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People coming and going

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Me with Jill & Chris Mounsey on  Pale Moon A couple of days ago, a boat came into the marina bearing the OCC Flying Fish burgee. Naturally we had to make contact. After all, I'm Rear Commodore of OCC and Alex is Rear Commodore for Ireland. We were the welcoming committee.

Climate Control in Belem

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The marina in Belem and the monument to the navigators It’s been cool and breezy in the teen degrees centigrade until yesterday morning. We noticed the difference first thing on the way to the showers. We didn’t need a fleece. We had decided to visit Belem, a cultural suburb of Lisbon, and it was a Monday (fare €5 round trip just like to Lisboa). By the time we reached the train station in Cascais, it was 29C. By the time we reached Belem, the outside temperature reported by the train display was 36C. It was going to be a scorcher. Out of nowhere. No way to adjust. Just had to deal with it.

A few notes on the Marina Cascais

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The outer marina pontoons for the local fleet - citadel walls on the left  When we first arrived, the marinieros and the women in the office could not have been nicer. They have remained so throughout our stay. Even when we complained daily about no internet access, they remained nice. The IT guy kept telling them he could see us logged onto the internet so everything was fine, but he never left his office to come down to where we were to see that with six internet stations distributing signal, we could not even see one - not on our laptops or our smart phones from below or on the docks. I had to go to the office with my laptop to sit on the couch to get some banking and work done. That's not acceptable in a high end marina today.

Cascais' beaches

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Praia Conceicao, with the marina in the distance To work in Cascais, one must know at least four languages, and one must be able to guess the language of the person one is addressing. The receptionist at the marina tried three languages before she hit on me speaking English. It's fascinating to hear all the languages around us. Portuguese of course, but much English, French, Spanish, Italian, and German. It is a resort town and the beaches are crowded, even though it's just barely in season.

A visit to beautiful Sintra

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The Palatio National da Sintra seen from the park side We rented a car for the day and invited our friend Scott, a Californian who bought a catamaran in Connecticut and sailed it to Cascais via the Azores with a professional skipper, to join us for a day trip to Sintra. The forecast was for beautiful weather - moderate winds and a few high level clouds. It's only 30 minutes' drive to Sintra but taking a bus would have taken more than an hour. So we thought we'd make a day trip out of it. We weren't sure what to expect, but Noelia at MRCYB has recommended it as a must do in Portugal.

Work, work, work

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Thursday 14 th June We’ve spent the past few days working like dogs. Alex pulling wires through masts and in the boat, replacing and repairing various mast components, and generally making a mess of our abode.

Day of rest

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Sunday - 10 th  June I could use some fresh zumo full of vitamins. Their blender is powered by a bicycle.  The day started out nice, with warm sun and French toast. Alex saw our neighbour Scott on the blue catamaran first thing and invited him to join us on an excursion to Sintra, which he accepted. So that’s our next port of call.

Surprise at every turn in Lisbon

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Sat 9 th of June Beautiful day on the riverfront in Lisbon.   We decided to catch the train to Lisbon. We loved it the last time we were there in 2009. It couldn’t be easier to get there from Cascais: €5 each round trip for a 45 minute ride. Not bad, along the coast, viewing the beaches and coast walkway. There is a lot of graffiti and it appeared that some of the neighbourhoods along the route are a bit rough. A coastal clean-up is in order.

Bicycle ride to coastal delights

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Friday – June 8 th Fortaleza de Jorge Alex had bought a new mast light and new wiring and we needed a new windex. He was moving the AIS antenna to the mizzen mast because the signal it pings was interfering with our VHF radio. We kept getting a sound like a mic PTT being pushed incessantly. Very annoying. Plus, he would connect the spare VHF to that antenna; if we had trouble with the main VHF, we could have a second VHF via the antenna on the mizzen as backup.  

Bad day in paradise

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  Thursday – 7 th June The head is not supposed to be on deck. As we headed to bed the previous night, I heard, “Oh no”, shouted from the head. That’s always a bad sign. Our main toilet had jammed and would not flush. Lucky for us, we have a second head on board.

Settling in in Cascais marina

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Today is Sunday and I can't believe it's been a week already since we arrived in Cascais. Where to begin? There has been no internet in the marina so writing blog posts has been a challenge. I've also been too busy to actually sit down and write.  

Passage to Cascais, Portugal

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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.

Hopping down the coast - First stop Leixos

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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.

Movie set

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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.

Dolphins in the marina

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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.

Friends in the right places

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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

Life underway

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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.

Sargassum warnings

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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.

Down to the wire

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Vineyard looking good. Well, we had some work done on Aleria in Vigo over the winter.  Now we are in the final throes of getting ready to sail the next leg of our slow circumnavigation of the Mediterranean Sea. It's a sea, not an ocean. I've never known the difference, until now. My sense is that a sea has places to stop all along, whereas an ocean requires a crossing -- but who knows. Like the Caribbean Sea, you can sail from island to island to get across it.

New movie - Adrift

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Stranded and fighting for survival, Shailene Woodley and Sam Claflin star in #AdriftMovie , in cinemas June 28. Watch the official trailer here.  As the two avid sailors set out on a journey across the ocean, Tami Oldham and Richard Sharp couldn't anticipate they would be sailing directly into one of the most catastrophic hurricanes in recorded history. In the aftermath of the storm, Tami awakens to find Richard badly injured and their boat in ruins. With no hope for rescue, Tami must find the strength and determination to save herself and the man she loves.