Csárdás

Update since arriving in Vilamoura. Jonni & Rupes arrived that evening and after dinner on board we found a bar to watch England be defeated by Portugal. The Portuguese, understandably, went mad and partied all night long.

On Friday we decided just to make a day-sail back West along the coast to the cliffs and caves Ange and I had passed and admired the day before. After a brisk sail upwind (some wind, and an upwind sail for a change) we found a lovely sheltered cove to anchor in. At this stage, apart from the electronic chart plotter and pilot book, I still had no large scale chart of the area (the chandlery by the reception pontoon in Vilamoura had no charts) so we gingerly nosed into this cove surrounded by rocks. After anchoring Rupert dived overboard with a mask and snorkel and swam around the boat to confirm that the area was clear.

While having lunch I spotted a familiar looking boat motoring close inshore in an Easterly direction. After peering through the binoculars I confirmed that it was Pampero of Down, a Rally Portugal yacht. I called them on channel 16 and they came over and rafted up. We all had a swim and a few beers.

As we weighed anchor, when the anchor had just broken clear of the water, all the electrics on the boat died. The windlass had jammed and caused the fuse to blow. Being so close to the rocks there wasn’t much we could do until we had some sea room. We motored away from land, managed to safely stow the anchor by hand, and then cut the engine and switched off the batteries. Having no spare fuses quite like the 63 amp one that blew I had to bypass the fuse to get the electrics working. I felt this would be safe as long as we didn’t use the windlass until a replacement fuse could be found.

None of the chandleries in Vilamoura had fuses like the one that blew, or indeed any of that rating. Neither did they have ordinary fuse wire that would have sufficed. They did have a large scale chart of the area though!

The following day Angie was due to fly home from Faro. We checked out the beach at Vilamoua in the morning. This beach was one of the first in Europe to earn the ISO standard for environmental cleanliness and safety etc, and it is certainly an impressive beach. After lunch and cervejas at a beach bar we went back to the boat so that Angela could pack. I phoned Mimi who was due to fly out on Monday to ask her to bring some heavy duty fuse wire.

Carrie and Wayne from Casbar made a surprise visit on their way in a hire car to Faro to pick Carrie’s parents up from the airport. Handily they were able to take Ange to the airport. It was sad to say Goodbye and seemed odd that she would not be on board after we had spent the last month and a half on board together.

On our way out for the evening I noticed Barracuda III on our pontoon so we went on board for a beer.

On Sunday we decided we needed to find a way to get the fuse to work so that we could make the short trip to Isla Culatra and anchor. Otherwise, since my windlass currently has no manual method we would have to either haul the anchor hand over hand - potentially very hard work - or we would have to stay in Vilamoura or go to another place with a marina. No one wanted to stay in touristy Vilamoura and the trip to the next marina was rather a long way just for one night (Mimi & Jo were flying to Faro the following day). We considered soldering the fuse back together but had no soldering iron or solder. The chandlery was closed and Barracuda was out of solder. Having decided to go ahead to Culatra and anchor manually I bumped into Seraph on the way to the supermarket. They had solder and an iron! Jonni broke open the fuse and soldered it together.

Barracuda was heading the same way as us and left as we were testing the fixed fuse. We left shortly after and met up with them on route. With very little wind we were both trolling for mackeral at slow speed and we soon had 11 good sized fish. Barracuda reported having 6 on the radio so we agreed to get together that evening and eat our catch.

Before joining Barracuda we popped ashore in the dinghy and had a walk through the fascinating habitation of Culatra and across the sand to the lagoon full of beached catamarans.

On Monday morning we weighed anchor, blowing the fuse where it had been soldered - so much for that idea - and motored quickly back to Vilamoura to pick up Mimi & Jo. The evening was spent watching Tim Henman beat Philipoussis while drinking more cerveja followed by a superb meal at one of the good fish restaurants in the marina.

This morning (29th June) after a fried breakfast we said goodbye to Jonni & Rupert who were driving to Madrid. After stocking up on provisions at the supermarket and then some basic instruction for Mimi & Jo on how to moor the boat we set sail for Isla Culatra again. For a while we actually had some nice wind and a good sail, but the wind soon dropped to almost nothing and we had to motor. We caught some more mackeral on the way and once anchored up off Culatra, and after a quick swim to cool off, we prepared our catch and made some pimms and chilled out for the evening.

Wow, what a night. A great end of rally party in Lagos with some past participants and lots of great memories. After the organised party many moved on to Moonshadow Star. A few of us - Csardas, Casbar, the “Baracuda Babes”, Sue (Rally Control) and Toby (Yachting Monthly) then hit the town. We found a great bar and were soon on the Tequilas. Someone discovered some 5 foot straws which were great for drinking out of other’s glasses without them noticing (ok, maybe they did, but it was fun). We ended up at a club, danced the night away, and returned to the boats about 6.30am as the sun was coming up.

The next day was spent with sore heads and saying fond farewells to the rally team. Apart from a full English breakfast, and a quick trip into town, we did almost nothing all day, and were in bed by 11pm without touching a drop of alcohol. Hard to believe it is all over. What a great bunch of people.

Angie and I left Lagos this morning and sailed a little further East to Vilamoura. It was sad to wave good bye to the rest of the fleet and we got a lovely send off from Moonshadow Star who hooted their fog horn. Not fans of long goodbyes we left without lingering, so apologies to those we didn’t say goodbye to personally. We met some wonderful people on the rally and made some great new friends and we will be keeping in touch for sure.

Many boats are continuing East and I will be in or around Vilamoura for the next 10 days, so I won’t be surprised if I bump into other rally boats.

When we got to 2 miles from Vilamoura’s western breakwater we felt the urge to call Rally Control on channel 77, until we remembered they wouldn’t be there. It’s hard to break a habit. We did, however, hoist the Rally Portugal flag. If you see it, come and say hello.

When we left Lagos, Derek, from Barracuda, shouted “Don’t try too hard, Marcus”. However, for once, we left the Spinnaker in it’s bag and for the first time in ages I actually read a couple of chapters of my book. I think I might enjoy not having another boat to race against … for a while …

The crew got to bed late Sunday night after frantically tidying up after the very successful barbecue held for the rest of the rally on Csardas and Swagman, and watching Portugal beat Spain in the football up at the castle.

Catherine and Simon had to leave during the barbecue to get to Lisbon for the flight home early the next morning. So it was to be just the two of us on the last leg to Lagos until we discovered Toby from Yachting Monthly was looking for a boat to sail on and duly invited him to sail with us.

No wind at 6am as we were preparing to leave. Andrew from Rally Control told us they had abandoned the start as the wind forecast was light but told us to record hours sailed and motored. So we motored out of the harbour at 0626. The forecast received on the Navtex for the area was for light SW in the NW part of the area and NW winds elsewhere.

By 0700 there was a sniff of wind, from the SE, and by 0715 we had the sails out, switched off the engine and were sailing at 40 degrees to the wind heading in a south westerly direction at almost 5 knots. A few hours later we caught our first three mackeral.

By midday the wind had died a bit and our speed dropped to around 3 knots. I noticed that the sea temperature according to the log was 19 degrees centigrade. We couldn’t resist the temptation for a swim so we attached a long line to a fender and streamed it out aft. We all had a go being pulled along at 3 knots and took the opportunity to use a mask and snorkel to inspect the bottom of the boat.

Shortly after swimming Toby said he had seen a shark. We didn’t believe him at first but later we all saw a dorsel fin and tail fin breaking the surface of the water and we were all convinced.

By 1300 the wind had veered to just west of south, and had been veering slowly all morning. So we took the decision now to tack back in. With luck the wind would continue to veer and we would make Cape Vincent on the one tack. Sure enough an hour later we were able to hold 170 degrees, straight for the cape. Later in the afternoon we spotted a school of dolphins a few boat lengths away giving a spectacular display. We tried to attract them by whistling and making silly noises but they didn’t come much closer. Toby thought they were busy rounding up fish. Either that or our noises were scaring them. But, later on we noticed one solitary dolphin playing on our bow wave. We considered it quite unusual to see just one dolphin on its own but we enjoyed watching him play.

At 1710 as we approached the cape the wind had died. I suspected it was about to do something else and that the wind could be coming from a different direction past the headland. So we put the engine on and motor sailed for a bit. As we rounded the cape we followed tradition by dipping the ensign, and embelished slightly by enjoying some port and cheese and made a toast to Cape Vincent with a glass of port. We were rewarded with another three mackeral.

Changing course round the cape put the wind behind us so we switched off the engine and hoisted the spinnaker at 1920. The wind continued to veer until it was coming from the NW as forecast and we ended up with an exciting spinnaker reach. I managed the best speed reading with 9.7 knots, beating Toby’s score by only 0.1 of a knot.

Approaching Lagos with the sun setting we got out the pilot book and discovered the bridge which we had to get under to get into the marina closes for the night at 10pm. We decided we’d better get a move on. About this time we heard a call from Rally Control for us on the radio. With most boats choosing to motor, we were clearly the last boat to get in and Rally Portugal were beginning to wonder where we were. I told them that we had been having a great day and were enjoying the sailing and would be with them in around an hour. We made it to the bridge with 15 minutes to spare and were greeted by a slightly worried looking Andrew. We were given the good news that England had beaten Croatia 4-2.

After mooring up in the marina and a quick tidy up, the three of us sat down to eat our mackeral which Toby had prepared with broccoli and dauphinoise potatoes that Angie had prepared and put in the oven as we were motoring down the river.

That was an exciting sail. The wind continued to build and with gusts of thirty knots we began to wonder whether it was still a good idea to be flying this 102 square metre kite. But the boat was balanced and the helm light and we were going like a train, reaching 10.5 knots at times. And we don’t have a smaller spinnaker. With about 20 miles to go we caught up with Mistral, in division A, and the only boats in front of us were Moonshadow Star, the Farr 56, about 4 miles ahead and then Swagman, the Grand Soleil 42 about 2 miles in front, both also in div A. Looking back we could see no other div B boats. Our lead must have been at least 4 miles. Mistral got back in front of us closer to the line.

About one mile from the line a large gust hit us and we broached. The boat spun to about 60 degrees to the wind with the leeward rail awash and the kite blowing astern, straining at the sheets. With the helm hard over she wouldn’t budge. No chance of snuffing the kite, so we quickly dumped the spin halyard, eased the guy and hauled in the sheet to bring the spinnaker into the cockpit under the main. Amazingly it didn’t get too wet. With just the main we went across the line at 7 knots at 16:58, just 7 hours after the start, giving us a VMG of a fraction under 8 knots.

We learned later that Swagman broached at exactly the same time. We had missed it due to our own misfortune and frantic scurrying around but Mistral, sandwiched between us, got to watch both of us. Sue, on Swagman, was heard to suggest to John a caravanning holiday next year instead!

We’re currently half way to Sines, Spinnaker doing its thing, with swagman in our sights as usual. We know they’re worried about our rapid approach! Got off to a slowish start but managed to catch up with our class B rivals Jezabel & Izabel. Isabel put up a fight trying to take our wind…to no avail. Jezabel had an unlucky wrap which (dare I be so callous to say) cleared the way for us to bomb on through. Vindomar may be ahead of us yet, although we r dubious he actually started with the rest of us.

All this ridiculous competitiveness is going to mean no fish supper tonight as I’d get a rollacking if I so much as attempted to slow us up by trolling! It doesn’t matter too much though as we are all still full from the fab spread that was laid on for us last night in Cascais.

Looking forward to Sines and the delights that will be on offer for us there.

Ang

Getting a bit lazy with the logs. Great day in Peniche on Tuesday. Joined a walking tour around peninsula. Walked for about 8km along the cliffs and through the town with an interesting, knowledgeable guide. Really enjoyable walk. Great views and good exercise! Ange and I had lunch at one the many seafood restaurants near the harbour and then did some shopping. At the prize giving that evening we were awarded 1st place in division B. Ended the evening on Barracuda III with a few G&Ts where our friend’s Catherine and Simon who had flown into Lisbon earlier managed to find us.

Race to Cascais abandoned due to no wind so we all set off when we were ready and motored nearly all the way to Cascais. Managed to catch 5 mackeral near the rocks - one had a sprat or sardine inside it! Wind picked up at the end and we had a nice sail into Cascais.

Borrowed Casbar’s barbecue for the mackerel - got a bit worried when the wind picked up from astern and cinders started flying everywhere. After dinner met up with a bunch of other rally participants in the Mexican bar in the restaurant.

Lazy day yesterday. Pumped up the dinghy, tried to fix Sue’s (Rally Portugal) laptop, discovered the locker containing the petrol can awash with petrol - leak in petrol can. Cleaned everything up and bought new petrol can. Hadn’t used engine since it was fixed after the con-rod broke when it took a swim, so was interested to see how it would start. No problem starting it. Problem was it started with full revs, the dinghy sat up on it’s stern, and I shot across the marina like there was no tomorrow and was very nearly tipped in the water. Tried again. Same thing. Bit scary, but some very amused faces on the pontoons. Throttle was clearly jammed in full on position. Took top off engine and had a look. Throttle cable was pulling throttle round but it was sticking when it was released. Probably due to the engine being immersed in salt water that time. Liberal amounts of WD40 eventually got it working again.

Mark and Wayne in Casbar had already left in their dinghy so we quickly loaded up with anchor, hand-held VHF, snorkels etc and motored out of the marina. Dropped Catherine and Simon off at the beach and met up with TT Casbar. We anchored off some rocks and had a swim. Later, Kate and Charlie on TT Barracuda came out and met us and we motored across the bay, anchored off a small beach and did some more snorkelling.

It was gone 4pm by the time we got back so we had a few beers on the boat, got showered and went up to the bar to watch the remainder of the England game. The bar was full of rally participants. We had a bit of Tapas, a few more beers and then went on board Secret Breeze for some drinks, and birthday cake for Mark from Casbar, before heading into town. Town was full of football fans - mostly English - and was a bit noisy. Police everywhere. Bit embarrassing really. We just wanted a quiet, traditional bar, but it all felt a bit English. The rest of the world must think us English are all stupid if we are to be represented by this lot of Neanderthals. Case in point - six football fans wearing England shirts, with England clearly emblazoned across their fronts and St George’s crosses round their waists stroll up to the girls and say “Hello ve are from Amshterdam”. Unimpressed faces on the girls who say “No you’re not you’re from England - it’s not that difficult to figure out”. “Oh, damn”, one says, “you’ve rumbled us”. “Well, how about it anyway?”, another says (I’m paraphrasing. The actual request was a little more direct and to the point). Morons. Clearly they were turned down. Later on as we were sitting quietly at a table drinking a beer a bunch of England football fans walk past and one announces to us, completely out the blue and unprompted, “I must have lost my appetite, I’ve only eaten two burgers today”. Stunned silence from all of us. Thanks for that riveting piece of information, now f*** off. Proud to be part of Rally Portugal. Not so proud to be associated with that lot of pillocks.

However, we ended up at an Irish bar with not too many English fans. A young Portuguese guy was playing loads of great songs on the guitar and the girls got into the swing of it and danced and sang along with him. He seemed to be enjoying it and asked us all to come back tonight. When the Irish bar closed we headed back to the marina and ended up in a Karaoke bar on the way back. It was fairly quiet to start off with and various people sang some songs, but after a while the place was swarming with football fans (all trying it on with the girls again!) so Ange and I left around 3am. The rest had difficulty getting back into the marina at 6am until they found a security guard to let them in. Woke up this morning to the sound of Sue and Andrew on the pontoon singing Happy Birthday to Mark who is leaving today.

Bit of recuperation required today!

Woke up to a strong Easterly wind funnelling down the river. This made leaving our berth in the tightly packed marina rather tricky and a combination of starboard prop-walk and a strong wind on the port bow caused us to brush (ok, prang) a stanchion against Mistral’s anchor. No harm done .. it sounded a lot worse than it was. And could have been!

The strong wind made for an exciting start. With just two of us on board now we put in a reef and several rolls in tne genoa and held back from the start line. As we left the start line, and the river mouth, behind the wind began to ease and back and we soon shook out the reefs and started catching up with the leaders.

It wasn’t long before we had the spinnaker up with the wind back to the usual light northerly, and we began to overtake the front of the fleet. We even got past Swagman, tha A division favourite, for a while.

Running down-wind always puts you in a warmer climate than those going the other way but today was tropical and it was perfect for soaking up the sun

as we tramped along at 7-8 knots under spinnaker. Wonderful.

When the wind backed we managed a perfect spinnaker gybe to make up for the mess we made on the last leg. As Isla Bherlinga came into view we ove rtook Isabel in our class and slowly closed the gap between us and the div A boats ahead. Abreast of the cape we snuffed the spinnaker, hardened up and unfurled the genoa and made East towards the finish line. As far as I am aware we were first div B boat across the line again. We will find out corrected positions at the prize giving tomorrow.

Great sailing yesterday with quite a tussle on the start line. With only three or four knots of wind on the start most of the boats were huddled together with their spinnakers poised and little steerage way. Just before the start gun we hoisted our spinnaker and started to make way through the fleet. We came up close behind Mistral and managed to take their wind on the windward side. They then did the same to us and we changed positions two or three times. As the fleet split up we managed to get some clear air but for a bit of fun we decided to go onto a reach and head out to Jezabel. On a reach we had sufficient speed to get right up behind them. I knew that with their asymetric reaching spinnaker they could luff us up but it was worth seeing if we could get past them. Sure enough as we got right up behind them they luffed and we quickly bore away. Both boats lost speed but we soon got the spinnaker settled down and set the boat on a course with the wind just over the starboard quarter.

The boat to worry about was Trillium Wind. This Confortina 42 has been given the same handicap as us and certainly down wind there is nothing in it. We remained together for the whole 70 mile leg, occasionally in front, occasionally just behind, but never more than 50 meters between us. Desperately wanting to break away I disengaged the autohelm approaching Cabo Mondego and did it properly, allowing me to keep the spinnaker balanced better. It worked and we slowly edged ahead. However, it was soon to go very wrong.

Abeam of Cabo Mondego I decided we should gybe and head in close, cutting the corner off. With one crew member down after Stuey’s departure, and stupidly not taking the easy option of snuffing the spinnaker first, we struggled and ended up with a nasty wrap. Four or five turns round the forestay. After much rushing around, spinning the boat, shouting and screaming at the crew, some suitably foul language and finally the threat of mutiny as the crew retaliated, we managed to drop the spinnaker. Around 30 minutes later we had the spinnaker back up on the opposite tack. During this time Trillium Wind had sped past us and to make matters worse they would have witnessed the entire debacle close up. We were about to throw in the towel.

But luck appeared to be on our side as we edged close in to the cape and round the corner - Trillium Wind had decided to take it wide. There was a chance to beat them still. As we approached the cape the wind picked up. It was being deflected by the land and funnelling round the corner. We had to weave our way through a mine field of crab pots but with 15 knots on the beam it didn’t take us long and we crossed the line just before Trillium Wind.

Well, we came third on the last leg. We thought we had finished seconds before Trillium Wind but the official results put them ahead of us. They came second with Isabel, a Halberg Rassey, sailing extremely well to come first.

We had an excellent reception at Porto Yacht Club on Wednesday night. Yesterday we were taken into Porto and visited the Ramirez port wine lodge where we tasted some lovely white and tawny ports. A few bottles were purchased before we headed into town.

Porto is very hilly with some characterful steep and narrow cobbled lanes. We walked down through these to the river where we sat in the sun and had a long enjoyable lunch that ended with cheese and port and then coffee.

Stuey was leaving for his flight from Faro and we were sad to see him go when we left him at the bus station. He was with us from Torquay and it now feels strange without him on the boat.

We are now sailing to Figuera da Foz. Spinnaker up as usual. I’m so glad I bought this spinnaker before this trip as we have needed it on every leg. We are currently fighting to stay ahead of Trillium Wind but it is going to be a close run thing.

Great start for us this morning. We hoisted the spinnaker as we went over the line and surged past most of the other boats to put us just behind the leader, Swagman, a Grand Soleil 42. The start line was a spectacular site with most of the boats choosing to fly their spinnakers and cruising chutes. For once the wind held and we were all able to sail this short leg without having to motor. We managed to maintain our position and finished second with Trillium Wind (Confortina 42) seconds behind us, followed shortly by Jezabel (J 42). However, it remains to be seen how the results appear once handicaps have been taken into account, especially as our handicap puts us at the top of division B and for some bizarre reason the J 42 has been placed behind us, giving them a huge advantage. We will find out shortly at the dinner and prize giving being held tonight by the Porto Yacht Club. Fingers crossed ….