Cascais

Day 1
Firstly, sorry for the delay in posting as I have not had any time or Internet access while in Cascais. Anyway, as I posted via twitter there was a sudden change of plan and we sailed overnight from Nazare to Cascais.

All went very well and it was a good sail. I made the effort to cook a hot meal enroute and also get a few hours sleep (in 15 minute intervals). Minimal engine was used for the departure and I sailed all the way into the anchorage at Cascais (escorted by dolphins) despite having only 4-5 knots of wind on occasion. Obviously the engine was run to lay the anchor, which was dug in and secure by 0700 utc.

It seems that Marcus has laid down the gauntlet and every effort is now made to do everything under sail. Unfortunately my windlass is wired to ensure that my engine is running before it works or at least the ignition which means a high pitched warning noise. It seems sacrilegious to start the engine just to use the windlass, but I am certainly too lazy to do it by hand – ‘a la Bruce’.

After a few hours sleep I made my way over to Niels boat to find Marcus and a few new Swedes who I had never met before, one being Daniel of Luna – another newbie to sailing who has simply set off and learning as he goes.

A bbq on the beach was planned but got cancelled due to everyone running late and it getting cold. Instead we had potato salad (made by Marcus) and sausages washed down with beer on Niels boat.

I met Dave in the marina who finally arrived from the UK and he joined us on Niels boat for a few beers. For a while he looked a little bewildered sitting there listening to a bunch of scruffy Sea Pikeys discussing heavy weather tactics. All was well after a few beers…

Day 2
The next morning we awoke to do some fishing and snorkelling. Doris is clean underneath with just a minimal coating of ‘slime’. The anodes are all fine probably due to my lack of time in marinas! Unfortunately - No fish were caught or injured during the activities described above.

I also climbed the mast to fit the LED anchor and tricolour lights. With LED lighting inside and out my power usage should halve! If I could only find a power free (and convenient) way to keep beer cold!

That evening we (Niels of Kairos, Bruce of Ejay, Laurie + wife of Aliisa, Marcus of Veracity, Daniel of Luna – the Swede who was on Niels boat earlier, myself, Dave and some hippy dude all landed on the beach for a bbq. Once again guitars and badly sung songs kept us entertained until late.

The final entertainment was a dog called ‘Brian’ who chased a bird up and down the full length of the beach about five times! The bird was actually ‘taking the piss’ out of the dog – hilarious!

Day 3
Not much to report. We awoke and went into town to have a close look at a laptop I am considering buying, I think it’s called an EEpc by Asus. Very small and light with a solid state hard drive, perfect for taking ashore. My laptop (a Dell) is huge in comparison and it would also be sensible to have a back up computer. In conclusion it will be a nightmare buying the laptop from Portugal as Windows XP (and the installed software) will also be in Portuguese and I cannot see an easy way to reinstall.

The highlight of the day was rescuing Bruce who’s anchor had pulled (again) with him resting almost alongside Kairos. We (Dave & I) got his anchor up and took him over to the marina to temporarily use the fuel pontoon while we purchased, picked up and installed 30m of 8mm chain. Until now he has been using 10m of chain with about 30m of warp and his anchor has pulled and dragged about four times! Also he has been using a CQR (20lb) with his chain and warp, but is now trying a Bruce anchor (10kg) with the new chain. Lets see if he still drags, if he does I need to think about my ground tackle as Ejay is smaller (less windage) and lighter than Doris with almost the same set up (30m x 8mm with a 10kg Lewmar Delta).

Dave, Bruce and I finished the day on the beach with the bbq.