Blog 9
Porto was VERY hot. Our tuk tuk tour was fun with great views of the Douro river from all angles and sides.
Churchills Port Wine Lodge is rather modern 1984 ? but fun tasting their three varieties and learning about the process.
Then a good sail down to Figueira da Foz with a long visit from bottle nose dolphins, who stayed at the bow, entertaining us for ages. (Sorry skipper, couldn't change sails whilst trying to take photos)! A sardine bbq finished off a great day in the sun.
Following day we took a bus to Coimbra to visit Portugals and one of the worlds oldest universities and explore the narrow streets.
That evening we joined two other boats for a meal out whilst a fiesta and parade were going on around us, but the difficulty of finding a table for 9 of us or a waiter willing to move tables is unimaginable but we eventually found a really willing waitress and we had a great is somewhat unexpected meal. We ended up with a starter of sardines marinated in onions (delicious); olives and a special fiesta treat of a whole sardine baked into bread - novel but a bit odd. Main course was a filleted sardine, butterflied and pan cooked in butter - delicious. Due to dietary restrictions and confusion when ordering, Simon ended up with sardines for starter, main and dessert and felt compelled to eat them all as the waitress had been so accommodating. So a very healthy if slightly over fishy stop in Figueira da Foz! It finished with a spectacular and noisy firework display over the rally boats as the fiesta closed.
Saturday saw another 55 nm sail to Peniche when we managed to fly the spinnaker for the majority of the trip, which kept Paul happy. Dinner was in a seafood restaurant but nearly everyone had had their fill of sardines - the squid was very popularÂ…Â…
Sunday 25th we headed to Oeiras in the company of Common dolphins for about an hour. The spinnaker went up and down four times and every other combination of sail was tried out to maximise the 5-22 knots range of wind over the nine hour sail.
As we approach Oeiras we are having some fantastic sailing but its raining...ho hum...thats sailing!!
P , D , Z & S