Cascais

The wine still hadn’t wore completely off when I woke but luckily I didn't have to start as early as yesterday.
I had a quick walk to the train station because I had left it a bit late as I was doing a bit of routine maintenance on Eureka and time had run on quicker than I expected.

I was pleasantly surprised to see a train waiting at the platform when I arrived and thought maybe the train I had been hoping to get had been delayed but I soon discovered that it was in fact the next train as I sat for 20 minutes on it looking at my watch before anything moved.

It turned out that Tony had got an earlier train than he had planned as he had put on his watch an hour when he arrived in Porto, forgetting that Portugal is in the same time zone as Ireland. He had already arrived at Lisbon station and had continued on the metro even before I reached Lisbon.

The commuter station in the south of the city and Tony’s intercity in the north are joined by the metro. He was just exiting the metro when I met him and took one of his bags, the wrong one, it must have had an anchor in it! My shoulders took a day or two to become level again. We soon got back to Eureka and Norma and I showed him around and helped him get his gear stowed.

Tony is an experienced sailor and like me had being studying the forecast since he was told we were weather-bound in Cascais. We agreed that tomorrow afternoon was the best time to depart as the winds were easing until the following morning but it looked like we’d have to motor as the wind would be from the north and while it would be strong for the first few hours, it would ease the future north we got. We decided to make a go for it and Norma who I'm sure was looking forward to a change of scenery agreed with the plan.

This time we had the time to prepare properly. We headed uptown to the main supermarket and stocked up for the journey. We were perfectly balanced on the way back Norma with two bags and Tony and I with four, two in each hand.
While Norma stowed the provisions away, Tony and I checked the boat and made sure we were happy that we were prepared as we could be, for the voyage ahead.

Once all that was done we headed for a meal and a pint or two, feeling excited but at the same time, a little apprehensive.
Back on the boat we put the heads down, making Norma search for her earplugs although Tony and myself didn’t hear a whisper!Read more