Intention to depart for Nazare about 60 miles south, or even further to Peniche (about 100Nm). First some jobs.Mike dons skimpy wetsuit and carefully slips beneath the murky mullet laden water beneath the boat on a daring mission to view the prop. Atlantic waters are very cold and the prop only gets a brief look. All appears to be intact but without nerves of steel a detailed inspection is impossible. Very fresh N'ly wind and big seas building. Sounds dreadful from inside marina. Pay our 18E/day and say our farewells. Slip 1230 ish. Once outside we dodge the fishing boats and rig for heavy running with 1 reef, 5 rolls, preventer and genoa pole. The wind and seas build steadily during the day so eventually we are double reefed with a goosewinged scrap of a genoa. Rolling our gunwhales under and thankful I fitted an extra high swan-neck to the engine exhaust outlet. Rough?......don't look behind folks....is that a large block of flats following us? Deafening noise. The aft cabin looks like its been in a washing machine spin cycle. The pain in the ass bit is the wind keeps shifting making us reverse all this poled out and preventered stuff every few hours....right through the night. I can tell you that at the age of 200 crawling on your bum on a heaving deck in the dark to retrieve the flogging wotsitsname thingummy for the n-th time is only funny once and a load of total poo thereafter. On the pos side we passed the 1000 miles from home point at 2300 and boat speed has been good, averaging well over 7.5 knts for the 115 mile to Peniche where we have decides to run to as Nazare looked a bit dodgy with a big sea running.
Easy entrance to well-sheltered harbour at 0630 where we squeeze into the tiny marina. Met instantly by security guard who is helpful but totally incomprehensible......but then so are we to him.
Great Blog. I read it regularly as my daily fix, especially as KIDDET is now high and dry for the winter.
ReplyDeleteCheers, Sid