Sines to Lagos

It was quite foggy on the sail down to Sines past some incredible capes, this one disappeared 5 minutes later, I didn’t see it I was having a kip below and came up when the sun came out LOL.

We met a guy in La Rochelle, John Laverty from Ireland who told us about this place, he is planning on bringing his boat here later this year for the rest of the season and the winter. It’s a nice wee marina and the people are very helpful, it’s also extremely reasonable; I think the last one I’m going to be able to say that about as seemingly things get very expensive from now on.

The weather has turned pretty rotten and we are going to be here a few days. It rained for a lot of the day today so didn’t manage to see too much of the place, just a run along the front for me then a trip up the town for some shopping.

We had Carol and Keith over for a wee drink before dinner tonight, Gordon cooked tonight, what a nice change. Tomorrow I think we are going to see where Vasco de Gama was born, in the castle up the hill.

Sines by night, that’s the castle lit up on the hill.

Hi Gordon here, taking over from the Blogger Bint. I was a wee bit disappointed with the treatment of Vasco in his birthplace. OK he was a bit of a tyrant to his crew but he still navigated to India when everyone that the world ended South of Cape St Vincent.

As you can see there only remains a statue to his achievements and that is surrounded by graffiti – a bit like vandalising the Elgin Marbles. Having said that, I suppose the Greeks do think we are vandals for nicking them.

There is a museum in his “house” but very little to commemorate his voyages – strange. I managed to get a sneaky but you are not allowed to photograph inside.

If you look closely you can see Betty Da Gamma at the windae.

View from aforesaid windae.

We are staying until Sunday and may have a mini flotilla Tyra, Bright Spark and Camira setting off at 0400 to round Cape St. Vincent.

Oh no we didn’t the skipper changed his mind or rather the forecast weather did it for me and we ended up leaving on the Saturday evening for another overnight sail.

Sunset 10 miles of the coast of Portugal

We had a good sail for part of the night and then got so headed by Southerlies we had to put the engine on. We reached Cape St. Vincent at dawn and I woke Louise up to see it and the dolphins that swam along with us for a while. If I can I will send this blog edition “non” PDF so the movies will work , if you end up with the usual PDF then I couldn’t and the movies won’t work!