Lisbon – Cascais
So with absolutely nothing going on in Lisbon (because our marina was miles from town), we set off to head back to Cascais. We sailed perfectly, timing it properly this time, so we had the 4 Kts of tide with us. We set up on the anchorage for free for 3 nights, we spend the time popping ashore in the dinghy to take scrambles for a few nice walks where he loved the long sandy beach, and wandering around the lovely old town. We even had a nice swim in the sea, and for once it was not freezing. We swam over to Shavora and back listening to Scrumpy cry the whole way, do his usual ‘go nuts’ whenever anyone is in the water. The police finally ushered us into the Marina due to a large storm coming, as it was unsafe to stay in the anchorage (either that or to boost the marina profits) but we needed to get in for some battery charging anyway. Once in the Marina we bumped into our now good friend Paul the Pisshead from Muros (we call him this as he likes a drink, its an affectionate term). We decided to treat ourself to a good old curry and we were joined by Paul as his niece had just left so was in need of some company, it was really nice to see him again.
The storm roled through for night and a day and it was a strong on, 65 miles an hour of wind, we were lucky to be in the shelter. Holly could barely leave the marina as she couldn’t keep the gate open with the wind blowing it back! It was some of the strongest winds we had ever seen and we were very grateful to not be out at sea in it (unlike poor Michael Sweet on Henrietta which we only found out today 18 Oct) Come the afternoon when the sea was at its roughest, Holly called me out of the boat to see a huge 275 metre oil tanker 50 metres from our harbour wall, its engine had broken to some degree and it had run aground after being dragged in the storm. Once the tide rose in the afternoon, it came unstuck and dragged 600m along the harbour front, almost destroying the breakwater, luckily it stopped 50 M short of the marina entrance. Rescue services and tug boats then spent the next 24 hours trying to rescue it, as it has punctured some holes and was taking on water. Finally they succeeded and the tug boats dragged it off into the distance. The marina has been full to brim with spectators, press and police ever since. We listening to it all unfold over the VHF radio, its crazy to hear it all first hand.
So FINALLY ….. today Sunday 18th Oct we are sat here up to date on with the Blog….It has not been like this for about 10 weeks, but with our next passage to the Canaries imminent we wanted to get it sorted. Since returning to Cascais we have just been waiting for a good weather to set off and start the 700 MILES to the Canaries. This will be at least 6-7 days at sea depending on our progress so its pretty scary and exciting. We are finding a bit difficult to find a good window with all these storms which seem to be turing up every week to 10 days. Apparently the North Atlantic jet stream has split into 2 at the Azores and its creating lots of low pressure weather systems which are unpredictable. Normally it doesn’t split and this unpredictable weather fucks off to Scotland, this is why we haven’t been getting the amazing Northern Portuguese winds. This means we have 2 options we either go straight to the Canaries or we make our way down to the tip of Portugal/South Spain, this will give us a chance to keep an eye on the weather and means a 500 mile sail instead of 700. ….Anyway we’ll keep you all posted as best we can, but we are leaving Cascais at 11:00 hrs tomorrow ……… Hope you are all still enjoying the blog.
Boat Hobos 