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Casamara - Casamara - Catching up with the blog!



June 8th - Casamara arrives Bayona 22.30, being met by Helen, Abi, Jane and Captain Darling.
It was an uneventful crossing, mostly under engine.....but that was the important thing...UNDER ENGINE....Hoooraaahh....as several days had been spent in Salcombe trying to get the engine to work! New injectors had been flown in from Belgium. Thanks must also go to HM Border Agency who provided engineers and a tow to even get into Salcombe. All that tax.....finally got something back!!
June 9th - Crew changeover day. Goodbye and thank you to Cindy and Paul Ross....Hello and welcome to Helen, Abi, Jane, Amanda and Mervyn.

June 10th - We enjoyed an extremely scenic walk through historic mills in the peaceful hills above Bayona, followed by a delicious and capacious Galician lunch, so many courses, we weren't sure how to get out of our slightly dodgy chairs afterwards.Then on to the Terras Gauda vineyard for some fun and crashes in the bottling plant, we felt completely corked and labelled.

June 11th - Sailed down to Pavoa da Varzim. Rather swelly, smelly and foggy. One or two casualties to sea sickness.....one who thought it was a good idea to eat cold chilli for breakfast beforehand....still, better out than in. Came 3rd, not bad after several occurences of total electrical failure enroute. All relieved to get there in the end and somehow everyone found some remaining energy to drink a reasonable quantity of wine and beer.

June 12th - Enjoyed a quiet day in Pavoa, doing a few jobs on the boat, finally enjoying some sunshine.....even the locals thought that the overdue summer had finally arrived. We particularly enjoyed sampling the traditional pastis de Nata (custard tarts). The evening dinner was hosted by the local yacht club and Simon had the honour of receiving the illustrious prize for best estimate of elapsed time for Casamara.
June 13th - A short 2 hour sail down to the brand new marina up the Douro river at Porto. It was so new that the showers were opening that very morning for the first time and not everything was quite in place.....like the signage....which resulted in a few interesting situations as men arrived in the women's showers and vice versa. How much of this was by accident we'll never know..... An interesting new import from Thailand to Porto is a number electrically powered Tuk Tuk's, which we were fortunate enough to utilise as our transport to Graham's Port Lodge. What a great place. The staff were very proud to show the recently refurbished buildings and amazing array of fermenting barrels. The aroma in the cellars was quite intoxicating.....we didn't want to leave. We learned a lot about Ruby, Tawny and Vintage port, as well as viewing the vintage bottles in the caves and tasting a few glasses of the product. Dinner at the Lodge was very special, we couldn't believe that cabbage soup could be so good, succulent beef cheeks and Portuguese Creme Brulee.

June 14th - The guided walking tour around Porto, taking in the church of St Francis of Assisi which had 100kg of gold leaf deployed, the stock exchange palace with it's dazzling Arabian Hall, the train station with thousands of blue and white tiles depicting important scenes of local history and finally reaching the cathedral at the top of the town. What a great way to get a potted history of Portugal. The afternoon was rounded off by a dare-devil Tuk Tuk ride around the narrow streets of the old town, taking in the amazing views down the Douro River. And finally....to the ancient Gothic book shop with it's high ceilings and swirling staircases that inspired J.K. Rowling in her description of Harry Potter's Hogwarts.

After a local dinner of roast dried codfish and octopus, it was back to Casamara for an impromptu cabaret from Trevor (Serendipity) who managed to slip his 6 foot frame into a small size monkey suit 'Onesey'......it's amazing what can be achieved after a bottle of 30 year old tawny port!


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