Lisbon and Sintra

Wednesday 24th October

Day trip to Lisbon on the train, we saw the trams and walked way up to visit the Castelo de St. Jorge. Lisbon was full of British in Celtic football shirts! There must have been a big match on. We looked around the shops and forced ourselves to sample some homemade chocolates.

Thursday 25th October

If you ever come to Portugal you must visit Sintra. We went to the Regaleira Palace and Gardens and had a great day. The whole place is a rich man folly, lots of steps, castellated walls, turrets and underground tunnels. The higher you climb the better the views, no health and safety here like at home, so the children were free to discover it all. We only lost Chris in a tunnel once!

Friday 26th October

Katy is 30 today Happy Birthday!!

We are leaving Cascais after lunch today and doing a three day sail to Gibraltar. We have cleared out from here with customs so we can’t touch land until Gibraltar or we forfeit our VAT that we are claming back. Lizzie is nine tomorrow so will have a birthday at sea.

Cascais

Sunday 21st October

We spend the morning on Octopus trying to locate a noise that is disturbing Katy and Justin. It turns out a fan in one of the converters has suddenly got noisier and turning it off then on seems to solve the problem. In the afternoon we walk to the local beach and the children go swimming and play in the sand. I am persuaded to go in the water up to my thighs and return to the beach pretty fast, the water here is very cold, warmer then Arran, but I still need to go further South before I go up to my neck!!
On returning to Octopus we find Wandering Dragon just mooring up next to us. It’s good to see them again and we invite them over later for soup, fresh rolls and a bottle of wine.

Monday 22nd October

A good day for trying out the Kayaks, we get one of them set up and the children take it in turns paddling up and down the marina until they are told water sports are not aloud. Not to perturbed they go back to their new favoured pass time ‘fishing’ only to be told that’s not aloud either. The one poor ‘Pig fish’ that was already caught and taking up most of a bucket was reluctantly freed. We spent the afternoon in town investigating an enormous hyper market to replenish our supplies.

Tuesday 23rd October

The children spend the morning with their paints making birthday presents for Lizzie and Katy who both have their birthdays in the next few days.
We got the rib in the water, but as Octopus is moored very near the stern we decided to take the rib between the two hulls. Susie says she has already been under Octopus in the rib at Bridport so this seems a better idea then moving all the warps. I get in the rib and decided more weight is needed so Chris climbs in follow by four children who all want in on the fun. I decide we can’t fit, Chris decides he will push anyway…..Ann and Stephen from Wandering Dragon arrive with a camera to take photo’s of their mad neighbours who are stuck under their catamaran in a now half inflated rib. Needless to say we managed to get out once we stopped laughing. Susie then tells us she never went all the way through!!

Once re-inflated and the outboard in place the children loaded the rib with body-boards, fins and snorkels and we went to the beach. At the beach we meet up with a nice couple with three children aged eight months to about three and a half, who are travailing out to the Caribbean too. It rained!! It’s the first time since we got Octopus that we have been rained on…..I have to add it didn’t last long, not like at home.

Painting and helping!!

Friday 19th October

We meet up again with Maria and Nick and their two little girls at the play-park and later they come around to the marina to join us for a meal. They are planning to move out to Portugal and are here looking for property. Our younger children enjoy having someone new to play with as we haven’t seen any children yet!

Saturday 20th October

We leave mid-morning to sail to Cascais, yet more motor sailing. We try out our Geanicra for the first time, as it is so calm, but we still have to motor. The children spend most of the trip sat on the bow painting in the sunshine. We arrive at Cascais that evening to find it is a very up market marina and for the first time Octopus seems small!!

Figueira da Foz and Peniche

Monday 15th October

Do some jobs on board Octopus, then go into the town to find somewhere to eat. We find a great French restaurant who’s owner only speaks French and Portuguese. We have great fun ordering our meal, the owner was very helpful and great with the children. Later we find a little beach near the marina were the children have their first go at body-boarding.

Tuesday 16th October

We go exploring the local Market and find lots and lots of good choice of fresh veg and fruit. Again everyone is really friendly, they love children in Portugal and our six bring lots of interest from the locals. We meet a nice couple on another boat from the UK called Wanding Dragon who have two black cats on board. Susie is now wants a ships cat!! The children do yet more fishing and find the fish in Figueira da Foz are easy to catch and are very big, one poor fish only just fitted in our biggest bucket, unfortunately, because of pollution, they are not good to eat. James gets given a ‘Needle Fish’ by a local fisherman which is a type of Seahorse. We leave Figueira da Foz in the evening to night sail to Peniche.

Wednesday 17th October

At last a really good night sail with lots of wind. We arrive at Peniche at bit tired. We come into the harbour late morning, Peniche marina don’t seem to answer the VHF, I think they stay in bed until lunch time here! We just manage to fit into the last space on the pontoon all the boat arriving after us have to raft up. I do the usual ‘boat work’ washing the clothes and washing down the boat while Chris tries to get some sleep.

Thursday 18th October

Off to explore…. We have a look around the local musem and a walk around the town . Susie finds more cats. It seems the old fort is renowned for looking after stray cats, there are loads plus a lovely little kitten. We find a nice play park and meet an English couple and their two little girls who are moving over to Portugal to live. We end up spending a few hours with them. In the evening we take a very long walk to a long sandy beach where the children and Katy and Justin do some more body-boarding.

Islas Cies and Leixios

Friday 12th October

As the sun rose the wind returned, but was gone again by lunch time. By three we were motoring towards an island with a lovely sandy beach. We anchored just off the beach at Islas Cies not far from Bayona. We put out the floating rope down the starboard side as the children wanted to test the water. They all tried swimming off the stern but found the sea very cold. Lizzie got the farthest, she swam right down the side of Octopus and back followed by Susie who didn’t go quite as far. We had a nice dinner washed down with champagne to celebrate our crossing of Biscay and rounding Finesterre

Saturday 13th October

Next morning we were up at 5:30 and left at 6:00 to sail to Leixoes. No wind again, just as a bit of wind came our way and we were in the middle of getting the sails up a Portuguese Coast Guard boat raced out to meet us and circled us for a while which was a bit intimidating. After a while he called us on the VHF and asked us where we were going, where we had come from and how many onboard, then left us alone. That evening we arrived at Leixios. The marina is known for not being very clean and it lived up to our expectations by having a few corners with some unpleasant smells including the showers!! We had a quick look around the town that evening and decided to leave early next morning.

Sunday 14th October

We’re not sorry to leave Leixios and head off to Figueira da Foz. We motor most of the way, hardly any wind and even some sea fog. We arrive at Figueira that evening and found it to be very friendly and good clean facilities

La Coruna

Tuesday 9th October - La Coruna

We spent second night at La Coruna; the children spent most of their time fishing off the pontoons with their nets. Lizzie managed to fall in off the pontoon, they all wear their life-jackets while fishing and she was fished out by Justin very quickly!! She was a bit shocked by the cold water but enjoyed the attention and a hot chocolate drink to warm her up. The shower facilities were basic and a long walk right around the large inner harbour but they were very hot!

We set off the next morning to get fuel and to sail towards Bayona. Once out in the bay, we attempted to raise the main sail but found we had some problems. The main halyard kept twisting and the blocks were sticking. We decide the new ropes that are inner corded are getting wound up like a spring, not helped by coiling them up after use so we are now taking out all the kinks after use and ‘stuffing’ them into pockets rather then coiling them. The blocks tend to seize-up a lot sooner than expected, but washing the down regularly and using some very, very expensive spray-on PTFE lubricant seems to do the trick. Needless to say we returned to La Coruna after a bit of messing about with the sail and decide to start afresh the next day.

Thursday 11th October - Leaving La Coruna

We left La Coruna late morning, at last we have some good wind which even meant a reef in the mainsail for the first time as the wind speeds were over 22 knots. One of the mainsail battens came loose, so we put in a second reef to enable us to reach it and secure it back in place. The two Kayaks, that were stowed up against the bimini roof, broke free and launched themselves out and across the transom at the same time, only to be saved by the rib, so we had an exciting 20 minutes. Once all was sorted out we had a good night sail until about one in the morning when the wind disappeared.

Almost There

Monday – I got my first full night off last night and am on ‘House Watch’ today, so I decided to see if the oven is hot enough to cook a steak pie, answer no!! Luckily the convector microwave saved the day. We still have no wind and it is very misty. We decide we can’t motor sail any longer and risk not having any Diesel to be able to motor into La Coruna, so we spend the morning becalmed. As the afternoon arrives we have a little wind and we start sailing at one or two knots. By nine in the evening the wind has died and we start motor sailing again. The fog is now like soup, with all four of us on watch listening and looking, we make our way towards La Coruna. The children are below asleep in their lifejackets and we have a large ship blowing its fog horn on our Starboard side! After four hours we thankfully see lights on the land and start our approach, we are followed in by an enormous ship still blowing her fog horn! We moor up at La Coruna at two in the morning! We are all glad to get to bed……

Sailing UK to Spain

Thursday - We left Torquay at 1900 Thursday night to night-sail towards Falmouth. There was a large submerged object reported at Falmouth that had sunk a fishing boat in 5 minutes the night before, it was only marked by an unlit buoy, so we decided to keep well clear. By the next morning we were sailing on towards Lizard and ready to turn towards Spain to cross the Bay of Biscay. The first night Chris and I took turns to stay up with Katy and Justin as they hadn’t night sailed before. The next morning we started our new watch symtem, split into three hour watches during the day and two hour watches at night.

Friday - The winds were very light as we crossed Biscay and we had to motor-sailed most of the way. By the second night we were running parallel to the shipping lanes and on both Justin’s and my watches one or two ships seemed very close to us. At first we were all very tired, we seemed to do nothing but eat, sleep and keep watch, after a couple of days the routine settled down and we all had a bit more time to enjoy the trip.

Saturday - Today we saw our first dolphins who joined us for twenty minutes of play time off the bow. Then a little bird, that we couldn’t identify, decided to hitch a ride, he was very tame, the children enjoyed him landing on their heads. He would fly out side and around the boat every now and again then come back inside to say hello. After a long rest he left us to go his own way.

Sunday – A lovely sunny day, but still no wind. Another little bird comes on board to join us who is also very tame and clearly exhausted from all the flying he has done. We have only sea, sky and Octopus for hours on end.

Torquay

Here we are at sunny Torquay! We have spent two nights at Torquay Marina courtsey of Princess Yachts and my mate Nick! The children loved the lights of Torquay and walked along the sea front in amazement, “it’s just like Christmas” they all said. Yesterday we went over to Brixham to get fuel and had a play in the bay. We managed a bit of sailing and some man over-board practice. We are setting off on a night passage tonight towards Falmouth, then turning left to start our crossing of Biscay towards Spain.

Mast work and Bridport from above!

We got a chap in to help with the mast work, fitting a Radar, two VHF radio aerials and the wind indicator. With the necessary work finished and all the gear stowed we were able to start off. It has taken us a lot longer to fit her out with all the equipment then we thought it would. The instruments that were already onboard should have been calibrated but we found out they’re not! The jobs on board seem to have a way of appearing….we do one job and find two more!!