before it closed), and took off.
For the leg to Porto, or A Coruña (to be decided on the way according to weather conditions and new crew members coming on board), the forecast predicts almost zero wind, but also, almost no waves.
The night shift was still exciting for two reasons: 1st we could finally see a lot of stars since it was only a few days agter new moon and the moon was hiding behind some mountains for the most part of my shift). 2nd because we were now officially in Orca peak region. Since we had read that a few days ago Orcas sank a boat in front of one of the bays we were passing we decided to stay as close to the coastline as possible fo the whole leg. Still i jumped when behind me a dolphin appeared in the water and i just heard the splash and my heartbeat went significantly up until me and Flo had made sure it was dolphins and not orcas around our boat...
I am still weirdly divided about wanting to see an orca and also hopi g we won't meet one - but for sure seeing one at night would feel siginificantly more scary.
Apart from that i spent my night and sunrise shift learning all about the different lights boats have at night, and a lot of proverbs on how to identify what type of boat you see, and who has the right of way. "Rot-weiß Fischerscheiß", a red light on top with a white light underneath indicating a fisher boat next to you, was the one i could apply immediately. I really need to get some practice though, as when yoh dont know exactly where lights are usually applied on which boat or what exactly you are looking for it is quite hard to spot them. A few times Flo had to point out what he saw before i really saw it myself.

The next day we spent still motoring, cause no wind, but not a problem since we had plenty of time to admire the beautiful coastline of Portugal. We saw some cliffs, rocky beaches and a lot of green. Also we had time for shenanigans like pulling Toni up on the mast in a climbing harness to attach our boats guest flag or flying the drone next to some caves to get a proper look.

I also found some time to finally give my grandma's first book another try ( i had read the beginning probably 10 years ago). It really got me a bit nostalgic, and thinking about some questions i would have liked to ask her and also sent me away to South Africa in my mind, reminding me of old times but also wondering whether my endless "Fernweh", the longing for far away places, while quite represented in my family, might have come straight from her.

Since the wind doesnt seem like it was going to pick up until we reach Porto, we had to refuel the boat. Unfortunately we were right in front of Lissabon. And it was sunset. So we had to go to a harbour in Lissabon during sunset to refuel - how sad. To take advantage of a docked and calm boat we had our dinner on deck (yes, still in the sunset) before taking off again.

The next morning i had an early shift, and before getting up i could already smell that Flo (who had previously trained to be a chef in a Michelin Star restaurant) apparently was bored during his shift and had decided to make food. I got up and started my morning shift with a fresh grilled cheese sandwiche and coffee - not bad.
After a while, when Toni and Flo had just explained to me how the weather terms of fog etc. were defined for sailors, the blue sky suddenly disappeared and we were surrounded by thick fog. Only 1.5 nautical miles from the shore we couldnt even make out the coastline, yet alone see any boats around us. Well, good timing for me to get a lesson in how to behave in scenarios like this.
Also we had another problem to take care off: over night we had fished something. Behind our boat we were dragging something along - our guess a fisher net. Since because of the orcas we tried to stay as close to the coastline as possible, we were passing a lot of fisher nets and had to slalom through them. In the night thats harder, cause mostly they are barely visible even in the light. So it seems like over night we had crossed one and now had to make sure it wasnt /wont tangled up with our radar. So we used the fog, that would only allow us to go slow anyway, and stopped the boat. Flo put on his wet suit and the climbing harness, we attached him to a rope of ours and he went in to dive and see what was happening. What he found was many many meters of a fishing line, with a lot of hooks - but no fish. We pulled it all on shore, which actually took a while.
Since the sun still wouldnt come back out the day was calm, a lot of chilling and napping - for the first time under deck was more comfortable than on deck. I really hope this was not the start of a continued phenomena the more north we get- i managed to escape winter and fall for so long, i am still not ready.
After a while i went back on deck and had some cool conversations with Muki about how to steer boats into harbours (or not) during storms, and Frank Schätzing's novel "Der Schwarm", which fascinated me for its well researched very timely content when i first read it some years ago, and we both had to think of now when the whole topic of orca attacks on boats suddenly became relevant for us.
I finished the day by cooking under deck, while not in harbour, for the first time myself : lemon pasta and also my very first alone night shift. The fog came back so i spent that night shift starring into the fog trying to make out lights from boats i could see on our navigation system -impossible. 10min before shift end the fog suddenly cleared, the coast reappeared, i could see some stars and also the boats in the distance - hopefully i will have some more night shifts like that. In the fog, in the dark its a bit more scary and a bit less fun to be on deck alone :D

The next morning i woke up to a calm boat - overnight we had arrived in Porto. Or so i thought, but the harbour we were in is 30min outside of Porto, cause the city one was not deep enough for our boat. But this one came with another feature: the moment we excited our cabin a very strong smell of fish that has been in the sun for too long was all around. Seems like we were in a harbour where fishing was a thing. We exchanged idyllic Portimão, for a very basic, very smelly port. Our next stop, where we will wait for 2 new crew members and prepare the boat for the Bay of Biscay - the most challenging part of our journey.Læs mere