Lagos, Portugal
Alan's Log:
Joan's Log:
Arriving in Portugal was emotional for me, pure happiness
and relief, gratitude and pride, with a huge sense of
accomplishment thrown in as well. The first few days were spent in
a sort of crazed, dazed euphoria as we wandered the wonderful twisty, narrow, cobbled streets
of Lagos' old section, under the bluest of blue skies
imaginable and the laughter of hundreds of soaring gulls filled the air .
We have decided that Lagos has one of the nicest climates in June we have ever experienced. Warm, but not quite hot due the the constant afternoon Portuguese Trade Winds; very low humidity, and never a cloud in the sky!
We attended a few parties, most notably Friday night on Belle! George Gamble, Belle's owner invited all the boats that had arrived by then; everyone was giddy and in a major party mood. We finally left around 12:30 when the last bottle of wine was emptied, but a big group (including Colin and Martin) continued on in Lagos until 4 or 5 AM!!!
Colin & Martin made several visits to the East beach, a huge swath of sand beach that runs from the harbour entrance at Lagos for many miles into the distance.
Our last ARC dinner was Sunday night in one of the nice marina restaurants which was also a great time and everyone seemed to be a member of the "Mutual Admiration Society". The best part was when the Irish Captain and crew (6 for the last leg) of RE SHUANTA sang an old sea shanty "It's time to leave her Johnny". We knew they were musical and had heard of their talents, and had heard them singing and playing guitar once during the evening cocktail chat on the SSB radio. They all have strong beautiful voices, so it was a huge treat to hear them up close! They are a lovely family and we so enjoyed getting to know them, as well as all the other ARC boats. We feel as though we have made some lasting friendships and are really looking forward to meeting up with the boats that will be in the Med in the near future! Over the next few nights we had some great dinners including one in an Indian restaurant with John & Ashela of JSEA and Lisa & David from GYATSO.
Our friends Kevin and Penney who live in the Dordogne Valley in France came to visit us on Monday, which also happened to be Colin and Martin's last night on board Moonstruck. Alan and I cooked one of our favorite dishes "Cioppino" an Italian inspired fish stew, which originated in San Fransisco, for our farewell dinner. For the four of us who have been together for nearly two months, it was an emotional evening.
The next few days were spent exploring the surrounding area with Kevin and Penny. Kevin drove us North to the delightful small town of Aljezur and along the coast where we looked down on spectacular surfing beaches, and then on to Sao Vicente, the most SouthWestern point of Europe and once thought to be the end of the world. This had been our first sight of land when we approached Portugal from the Azores.
Then a brief stop at Sagres, home to Henry the Navigator. His school of Navigation is reputed to have been on this site, but all that remains is a large land compass in the courtyard of the (later) fortifications.
All in all it was a long day of driving and we made the fateful (for Joan) decision not to cook or eat out but to buy a BBQ chicken from the local Pingo Doce grocery store. Kevin & Penny left the next morning and before we knew it we saw Rosario (our friends David & Tni and brother John) who finally made it into Lagos a week behind us having stopped for some needed repairs in the Azores. We all went out to dinner to a wonderful friendly restaurant with good food and very cheap drink called Mullens.
By the next morning it turned out that Joan had picked up a tummy bug from the BBQ chicken that completely wiped her out for the next 5 days. She missed out on a fun afternoon dinghy ride with Rosario's crew to the local cave beaches, some of which are only accesible by boat. I am still having problems with the dinghy engine, which hasn't been the same since ingesting some seawater in Antigua and so had to be towed by David of Rosario.
We drove along the cliffs, passing rock outcrops and islets, to the end of the beaches, duly noting the clothed and nude beaches along the way until we found our reward, a small sand beach surrounded by cliffs facing the sun which we initially had all to ourselves. David & Tni had brought some wine, and I had brought some bread and cheese and a pleasant afternoon was spent solving the world's problems and discussing the idiosyncracies of "crew".
Lagos was the perfect destination to unwind after the long Transatlantic crossing. The new Marina is well equipped and reasonably priced and within walking distance of everything in Lagos. But we are partied-out and it is time to move on. Our early planning for this voyage had us arriving at Lisbon and we are loathe to head into the Mediterranean without spending some time in this remarkable capital city, so once Joan was well enough to travel, we said our goodbyes and cast off the lines for the two day sail up to Lisbon.
We expected to have to motor all the way (about 150NM) as the prevailing winds and current are from the North, against our course. However as we left the marina and headed West to round Cap Sao Vicente, we had a pleasant offshore breeze that enabled us to sail to the cape. By sailing a little offshore we were then able to pick up some westerly in the North wind which enabled us to tack and sail close-hauled all the way to Sines ("sinch") where we spent the night in an unnotable marina/town. The next morning, Joan was feeling worse and we motor sailed the rest of the way up to Lisbon where we were able to secure a spot just outside the city in the marina at Cascais ("cashKash").
Next......Lisbon and Cascais and Ben's visit to Portugal.