Well, we are on our way and are really enjoying being back on the water again. We left Lagos Marina on Friday, May 3rd about 1PM and headed down the coast about 20 miles to Sagres. We anchored there for a few hours and then got moving at 2AM on Saturday May 4th as the north winds had died down. We were fortunate in finding another boat heading in our direction so we have company going up the coast. It is always nice to have another boat out here with us as we check in with each other during the day. We had to motor a good part of the day and felt as if we were sitting in a washing machine, but then later on in the day we were able to have a very pleasant sail - what a great day! We made it to Sines about 5PM and checked into the marina here. We quickly got changed and headed into town to do alittle exploring. As Bob said we are now back into our explorer mode and are enjoying it already. As we were at the dock we also go a chance to meet Chris and Toni on the other boat (Gazelle) that is traveling north with us. It was nice to put a face with a voice and start to get to know them better. Our plan is to leave here about 6AM tomorrow and head to Cascais which is close to Lisbon (about a 10-11 hour trip for us) . We will anchor out there and then the next day more again for 14 hours to Nazare. We are pushing quickly now as we have a good weather window and trying to get some northing done. It looks like some weather will be stopping our move north soon and picked Nazare to stop in as it looks like there are some things to do and see there. Hopefully the information we have read will hold true.
Take care & will stay in touch as much as we can.
May 5 - Looks like my message above did not get sent so will update you. We did leave Sines at 6:30AM this AM with absolutely no wind and it turned out to be a nice, sunny day. We had absolutely flat seas so started motoring north. While the sea was calm we had a very large pod of dolphin around the boat which was great. As Bob says I am like a little kid every time I get a sighting as love to have them play around the boat. There were quite a few and we could even see them jumping completely out of the water as well as silver streaks going under the boat. We always take a sighting as a good omen. Only problem was that about 12 noon the winds picked up in the wrong direction and the seas came along with it. It wasn't too bad and we actually did get to have our sails up and sailed for a large part of the way (but with the motor on too). It turned out to be a long day as we got to the anchorage in Cascais about 6:45PM. All in all a good day. A bonus was that Chris & Toni on Gazelle got very close to us while we had our sails up so we will share some photos with each other. It has been very nice to have company on the trip. The plan is to sleep for a few hours and then leave here at 1:00AM as we have quite a long distance to the next stop in Nazare. We picked that location as we have heard we may have bad weather for a few days and it sounds like a nice place to explore.
Best wishes - by the way we have now traveled 190 nautical miles since leaving Lagos on Friday.
Monday - May 6 - just checked my email outbox and it appears that this didn't get sent. I am not positive so hope this will not duplicate a previous blog entry, but in case it didn't go, I'll try to send again tonight.
Plans always have to be flexible with this lifestyle. As mentioned above we planned on doing a day hope up to Nazare today. When we left at 1:30AM there was no wind so we started our motoring trip north on a very flat sea. At times it is hard to remember that this is still the Atlantic Ocean! We were making good progress toward Nazare and were only about 3 hours from our goal when plans changed. The other boat we were traveling with and ourselves looked at new weather reports and it looks like the weather is going to stay calm for another day. After talking it over on each boat we both agreed that we should "make hay while the sunshines" and make as much northing as possible with good weather. We have heard and read too many horror stories of what this coast can be when there are strong north winds. This plan now will take us overnight and we should get into the Bayone, Spain (just north of the Portugal/Spain border) by tomorrow afternoon. The other boat (Gazelle) have been there before and said it is a nice stop.
About 1:30PM today we had another good omen when a pod of dolphin came and played again. I tried to capture some of it on film so will see how it turned out and share it later with you if I got any good footage. Today we have had a mixture of weather - the moon came up about 4AM today but didn't see it too long as it became overcast and very foggy. We are happy to have our radar and AIS in these situations to be able to still see where other boats are. It works very well. We had a few sprinkles but nothing much (at least not yet at 6:30PM) and better yet we got some wind out of the south so we have been able to get quite a bit of help from the wind today boosting our speed.
Yes, plans have changed, but things are working out very well and it will get us to Spain by tomorrow, much earlier than we thought we would be able to accomplish this. We hope the weather forecast hold true through the night and into tomorrow. I'll report again tomorrow.
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