Baleeira

We had a nice sail today around Cape St Vincente, or cabo soa vicente as the Portuguese call it. Its on the South West tip of Portugal so it has a reputation for strong winds coming out of nowhere and the waves from the west Atlantic meeting the swell from the South creating confused seas. With this in mind we set off from Sines early as its a 65M sail to baleeira, the first safe harbour on the South Coast.

As it happened we motored for a few hours, Jan had a nap and I called Pete, Gary and Dad in Australia to say hello. The wind came up enough to sail a few hours later and Jen, Balrog and I had a great sail and fish. I caught a nice mackeral but he managed to escape as I was pulling him on board!We sailed around the cape in sunshine and 15k winds from 180 degrees in very calm seas. The wind picked up to 25+ just around the cape and we learned from past experiences to take the gennaker down before it gets to 20 knots, so all went well. We sailed fast into Baleeira at 8 knots with gusts of 30 knots and anchored off the beach. Nice and protected. The anchor didnt hold the first run as its pretty rocky there but second time it pulled nicely into the sand.Had a nice night on board and dinghied into the jetty to explore the town the next day. The weather has finally gotten consistantly warm and today is no exception. We walked around the town, checked the surf and ate in a nice cafe. We tasted sardines for the first time and they were pretty good! I guess we will be having more..