To the Algarve

Portuguese street art

We sat out yet another bad weather system in Nazare for four days. It was a small marina in the corner of a fishing port but perfectly sheltered from the southerly winds and full of various characters on boats, both afloat and ashore.

Here there is one of the only deep water canyons in Europe, where the water is over 4000 feet deep almost to the shore. On one hand, this stops the swell from building up as it shallows nears the shore, but on the other hand produces monster surf along the beach. The highest wave ever surfed was recorded here in 2012 – 30 m high!! Thankfully, conditions were nothing like this when we were there…

We cycled along the seafront to the town itself, which, although touristy, is still ‘proper’ Portugal. Two ladies walked along the street in front of us in traditional headscarves, aprons tied neatly at the back. While the children made a sandcastle on the beach, an old Portuguese man sat 500m away playing a tune his harmonica to the sea as it crashed onshore.

old fishing boats on Nazare beach

From Nazare, we motor-sailed the twenty miles to the next headland, Peniche, admiring the stunning rock strata along the way. We arrived after dark and both children stayed up to see the first stars appear in the sky. Again this coast is full of wind turbines, and these look like fairy lights in the dark – a scattering of red lights ‘twinkling’ along the shore.

Lovely rock strata near San Martinho

                                                         

Katie helping hoist the sails 

We didn’t go ashore at Peniche, but set off early in the morning for the fifty mile trip to Cascais. Little wind was forecast so we were delighted when the wind piped up and we were able to sail for an hour or so, but it didn’t last, and we motored the majority of the trip, arriving at Cascais at teatime. We did go ashore, for a quick play on the beach and a trip to the local supermarket for supplies. We saw a little more of the town than anticipated as Dave took us on a long ‘short cut’ home!

Lighthouse at Cascais

It would have been nice to stay and explore Cascais and of course, the neighbouring city of Lisbon, but we were keen to get down the Atlantic coast while the weather was settled.  We had explored Lisbon extensively on our previous trip and there was another low pressure system due that weekend so we decided to press on.

The following day took us to Sines, an historic Moorish town, and now a large shipping harbour . Again, it would have been nice to look around but … we arrived late and contented ourselves with the view from the anchorage. The next morning was thick fog. We left the harbour in minimal visibility, dodging four huge ships anchored outside. We saw nothing until mid-morning when the mist lifted, and we had a delightful visit from a pod of dolphins, who played round our bows for a good twenty minutes. It was Reuben’s first experience of sitting in the bowsprit hammock ‘over’ the dolphins, he obviously loved the experience and chatted excitedly about them for a long while afterwards.

Dolphin-watching from the hammock

dolphins playing around the bows

As we got closer to the Cabo San Vicente, on the southwestern tip of Portugal, the fog started coming in again. Only the tip of the lighthouse was visible through a bank of fog, which we were soon ourselves immersed in after turning the corner. Several boats were also travelling our way, and we could hear foghorns all around us as we closed in on land. We passed two boats close by, both appearing from nowhere then disappearing as fast behind. Thankfully, we could anticipate (and avoid) them by monitoring the radar screen.

in fog

a wierd 'rainbow' of fog

yacht appears through fog

I was puzzled by a foghorn sounding from landward as we got near to land, but it turned out to be an echo of our own foghorn bouncing back off the breakwater! It was a great relief to safely reach the little fishing town of Baleeira and drop the anchor near the foggy outline of a moored boat. The town appeared briefly from the mist before disappearing again completely! We judged it wise not to go ashore in case we couldn’t find our boat again!

The next morning was still thick fog. This was the last good day before strong winds came in but we only had a short distance to go so had a leisurely breakfast and did ‘school’, by which time, we had ten miles visibility and lovely blue skies. In these perfect conditions, we pootled along the south coast of Portugal, admiring the ever-changing colour of the cliffs along the shore. We passed huge caves in these cliffs near Lagos, busy already with trip boats, then we skirted its long sandy beach.

Katie and Reuben in a den of sails

There was an anchorage in a lagoon at Alvor that our friends had recommended. They had gone on ahead of us from Cascais, doing a long overnight trip, and we thought we might meet up again here. We headed in rather gingerly, as the plot book was full of warnings that it shouldn’t be attempted on a falling tide or at night. Dave went the correct side of the first starboard marker buoy, then with a lurch, we got swung sideways and were aground onto a sandbank! Great!!

The tide was still rising, which was a good thing to help float us off, but also a bad thing, as it kept pushing us onto the bank. Dave climbed up the mast for a better view of the channel around us. We were not in a good position, or an easy one to get the boat off from. We quickly launched the dinghy and Dave tried to pay out our main anchor but with the weight of the chain, it was too heavy for our little dinghy to carry far. And quite a job to get the anchor and chain back in…

Then we tried laying out an anchor from the stern with a long rope and winched it in. This attempt succeeded in pulling the stern into deeper water, and, once we were afloat, we transferred the rope to the bows and got the boat pointing in the right direction before hauling it all onboard again and heading back out to sea. Phew, a huge sigh of relief! The whole operation had lasted nearly an hour, during which time, several boats had come through the entrance, taken one look at us, and turned around again!

Algarve skyline

We then motored the last five miles to Portimao, an easy and deep entrance, where we dropped anchor behind the breakwater and put the kettle on! We had a lovely spot opposite a quiet sandy beach but we had definitely arrived in the Algarve – along with lovely sandy beaches, we had passed more and more holiday resorts since ‘turning the corner’, and the skyline across the river at Praia da Rocha was a mass of high rise apartment blocks. We managed to squeeze in a trip to the beach before sunset, the children were delighted to go swimming and clamber on the rocks. There are lots of rock ‘stacks’ here, mostly made from crumbling sand and shells, Katie climbed up one and could literally pick bits of fossil out – a geologist’s heaven!

Katie finding fossils

all packed for the beach!

   

The winds Increased overnight as forecast, and by mid-morning was gusting 30 to 40 knots. It was going to get very rolly as the swell picked up, so we decided to decamp to the marina. This didn’t prove to be very peaceful either, as the swell snuck under the breakwater and caused the boats to surge violently back and forth on their ropes. We stayed one night, then returned to anchor a little further up the river off the pretty fishing village of Ferragudo, which was decidedly more tranquil, despite a little rolling motion.

site of old fort, Ferrugado

This was where our Topsham visitors, Clare and Samantha, found us two days later. They were rather disappointed to come all the way from England to find grey skies and heavy downpours! We braved the weather to go ashore for a play in the park, and lunch at a local fish restaurant in Ferragudo, by which time it was dry enough to walk along the beach and around the ‘castle’-house built on the site of an old fort.

Stork nest on chimney top

Portimao waterfront

The following day brought blue skies, so we ventured into Portimao itself, once a busy fishing town, and now rather run down in places but smartened up along the waterfront. There were several chimneys left over from the old fish-canning factories, all of them with a huge stork’s nest on the top, complete with the resident pairs of birds (and possibly chicks?). We wandered through the town, and found an authentic Portuguese eatery for lunch – the dish of the day was a simple but delicious ‘arroz com pato’ (duck and rice).

Can't work this sculpture out!!

Playing in the fountains

The children had fun with a fountain in the square -  playing chicken to run through the arcs of water before the jets changed to a different height. We visited the Portimao museum, which was housed in an old canning factory and had lots of footage of the canning process, as well as great film footage of  four ships being blown up to sink and serve as dive sites!

Portimao museum

fishcan sculpture

The children were desperate for a trip to the beach in the afternoon so we took the kayak and dinghy ashore and met up with our friends for a late afternoon swim and snorkel. Dave took us out through the breakwater in the dinghy to look at the main beach at Praia do Rocha. There was still a 1.5m swell but it had died down considerably since the gale, when waves were crashing over the whole length of the breakwater, lighthouse and all. Our next trip will be along the coast to Faro, hopefully in time for Clare’s return flight.

Clare in the kayak

Into Portugal

 

Bayona is an old town whose claim to fame is that it was the first port to receive the news of Colombus’ discovery of the Americas. The ‘Pinta’, (which didn’t have Columbus aboard) docked here on its way back from their historic trip in 1493. A lovely tiled board commemorates the event, and there is a replica of the ship in the harbour.

Since the fog didn’t disappear for the whole of our two days there, for us, it will always be ‘Bayona in the fog’.

Bayona from the anchorage

We went ashore all the same and found the local market at the top of the hill. Various people were milling about wearing traditional dress and carrying instruments, but nothing actually seemed to be happening. We waited awhile, and perused the stalls.  There were several selling honey and bee products, a few with local fruit and vegetables, but the vast majority of stalls were laden with enormous round loaves of bread - or cakes? Some were obviously full of raisins, and others were yellow inside. These enormous round loaves were cut open almost like a big cheese, and it appeared that you purchased bread by the ‘chunk’. Upon asking if it was bread or cake, we were told it was bread, and given a hunk to taste. It was delicious, a cross between fruit loaf and a saffron bun.

The cheese-seller caught our attention by offering a free taster of his cheese. It really was delicious, and I succumbed to buying a slice. He told us the price per kilo upfront and let me choose what size slice I wanted, but since I have no idea how much a kilo is, I was rather taken aback at the price of our (thankfully) modest slice.

The following day was thick fog again.  We waited hopefully until after lunch, then dinghied ashore to see the castle, which was well worth a visit despite the fog. It covers a huge area of land, overlooking the sea and the Bay of Bayona. We followed the castle walls around and imagined what it must have been like to defend these places in earnest centuries ago. Apart from one fancy restaurant, the whole inside of the castle is now overgrown with trees, but it is still an impressive place, and the views must be stunning on a clear day!

 

The next day dawned bright and clear, and we set off to cross the border into Portugal. No sooner were we past the walls of the castle than a bank of fog appeared ahead and within twenty minutes, visibility was down to 300 feet. It is hard to understand how disorienting it is to motor through fog, until you have experienced it. You peer anxiously around all the time, sounding the foghorn every two minutes, and imagining all sorts of vessels about to loom towards you out of the fog. We have a powerful radar which picks up most objects in the water. You can see a target ¾ of a mile off your port bow. You see it get closer on the screen … and closer… and closer… until it’s within ¼ mile but you still can’t see anything around but whiteness. Very disconcerting! Although several large images appeared on our radar screen, we saw nothing by eye all day except a few crab pots.

Weirdly, we heard a helicopter hovering nearby at one stage, and a large echo on the radar screen nearby. Could there be a boat in trouble? It sounded close to us for about fifteen minutes but we didn’t see anything at all.

Fog ahead

In the fog

We were following the coast line about 1.5 miles off and at one point, could hear a succession of booms – guns? Fireworks? Drumming? And then distant music filtered through the fog. A fiesta ashore? A military display? We will never know…

We passed the border (unseen) and kept going until the town of Viano do Castelo. About a mile from the breakwater, land emerged through the fog and by the time we arrived, we had clear blue skies and hot sunshine!

From our last trip, I have a hazy memory of this being a beautiful town with typical Portuguese mosaic tiles on the streets. I think we followed a long trail to a church high in the hills. Probably the one visible way up the mountains behind the town, too far for the children to manage in the heat. Instead, it was so flat that we anchored off the breakwater, outside the harbour, and dinghied ashore for a refreshing play and paddle on the beach. We ate tea in the wheelhouse watching a dredger tirelessly clearing the channel, even as the sun set behind him!

Dredging at sunset, Viano do Castelo

We had planned to visit the town the following day, but instead, decided to make the most of the calm conditions and motored on to Porto. We had a little hazy mist but nothing like the previous day, so the journey was more relaxed. The autopilot was set, and while the children played below , Dave and I got on with a few little jobs – scrubbing the wheelhouse cushions, scraping and varnishing around the windows… We saw lots of floating vegetable debris on route, laying in lines across the sea every now and then

jobs at sea

Most people moor at the port of Leixos along the coast and catch the bus into Porto, but we had moored right in the heart of the city last time and decided to do the same again. It has been ten years since our last trip and things didn’t look at all familiar as we motored up the river Douro against a strong ebbing tide. The river was busy with trip boats, like large gondolas, plying their trade, and boarding pontoons had appeared everywhere along both sides of the river. We tucked into the only bare spot against the quay wall and hoped for the best. Lots of trip boats came close by but nobody shouted so we assumed it was ok. ‘Spirit of Mystery’ came alongside us and we were soon surrounded by spectators and people asking questions about the boat.

Alonside in Porto, with 'Spirit of Mystery'

The following day, we wandered around the city, which is a strange mix of incredible architecture and very ramshackle buildings covered in graffiti – much of it by an artist called ‘HAZUL’, which made me smile! There is a lot of building work going on to restore these old buildings, and a roaring tourist trade, judging by the number of knick-knack shops and tourist opportunities – including cables cars, trip boats and even a helicopter ride! We found a great big covered market where we bought some vegetables and fish. My Portuguese isn’t up to translating the names, but Reuben picked us a couple of seabass, and we watched in admiration as the stallholder professionally filleted and de-boned it for us. She even threw in a smaller fish for us - I have no idea what it was, but it was delicious!

Lovely streets in Porto

graffiti by 'HAZUL'

We managed to get a new SIM card for the internet, bought a couple of summer dresses for Katie, and had a cheap menu del dia in a restaurant. The waitress spoke perfect English but declined to tell us until afterwards that the sausage-looking things with our ‘traditional pork meal’ were made from intestines. Yuk! The rest was delicious, however, and only cost 6 euros, with a starter and a glass of wine!

Porto waterfront

Wool shop in Porto, where it is sold by weight. Great for Katie, now a
champion crocheter!

We had moored just below an bridge crossing the river, and decided to take an evening stroll up to it. We climbed some steps and walked along a high walkway, passing restaurants with tables set along the wall overlooking the city, what a wonderful setting for a meal!

Lovely setting for a meal, Porto

The bridge had two levels, one at road height, and another way up on top of the arch. As we got closer, we saw a funicular which whisked people up to the top. It looked fun, so we duly paid our ten euros to await the next one. Within five minutes, we were being pulled up the track at speed. Instead of taking us to the top bridge as we expected, however, we levelled off and passed through a tunnel and emerged in a distant and very high part of the city, with no bridge in sight! Fellow passengers pointed us in the right direction and we soon found our way back to the high bridge. It served as a train track as well, which was separated from the pedestrians only by a few bollards, in fact we saw a guy cycling along the tracks between trains!

watch out for trains!

Porto from on high

We walked out to the middle of the bridge and were rewarded with incredible views down over the whole city, with its mazes of orange roofs, the old competing Port warehouses bordering the river, and our boats moored right in the centre! The walk back to our boats was fun too, discovering hidden alleyways of steps leading through the houses, behind shops and restaurants, and back to the quay.

Alleyways in Porto

From Porto, we motored to Aveiro, sailing the last hour in a fitful breeze. Aveiro is described in the pilot book as a mini-Venice, with inland canals. We were unprepared for the enormous ships coming down the channel as we entered, this is obviously a major port!

We anchored in a small lagoon off the main channel, off a little town called Sao Jacinto, where we spent two beautiful sunny days. Dave took the chance to do maintenance on our mast, while the children and I did ‘school’ and rowed to the local ‘beach’ on one edge of the lagoon. It only appeared at low tide and had strange sinking sand but kept the children happy for a while, especially as we found two weird jelly-like creatures that we later identified as sea slugs.

Sao Jacinto was a small place, with a few bars, a fantastic bakery and a very smart waterfront walkway, There was a large military base next to the town. Just inside the gates was a green aeroplane that we could see from our boat. We spoke nicely to the guard on duty and were allowed inside to see it.

Sao Jacinto waterfront

plane at the military base

When Dave had finished his work, we all walked across the town to the real beach that we had seen as we arrived – miles and miles of white sandy beaches as far as the eye can see. There was a nearby nature reserve and all the dunes were protected, but once across the walkway, we were free to play in a nearly empty expanse of beach. I took the children for a paddle in the surf, and was pleasantly surprised to find the water was so warm that I couldn’t resist going in for a swim with Katie!

stunning beach at Sao Jacinto

too tempting not to go in!

  

It turned out that we had arrived in time for the ‘festa’ weekend at Sao Jacinto. Had the weather been better, we would have stayed to watch but a big storm was coming, so we headed in through the canals to a sheltered pontoon near the main town of Aveiro.

We spent two days on board while the weather raged outside – Dave ventured out between rain squalls and recorded up to gale force 9 with our hand-held ‘windometer’. We were moored alongside our friends so we made the best of it and joined forces for a roast dinner and video afternoon, and had a warm welcome from the local clubhouse (whose pontoon we were on) – where a beer cost 90 cents!

The third morning there dawned bright and clear, so we walked the ten minutes into Aveiro.  The town has a network of canals, where  more ‘gondolas’ were touting for business, and is surrounded by fields of salt pans, which fill from the sea, and can be dammed off to let the water evaporate and harvest the salt. The canals are bordered by the old salt-houses, and again are a strange mix of lovely old architecture, abandoned buildings and new blocks of flats.

It was apparently a prosperous town in the thirteenth and fourteenth century, based on fishing and the salt trade, but the entrance to the port got closed off by a severe storm and wasn’t re-opened for another three-hundred years!! Hard to imagine a world without machinery to dredge a channel.

lovely old buildings in Aveiro

Aveiro

We returned to the anchorage at Sao Jacinto, where we aimed to leave the following day. Another boat, who had stayed there for the duration of the storm, said the lagoon had got pretty choppy in the wind. They had sat on board and watched the spectacle of the town’s ‘fiesta’, which had gone ahead regardless of the weather. Since nobody could put up an umbrella in the wind, all the procession had worn full waterproofs!

The next morning, our friends set out to sea before us, and we were surprised to see them return an hour later – the swell was still huge (3m, down from 5m) and with no wind to put up steadying sails, it was a most unpleasant motion. They were also worried about the entrance to the next harbour which is very shallow and is considered dangerous in onshore seas. We all decided to wait another day. 

lovely mosaic pavements, typically Portuguese

 

So finally, one week after arriving at Aveiro, we headed back out to sea. There was still a rolling 2m swell but it had calmed down considerably from the previous day. Unfortunately, after so long in harbour, we had all lost our sealegs, and three of us were soon feeling rather queasy. Reuben fell to sleep for two hours, I sat quietly reading, and Katie felt better after Dave took her out on deck. He was fine with the motion but was suffering from a cricked neck, so we made a right motley crew!

We hadn’t set off early as we only had 30 miles to go and we wanted to get ‘school’ done and dusted before departure. At our destination of Figuera de Foz, we saw a large warship outside the entrance and a helicopter above. On trying to call the marina on VHF, we got a reply instead from the warship – a fishing boat had sunk in the harbour entrance and the harbour was closed to all traffic. We had to continue to the next port, Nazarẻ, another 30 miles away!

This was disappointing on two levels – we would now have to spend another 6 hours rolling at sea, and arrive at Nazarẻ in darkness. Secondly, I had a parcel waiting at Figuera de Foz, which I would now not be able to collect. However, both these things paled into insignificance compared to the four men missing from the sunken fishing boat.

At midnight, we safely entered the port of Nazarẻ and felt the joy of entering calm waters. After a refreshing night’s sleep, we signed in at the harbourmaster’s office and enquired about the best way to retrieve our parcel. After considering several options, we decided to make a day trip of it and catch the train back to Figuera de Foz. This involved a ten minute taxi ride to the station and two trains, a local woman was very helpful in letting us know when to change trains!

The journey was very different to our train ride in northern Spain – the views were mostly of pine trees at first, (lots of them tapped to catch sap for some reason), then farmer’s fields, then nearer to Figuera, lots of inland water, possibly for salt again?

Salt pans at Aveiro

Anyway, we picked up our parcel without incident (thanks Mum!), and visited our Polish friends, whose boat we spotted in the marina. Since the harbour was still closed, they, along with several other boats, were effectively trapped and had been for four days. They reported local tensions regarding the tragedy – apparently the fishing boat sent out a Mayday but nobody responded for over an hour, and then only one jetski was sent out. Two men were rescued but five have apparently perished. All very sad.

We walked to the harbour entrance and saw for ourselves the efforts being made to move the sunken boat (watched by crowds of locals) then headed back for our train. The trip home seemed a lot longer, not least because there was an hour’s wait at the change of trains. We arrived back at the marina at 9pm, having enjoyed our day out but all ready for supper and bed!