Portinho De Arrabida

Despite a few conversations the night before about our next intended anchorage being marked ‘anchoring prohibited’ in my charts (mine only), the fact that it is described and recommended in the pilot books we decided to visit a small anchorage just 7nm up the coast from Sesimbra called Portinho De Arrabida, which is described in the Imray pilot book as one of Portugal’s most beautiful anchorages. We raised anchor around 0830utc and began the lazy (head sail only) cruise around the coast.

The intended lazy sail soon became quite lively seeing winds to around 25+ knots with the wind right on our nose it was hard work beating using only the head sail.

The approach to the anchorage involved negotiating drying sand banks and shallows, so we timed our arrival for around high tide. Although slightly late (tide dropping), we had no problems with the lowest water being 1.7m under my keel and were soon anchored in around 3m of water in the most amazing anchorage yet.

Less than 10 minutes after being settled, a guy (who spoke English) came over in a RIB and confirmed that anchoring is not allowed and that we may be asked to leave if the police saw us.

With the tide dropping by the second we made the decision to leave immediately as it would not be possible to leave until the next high tide (12 hours) if we delayed. The sail back was very laid back with the wind now from astern. Dave and I poled out the full genoa and were romping back to Sesimbra. Approaching the final headland we had a few fun and games with flukey 180 degree wind shifts and minutes with no wind whatsoever followed by gusts of 20 knots, very strange and probably due to the surrounding hills and cliffs.

Back at anchor we went ashore to buy a few supplies and Dave and I spent another evening on the beach with the bbq. The whole town had shown up on the beach and they were bringing in several huge fishing nets, obviously some special occasion in the local calendar.

As soon as we got back aboard the wind really started to howl with Doris lurching back and forth against the anchor chain. From my berth up front the noise was horrendous and went up on deck several times throughout the night to check our position and back up the rope warp that takes the strain off of the windless. Come morning we were still in the same place and my faith in the anchor tackle is really starting to grow, lets hope I haven’t just jinxed it!