Povoa de Vazim to Figueria da Foz

We left Povoa at 8am to make our way to Figueria da Foz a distance of around 78 miles. it was a strange sail that took around 11 hours. We sailed with the spinnaker up, spinnaker down,spinnaker up spinnaker down.Genoa poled out, goose winged, then … We changed the sail configuration many times and at times even used the engine. At one point we were flying along and going really nicely but to our right in the west… we could see a dirty great cloud. Would we be in front of it, will it bring strong winds etc?

We we on a loser what ever we did -take it down and the winds will not increase or leave it up and get caught in a squall. We took it down and whilst the winds did rise to 20knts it didn't last long and in hind dight we could have left it up.

As we arrived sans bow thruster, on the dock were our friends and new crew Ian and Gwyn - hooray!

The next day a coach was provided and we went to Coimbra where we visited a university and then went to lunch. We were very lucky as we found a lovely restaurant where we were joined by the the crew of Bolero which was great.

After lunch we were then taken to a castle where English Heritage would have had a heart attack. We were able to walk along the battlements with a sheer drop on one side.