After a very pleasant stay at Povoa de Varzim at HW this morning we slipped slipped lines and underway heading S, in pot-infested waters, towards Cabo St Vincent and then Portimau. It's good to be underway again in the Atlantic roll. The entrance at Povo de Varzim has a sand-bar, which is becoming shallower of recent and a notice recently appeared in the marina office saying, "If draught 2m or more then entrance/exit only allowed 2h either side HW. This meant we needed to be up early and out smartly this morning. Yesterday the harbour & marina was fog-bound until mid-morning, which would have scuppered our escape today. Fortunately, however, we had clear skies and excellent visibility. We have just over 300NM to do so are expecting to enter Portimau early Thursday morning. With little wind this morning we donked our way for the first 4h then 'voila, beaucoup de vent' so happily sailing poled genoa to wind plus jib to wind at speeds up to 8kn. If the wind continues to increase and we are consistently faster than 8kn we'll be reefing. For now reefs aint needed and we're having fun, plus a little rolling, of course.
After returning our stretched-limo to the car-rental in Porto we made our way back to base on the metro. For Sue & me this is a real test. We are people who never really figured-out how to use Oyster cards in London (when Sue's brother was Oyster chief exec' at the time) so the process of paying right amount for tickets, getting on the right tram going right way, changing stations and negotiating crossing tracks after realising one or two errors, can be a real test of initiative for us......... and we passed the test (this time).
Without the burden of the car, we were able to explore Povoa de Varzim on bikes. MOstly easy because of the marked cycle lanes and only one instance when some bloke behind the wheel of a car got ratty when he was forced to stop because of two people (just going along their way doing no harm to any one) cycling wrong-way up a one-lane one-way street. Our grand finale was finding a local restaurant, full to the brim, where we enjoyed their 'menu of the day' costing just ?6 a head. Even the wine, coffees & tapas could only get total up to ?20 so now we can afford bit more sailing.
My Lover's had a whopping heck of a cough these last two weeks. When it happens it's deafening. Specially in the confined space of a stretched-limo. My only respite is to feed her sweeties (mints) to ease my pain! We are both hoping this cough will be gone soon. Fortunately it's now mostly appearing part-time only, scarcely heard when horizontal although intermittently returning when thinking it's safe to relax eardrums. It's not foggy so we don't need it!
As is usual for these waters, once we go sub 40ºN it'll get warmer. Hopefully starting tomorrow!
In meantime......... Love to family D & family H xxxxx
Ticketeeboo MMSI 235071989 Callsign 2CED3, Ham callsign = m0hng
At 29/07/2014 20:59 UT our position was 42°15.38'N 008°50.45'W
http://blog.mailasail.com/ticketeeboo
http://www2.winlink.org:8081/maps/positionReports.aspx?callsign=m0hng
