Helene and Tom flew from Edinburgh to Faro, airport transfer minibus to Hotel EVA
for 3 days or so of luxury. Nice hotel, nice pool centrally placed. Faro is interesting, old town, cathedral on the flight path to Faro's very busy Airport tho'
Saturday July 29th
Bob arrived bearing Richard, Margaret, Wills and Amy and Maureen. We sat by the pool in the hotel, while the girls waited on the train to Lisbon
and Wills and Amy waited until it was time to fly back to London. Then Richard and Tom took the dinghy out to Bob.
Sunday 30th July
We sailed then to Lagos and anchored just off the beach for the night. A quick trip into town to get some supplies, a re-fuelling and off back out into a Northerly breeze and rounding the point
this was right on the nose. So a lot of tacking or when the wind dropped motoring an over night trip on 2 hour watches. Tom was sick to start with
but that passed. Made it into Cascais at 2am. Where we were greeted by a nice young man who took our ropes and did some admin, before escorting us to our berth on the pontoon.
Wednesday 2nd August
A day's footering about, a new solar power controller, a battery box spacer and a temporary outboard fixture were among the tasks undertaken.
Thursday 3rd August
The women joined us. Margaret, Helene and Richard's sister Sarah. The wind is strong and still Northerly so holiday mode was engaged.
Eating out, sight seeing around Cascais. Met some real sailors heading for New Zealand via the Atlantic and Panama canal!! A trip on a bus to Sintra.
Cycle hire puting Mags and Helene on electric bikes.
Weekend 5th or 6th
I forget the date exactly! We made an exporatory excursion on Bob to see what the sailing was like. Maybe head for Peniche. However, fog, heavy northerlies (35kn)
and a tender crew mitigated against us. So after 4 hours we turned round and headed back to Cascais. The foresail ripped. So not so good really although the
sailing was good at times, just the direction was all wrong.
Monday 7th August
Back in Cascais. There is a sail repair place available, its easier to get to Porto by train from Lisbon. Tom has a plane to catch.
Tuesday 8th August
So a 9am start walked to the station in Cascais. Tom and Sarah took the train up to Lisbon, metro across town to another station, then
train to Porto. Metro to the airport. Sounds easy when put that way. However the train/metro system while efficient is designed for commuters and folk that know where they are going
and not for glaikit tourists with no Portuguese!! Home in Edinburgh at 11:30pm a long way in a long day.
