With mast fixed and working beautifully, and the weather fining up, off we headed to Sines, some 50nm away.
Stan and Judy were especially keen to get going, as they’d been on board for a while now,and they were looking forward to a bit of adventure on the high seas. Stan had also eaten Lisbon and Cascais out of food and was keen to try and eat his way through some more fishing towns further south. I’ve never seen someone eat so much (ok – I have but they were teenagers and don’t count). But he’s pretty active – a cycling nut – we now have two fold up bikes on board that Stand and Judy brought with them. And they hike whereever they can, so he does chew up a lot of calories. But still its good fun, ribbing him about it.
Our days on the ocean are pretty set with the weather now settled. We start off motoring, then we fly the geneker for a while, then the wind picks up in the afternoon, so down comes the geneker and out going the genoa. Then the wind picks up some more so we reef. Then we get there. Its all downwind sailing so pretty nice in a cat, even when its blowing hard.
Sines was a nice spot. We got a good anchorage off the beach inside the breakwater. The cruising guide said we needed to pay the marina 35% of the berthing fees to anchor, so we trotted off to the marina, only to get a strange look and told anchoring was free and no need to check in.
So off we went to explore the town. First stop was dinner (of course) and Stan had taken quite a liking to Sea Snails. I wasn’t so sure I wanted to sit at a table with Stan watching him eat sea snails but I endured. They must have been good because the restuarant did a roaring trade in take away sea snails (BYO tupperware container). Afterwards we had a wander around and visited the fort (that was closed) and the statue of Vasco De Gama, who was born here and left to discover the sailing route to India from Sines.
Not a bad spot to spend an afternoon.
For photos see https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.4625295803315.1073741847.1620379103&type=1&l=1fc657df84
A Little Bit of Mischief 