Aleria's Adventures

Staysail is up. We're sailing along at about 8 knots.  We departed from Leixoes at a leisurely pace having calculated that it would take us about 27 hours or more to get there. So if we left at 9 am, we'd be arriving at about noon the next day, a Sunday. Perfect. Nothing much gets going in Portugal before 10 am especially on a Sunday. We would be spending about two weeks there getting our standing rigging replaced, a big job. A really big job. We'd be assigned a berth near the yard.

Leaving Baiona just after dawn in cold mist. We had accomplished all we'd set out to do in Spain for this year. We said our good byes to the Lagos family and to Oscar Calero and Noelia at the MRCYB, leaving them a copy of the Spanish-English boater's dictionary by our friend Kathy Parsons. Showers along the coast of Portugal.

Pyrotechnics simulate boat fire at the fuel dock. Glad we were not downwind. When we were in Vigo, we were treated to entertainment one day. The RCNV staged a fire aboard a boat at the fuel dock using pyrotechnics. The guys had to escape the fire as the fire brigade arrived to put it out, all while what appeared to be very amateur crew filmed the event. They had to stage several takes.

At the Monte Real Club de Yates in Bayona, the dolphins have learned that there are scores of mullet breeding and living in the marina waters. So the dolphins have been swimming into the marina and diving around the boats in their slips. We saw maybe five dolphins circling around. Smart little devils. BTW, that's the new passarelle Alex is building for the Med. It consists of a ladder, a sheet of plywood, and non-skid decking squares. It comes apart so we can use the ladder as a ladder. A creative way around something that can cost thousands.

Aleria heading out the Ria Vigo toward Baiona. Photo by Alberto Lagos.  Nice photo of Aleria by Alberto Lagos. After we got all the canvas in place, we took off from Vigo as the afternoon wind was filling in. We hoisted the sails and quickly realized the sheet had been incorrectly led from the staysail. First fix. We were lazy and decided to sail along slowly without the yankee as it was not very far from Vigo to Baiona. We dodged several ferries and a powerboat came straight at us. We soon realized it was Alberto coming out to take pictures of us sailing out. He took some great shots though we felt bad we hadn't raise the full complement of sails. When we arrived in Baiona, we were assigned a berth right next to the President's yacht about as close to the clubhouse as we could be. Easy to get in, too. Someone had made a welcome sign that was secured to the dock in our slip. Oscar Calero, the manager of the club, was there in a flash with a bottle of wine and gre

Adios Punta Lagoa. We packed up, put the house in order, got a friend to house sit, voted in the referendum, got a train to a Dublin, spent the night in a hotel watching the results come in full view of hideous posters while waiting to get up at the crack of dawn to get a Ryanair flight to Vigo.

Seaweed, Sargassum, sargasso, Heterokontophyta ... different names for the same thing - more than a nagging nuisance, a potentially serious health hazard. It has been clogging beaches in the Caribbean, causing distress to locals and loss of tourism. The boats in the Volvo Ocean Race struggled in the Sargasso Sea this year. VOR even compiled the best  video footage  of the sailors struggling to stay free of the weed.