Divalee - Still in the fog between Porto and Cascais

After a week spent fighting to leave the Channel from St Malo, then a new fight to get out of Biscay where we were pushed sailing to Santander on the following 2 days by up to 3m swell coming from the west and a ssO F5 wind, then another struggle to get Cabo Finistere passed with winds still coming from the west; we must admit that the main part of the navigation from the 30th of july will has been right in front of the winds using the engine, except the 48h past le Raz de Sein when it was impressive to look at our 43ft running under the full moon at 50° from the wind with the minimum sails surface in a swell up to 3m... to the very southern east part of Biscay :/

Main consequencies were that, out of 5 people on board last week, we ended today at 2 people at the leaving of Porto, to end up our trip to Las Palmas. The crossing from Lisboa wont be as tiring as the last day we spent having to cope with the fog. So... Fog has been present for the last 2 days, which gave us some sensations arriving in Porto harbour with no visibility at all ( the pier appeared in a halo when we landed 30m in its south.... damn this harbour is... huge) 

Radar and Marpa are definitely the best way to sort it out as we cannot see a proper thing at more than 50m tonight. We thought the weather would improve in the south of Porto but, as we are now in Lazare area, it is still foggy there... anyway.

Some good news though : no rush to get to Las Palmas means a possible halt at Funchal ; a consomtion of merely 3 l / h at 7nm with our 75hp means that, with the 290 liters of gasoline we have on board, we have an autonomy of more than 90h in smooth conditions.

We're now expecting the winds in Lisboa to make this fog disappear, as we will be leaving directly to Funchal of Las Palmas tomorrow, after a short fill up with gasoline... again....

Nice evening in Cascais yesterday, as we arrived supported by a thermal breeze of 25/30 knots. The fog permitted to start discovering coast details from the Berlenga Islands, as the sea temperature reached the 20s by the middle of the day.

As we're watching the sky this morning, we're realizing why few boats leave the marina by the end of the afternoon, rather than reach the marina or stay on their mooring : use the thermal for the beginning of their trip to the south west.

Anyway, the evening in Cascais was great, and we feel enough rested to leave the marina this morning. Direction... Las Palmas of Funchal, we'll see depending from the winds. We made a new discovering yesterday evening after having filled up the gasoline tank : 24h of engine, 7.25nm an hour, 2.06 liters an hour with our 75hp............ this engine is less and less consuming every day :/ Strange....