We Doubled our Average Speed
Yup, we had a cracking sail and just touched 11 knots. I was at the helm and Neil trimming the sails. It was fab and it lasted 8 minutes!! We were heading back down the river from Lisbon and just passed the Belem Tower picked up some wind. I got very excited thinking it would only take 5 or 6 hours at 10knots to get to our next anchorage in Sines. Oh what a fool I am. 12 hours, or to be very precise 11 hours 59mins later, we anchor in Sines.
Belum Tower, Lisbon
I did manage however during the 12 hour passage (let’s just call it 12 hours) to get into my ‘outside’ book, The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt. I struggled to get into the flow and kept putting it down. If I haven’t explained already, I have a regular book in the deck pod for outside reading, my Kindle for inside reading as well as an audiobook on the go. Now I’m also fitting in the re-reading of the Harry Potter series when ‘inside’. So in effect I’m ‘reading’ 4 books. Can’t remember jack about any of them after a few days though, with the exception of Harry Potter. And no, I wouldn’t remember more if I only read one at a time as I used to do that and was exactly the same. In fact I have about 4 audiobooks that I have listened to at least a dozen times each and I still hear bits that I don’t remember hearing before. Maybe I was a goldfish in a previous life with a 3 second memory only this time I got double that.
I do remember that I was talking about our 12 hour passage, prompted by the first paragraph. Excitement on the VHF radio this morning. Motor vessel ‘Selene’ was calling for official help as a man with a knife was threatening to set fire to their ship with a tin of paint thinners. A couple of hours later Selene, a cargo ship, crossed us astern heading to shore. Would love to know what happened. Did they just tip him overboard? We will never know.
We also saw Dolphins very briefly heading north. Don’t know why North, the sunshine is in the south. The day was bright and sunny with a heat haze over the land. Makes a change from fog.
Sines anchorage
Sines is a very small anchorage off a beach between a small Marina and a fishing fleet although you sail through a commercial dock to get in and today there was an overpowering smell of diesel. Luckily we can’t smell it here now. When we arrived there was one boat anchored, 2 more followed us in and then just after 9pm 2 more arrived. Have to say it’s pretty full now and everyone took more than 1 attempt to lay their anchor. Ours is a particular pain, for Neil, as it is manual and darn heavy. We watched the other boats somewhat enviously press a button to raise their anchors. The town is said to be pretty and there is a castle and church lit up just above the beach so we may take a look tomorrow. Our plan, as always weather dependent, is to leave very early Friday morning to head round Worlds End (Cape St Vincent) to Sagres in the Algarve.
Looking forward to turning the corner.
