One of the days we left from Porto by a small narrow-gauge single car electric tram on the Linha da Tamega railway to go up into the hills, overlooking verdant picturesque river valleys, to Amarante, a small town straddling the Rio Tamega, a tributary emptying into the Douro River. We wanted to see this town as it was featured in one of Bernard Cornwell’s Sharpe novels when the French in 1809 lost their brief hold on Portugal and were retreating, only to be held up for several weeks on one side of the bridge before getting across this strategic exit to flee Wellington’s troops. We have read several novels by Cornwell on the Peninsular Wars (the Iberian Peninsula of Portugal and Spain) against Napoleon and enjoy our travels through some of the areas where battles took place almost 200 years ago.

Another aspect of Portuguese architecture we noticed was the plentiful use of ceramic tiles on homes and public buildings. These shiny multi coloured tiles would serve as sidings for entire walls of homes; as decorative mosaics highlighting heraldic emblems, crests or balconies; or featuring heroic scenes of grandiose proportions displaying battles (as in the central train station in Porto) or religious motifs. Many churches would have either multi coloured or traditional blue and white ceramic tile scenes from the New Testament.

Porto has a reasonably good bus and subway system, one branch in process of being extended out to Povoa de Varzim, and another branch, inaugurated while we were there, going across the two tier high-level bridge Pont de Dom Luis I. We saw the first subway train go across the upper level while we were enjoying a meal at a restaurant below on the quay in Ribeira. Unfortunately it is no longer possible to walk across the upper level as it now carries the subway line across the bridge to Villa Nova de Gaia. (Picture)

Three days later, on Sept. 18, we were off for a 48 mile run under sail and motorsailing to anchor in Sao Jacinto in Ria de Aveiro (40 degrees 39.50’N, 008 degrees 43.99’W). We entered south of the long breakwater, motorsailing with brisk force 7 winds abeam, and further assisted by a 5 knot flood tide, giving us a speed over ground in excess of 10 knots. The channel off to our starboard was crowded with yachts and fishing boats, with flags flying and fireworks going off. It was nice of them to welcome us this way, but we altered course to port to crab our way through the flood current to enter between the fingers of the long breakwaters towards the sheltered waters off the airfield and Sao Jacinto. Winds were still blowing at force 7 (about 30 knots) but the anchor held well. We noticed that another local yacht that anchored dragged and had to reset its anchor. We didn’t bother to go ashore and left at 0830 next morning for the 35 mile motor trip to Figuera da Foz, a very expensive stop!

As requested in the pilot, we went to the fuel dock, and while I tried unsuccessfully to use the card operated diesel pump, Judy went to check in. She took quite a long time, and when I went into the immigration office to find her, she was informed her passport into the EU was out of date. Oh sh…. Other check-ins were done with just our photocopies of the passports, but Judy had taken our actual passports and thus the expired date was noted. The official was quite co-operative and tried to help her deal with the issue by suggesting a trip to England (as it is not a Shengen country bound by the treaty) would suffice. He even indicated that we could wait until Lisbon to make that adjustment, but Judy did not want to take any risks, especially since we were to meet her Dad in Madeira in a few weeks time, and so we spent an hour at an internet café arranging a return flight from Porto to Stanstead to get her passport stamped in, then leaving six hours later to get her passport stamped out. So she was on a 450 Euro round trip for about 24 hours to satisfy the requirements of a 3 month limit into Shengen countries of the EU! I still think the immigration official would have accepted just the photo copy of our passports (I was OK as I was on my British passport), as the officials have done before and ever since. In fact he did not want any confirmation that she had renewed her stamp. We did not return to the office to show her now valid passport. No one before or since has looked at our actual passports. Oh well, if you can’t take a joke (regardless of how inconvenient or expensive) you shouldn’t be cruising!

The town itself was quite adequate and pleasant, with a large market across the road from the marina, and a good internet café for E-mail. The marina had finger docks (40 degrees 08.84’N, 008 degrees 51.61’W) with power and water for a relatively expensive 22.30 Euros a night. The night Judy was off on her 24 hour jaunt, I was invited over to Cool Blue for supper. There were several other boats we knew there, including Hydra Blue, Wild Adventure, and Sea Fox. We left after the second night for the 57 mile motor down to anchor inside the breakwater at Peniche (39 degrees 21.22’N, 009 degrees 22.13’W). At least on that trip we were visited by a pod of six dolphins, the first we had seen for quite a while. However when using our Simrad Wheelpilot, it did not work properly, but replacing the fuse solved the problem. We follow the procedure each trip to use both our Simrad and our Raymarine self steering systems to be sure both are working properly. We are not happy with the reliability of the Simrad Wheel pilot.

Off again we left next day for a 45 mile trip motoring and a bit of motorsailing, to anchor off Cascais, a suburb of Lisbon, on the coast. During this trip we passed Cabo Ruso (35 degrees 41.75’N, 009 degrees 30.71’W) the westernmost point of continental Europe. At Cascais, we anchored three times. The first location was near a channel that local fishing boats used to go in and out from their moorings close to shore. However, they did not have any consideration for the boats at anchor further out, and plowed in and out at full speed creating very uncomfortable and dangerous wakes. After yelling at three or four of these yahoos to slow down, I was aware it was not just an occasional inconsiderate skipper, but a concerted disregard of anchored sailboats. We then re-anchored further away from this area, but were cautioned by another boater that heavy winds come up frequently and cause risk of dragging, suggesting we might be better further away yet. So we finally went outside all the anchored boats nearer the beach and set our anchor (38 degrees 41.86’N, 009 degrees 24.70’W) for the next 5 days while touring Lisbon, doing maintenance for our 500 mile trip to Madeira, and waiting for our friend Doug Caldwell to arrive from Toronto.

Next log