Lisbon - Cabo de Sines (Pronounced Sinesh)

The journey from Lisborn to Sines was a devil! Everyone wanted to sail it, but was we left Oerias the wind was a little too far "on the nose" and we had to bear away into the bay. In many ways it was a good "race" - the problem really was trying to get around that headland Baxia do Cabo. It was a challenge because the way the winds went around the headland made for some interesting decisions. I elected to hang on and sail as close to it as possible before tacking whilst other boats tacked early hoping to get favourable winds to carry them around. My tactics were the correct ones as those that tacked early had to tack out to sea so far before changing tacks and then found that they could not make the headland. About two thirds of the fleet gave up and put on their engine…we didn't and we got around the headland in two tacks.

Once past the headland we were able to change our direction just enough to deploy the PINK sail and skip along quite nicely. We were slowly catching some of the boats that had earlier motored past and were now sailing and Kite Runner took some video of us and some nice photos with the kite up. When Nick sends me the video I will post it here.

As we caught Via Mio a Sirius 35 sailing boat we could see a large Whale or Orca just in front of their boat. There were reports of Orca activity in the area so we were all on "Orca watch". Orcas have been attacking the rudders of sailing boats so a careful eye is needed and defence tactics deployed in the event of an encounter. I called them up to ask if they had seen it, they said that they hadn't and thanked me and they carried on… Then the creature was behind them, we meanwhile had dropped our spinnaker and turned ninety degrees and put our engine on to put some distance between ourselves and what were possibly Orcas. As it turned out it seem it was more likely to be a whale than an Orca as no attack occurred and it was a single creature.

Twenty minutes later the radio sparked into life and it was Katy Gary said "We are being circled by a pod of Orcas nothing has happened - oh they are coming for us now". Now just to put this into perspective Katy is a small old Westerly sailed with gusto by two large men Gary and Larry. Gary had ordered two large T-Shirts which the pair had been wearing with the photo of a killer whale on the front with the words "orca bait" written in large type beneath. The radio when quiet. If you encounter Orcas the advice is to drop all sails and to switch your engine and go into reverse. So we all knew that they had their hands full. It turns out that they were very lucky, they were only nudged by the pod who soon left the area going south… Unfortunately they were unable to get any photos or video footage as they had their hands full.

We continued to sail but there was an atmosphere of gloom in the boat as we had used our engines and ruined our attempt to sail it without the use of engine.

We arrived in Sines and parked the boat successfully without the use of the bow thruster but it was too late to go out to eat so we ate on board.

The next day we had to meet at the Castle for "Prize giving" a tour and a buffet. The castle amounted to not much more than four walls, it must rank as one of the least secure castles I have ever seen. In the corner was a small building which as been converted into a museum. The town Mayor's assistant made a short welcome speech and explained the museums in Portugal are closed on Monday but that they had opened it to today for us to have a private viewing. We all clapped…

When we got inside this none to impressive building we were blown away by what was on display. It turns on that this area has been occupied since neolithic times and later by the Romans. Some of the towns people had collected old pottery and in the early 20th century an eccentric collector moved to the town and started to persuade all the locals to let me have their old pots. He kept them all in a velvet lined trunk and even had to give one resident a drawing of the objects in exchange for the objects. These ancient objects are now on display in the museum along with lots of old coins some minted hundreds of years BC, I had no idea that such quality and skills existed at that time. Some were minted in gold and looked like they were minted yesterday.

The museum was the birth place of Vasco da Gama who was a Portuguese nobleman and seaman who discovered the route to Calcutta via the Cape of Good Hope giving the Portuguese a monopoly on spices for over twenty years. By all accounts he was brutal and not a very nice person.

The museum was the star of the village and it would have been so easy to pass it by. Anyone reading this who may be passing through - go to the museum.