Portugal ARC Leg 6 – Oeiras to Lagos
We spent our last morning in Oeiras designing and then painting our mural on the marina wall (big ambitions but like the
other boats who joined in we had to do what we could with the brushes and paint colours available). Great fun and the four of us all got involved, although we did need a long cold drink after as it’s hot in the sun. The ideal cooling off after lunch was a
dip in the sea off the rocks around the corner from the main marina. Enjoyed that although we decided to get out after some jellyfish appeared and some of the barnacles were quite sharp as Richard and Tony can now testify. It was quite windy in the marina
in the early evening as we found out when one of our large towels was taken by the wind and blown off into the water behind and proceeded to float away – Tony to the rescue by quickly unstrapping the kayak off the deck and hand paddling off before it sank!
No harm done aside from an unscheduled trip to the launderette.
We set off at 11am as planned – Skipper’s strategy was to sail through the night with the aim of arriving at Cape St Vincent
in the daylight early hours the next day. Again, we were doing our best with the sails we had to make the most of what wind there was – we looked on with envy as Kind of Blue cruised past with their Parasailer in full flight. They didn’t offer a tow😊
The sail down to Lagos for us went pretty much as we’d planned. In fact, early in the trip we were travelling too fast as we had good wind, so we altered our sails according. Around midnight the wind dropped and we had to turn the engine on for a short while
to keep going and charge the batteries, but overall sailed most of trip.
Sorry to hear A’ssifas’ encounter with Orcas and reminded us all that the risk before Cape St Vincent.
After successfully rounding Cape St Vincent, we were upset to hear the mayday call from sailing yacht
Elsa and listened in horror how they were under attack from Orcas and how they’d first lost their rudder and then their engine. They gave their position and Richard got straight on the skipper’s
WhatsApp to inform all those ARC boats that had spent the night in Sines as this is where the Orca activity was.
On rounding the Cape the wind picked up to 20 knots and we powered along, although this wasn’t sustained as the wind slowly
reduced. Just approaching Lagos we lost our wind again. We did debate if we should just hang around and drift in to match our smiley miley estimate arrival time but common sense prevailed and we motored in.
Tony’s wife Karen flew in to join us for the next few days. We had an enjoyable meal in a restaurant we had been recommended
in San Sebastion St. Some interesting translations – Richard and Tony had “Kid in red wine” which was young goat but very good.
So what a trip – great fun and thanks to Paul, Bev and Alvaro and all at ARC Portugal for their support. Obligado.