Portugal 2
10th October 2007

We stayed in Cascais for a few days doing a spot of sightseeing, just a short train ride away from Lisbon, and meeting old friends and making some new ones. This was the place that our fishing drought was about to end big style…

After another night socialising on board Sinbad with the fishing guru Duncan and his good lady Rachael, we decided to take his advice and use some proper bait, by the way of a tin of mackerel. It worked we caught 17 good size fish, honest.

Cascais was a great rest place as we caught up on sleep and walked life back into our legs. After being on the boat for a long time, muscles start to forget how to move and if it was not for our ‘daily stretches’ we would never be able to go out and down (Pete takes great glee at ridiculing the yoga style stretches).

We visited a few places in Lisbon and the best time to visit them is on a Sunday, for two reasons the first is that they are free and the second is that the shops are shut so Niki can’t buy anything.

Lisbon Cathedral (we went ‘Orb spotting’ down some park passages)

When we have had enough of ‘Don Quixote’ this is our next one….

But we might need some crew!

Torre De Belem

We liked the old part of the city as it reminded us of home……not (sorry it’s just that we have just finished watching Borat)

A view from Niki’s best side and also a view out across the river.


Our next part of the journey took us down the coast some 50 miles or so to a little place called Sines where Vasco de gama was born, and yes, you guessed it we had to motor all the way there but at least we had good visibility

Sines (apparently pronounced ‘Shin-es) harbour. We are the second boat at anchor from the left of the

From Sines to the Algarve
Yep, no wind again and thick fog as we left the anchorage. Nice...not (Borat), until we rounded Cape St Vincent and headed east and for the first time in ages, we found some wind so for the first time in days we were sailing at six knots on fairly calm water. It felt sooooooo gooood so we carried on to Lagos and timed it just right that we spent the night on their waiting pontoon, lovely. We left the following morning by my great skills in spinning the boat around on a sixpence and headed off to Faro to await the arrival of my Mum and Dad.
Now Faro really was like being back home on the east coast, little tidal estuaries, channels and gut ways. Everything apart from the jets that flew over

Our free mooring at Faro airport

Please let me explain why Niki is standing in the airport arrivals with a sign that says Uncle of Eric Clapton. Now any one who knows my Dad will know that he thinks he is a distant relation to Eric by the way of Erics Nan having the surname of Clapp. So we thought it would be funny….not

It was fantastic to see Mum and Dad not only to catch up with all the gossip back home but for them to bring us out presents, it was just like Christmas. Now it’s not many times you see my Mum out of the cockpit but this was a special occasion, as you can see in the background it was Mum’s perfect sailing weather..

Just look at these three; they had just put on show for us.

We had a fantastic time with Mum and Dad on board, we visited some of the caves and all the marinas along this Algarve coast, and had some great meals out; it felt like we were on holiday too...which I suppose we are but you know what I mean, don’t you.


We watched a small tour boat and decided to try and follow some of the routes he had taken. We ended up entering the smallest of tunnels and coming out into a large ‘theatre’ like cavern with a high domed ceiling and a few holes up to the sky where light poured in. Heaven.


After our luxurious lifestyle of marinas and restaurants, we had to face the reality that we could not afford to continue our 5 star cruising so we headed back to the refuge of Faro’s backwaters knowing we could sit comfortably at anchor until ready to make our move out of Portugal and on to new waters. This time the entrance was not as kind (or rather we poorly timed it!) and luckily the engine held fast against a quick running ebb. Even full out we only made a knot and half over the land!

Pushing against the flow


We decided to try the eastern end of the ‘backwaters’ (it really was Maurice Griffiths country) and headed for Olhao (never really found the correct pronunciation for this place so we just changed how we said it every time hoping to get it right at least once). Lo and behold we bumped into our friends on Sinbad again! We ended up staying nearly a week there as the surrounding islands were so beautiful (we found abandoned fig trees where the fruit tasted so sweet and we harvested a good crop of Samphire which was superb with butter and black pepper). One night we had a meal purely from the land/sea with Mackeral Pate, and bread donated to us by a German sailor whose boat we rescued when it dragged its anchor.

Pete and Duncan leapt into the tender and put themselves between the dragging boat and another (French) boat, just in time as they were about to collide. This shot was taken as they cared not for their own safety! (Miami vice eat your heart out).

One of the reasons we sat here for so long was because there were some severe thunder storms that passed us. But as with all things beastly, somewhere there exists beauty. Corny I know but this is just one of the many soothing sunsets in Olhao from our anchorage.

Besides, the weather was an excuse to get some jobs done before our next passage and we spent some time servicing winches…

and checking our mast gear aloft. (Pete made a technical splice for our toppinglift).

When the rains cleared, Pete decided he had had enough of the pesky Mullett that flirted around under the surface, just beside the boat. A while back, Magic John gave us a casting net designed just for these type of fish. So here is a detailed photo strip of Pete and Duncan’s efforts (a mention also to Rachel who read out the instructions on how to use it…properly).

The prep..

The throw (on 3 or after?)

The result…
He tasted mighty fine! (and the fish was not bad either)

It was sad to say good bye to our friends but time was ticking and we hatched a plan to spend another night back in Villamoura (which had now reduced from 50 euros a night to their out of season fee of 18) where we would replenish with water and fuel. We had been watching the weather for a while and knew the forecast was for some northerly winds to set in which we would take across to the Canaries, missing out Madeira.

It was time to move on.