After our orca incident in Vigo, we continued to Portugal. Some sailors use the strategy of sailing very close to the shore (on the 20 m depth line) and in case they see orcas they quickly go into shallower waters. We found out that this was the only method that was statistically proven to help in getting rid of the orcas. This method did not seem safe in Galicia in Spain as the coast was very jagged and rocky, but this changed in Portugal.
The west coast south of Porto is basically one long beach. Quite boring to sail along in comparison to Spain with its beautiful views of mountains, cliffs and nice lighthouses. We sadly did not get a spot in the marina in Porto, so we stopped for the night just before in Matosinhos. We phoned and wrote an email to the marina but did not get any reply. So we arrived when the office was already closed and had to leave again very early when the office was not yet open, so we left feeling a little guilty without paying. But what else should you do if you are completely ignored? In Peniche the harbour master doesn’t work on weekends, and we happened to arrive on Saturday and leave on Sunday, similar story there. We continued every day doing between 55-80 nm, which meant sailing from sunrise to sunset. Most of the marinas in Portugal are government-owned, so the staff is not very helpful and often does not pick up the phone or reply to emails.
In Figueira da Foz we managed to get a reply via email and we were able to book a berth and arrange for payment via a bank transaction as the office was closed when we arrived and we left again before it opened. We had to climb over the marina gate to get into the city as we did not have a key. We found a very nice Sushi restaurant for dinner, but unfortunately, they didn’t have any gluten-free soy sauce. I tried to run to the next store, an Aldi, which did not have any soy sauce at all. In a second shop, they did not have any gluten-free one and by that time the food was already on the table. So sadly no soy sauce for Jenny. Interestingly they made most of the Sushi with cream cheese, which was quite strange. After the first portion, we were still very hungry and ordered some more, this time without cream cheese, much better!
The nicest place on the coast we visited was Nazaré (just before Peniche). The harbour was privately owned by a guy who was really nice, responded to phone calls and emails and even came down to the dock when we arrived to help us with the lines and chat a little. On that day we wanted to go to Peniche but as we didn’t know whether we would find a place there and also were caught in a big raincloud with lots of wind we decided to cut the trip short and go to Nazaré. This part of the Portuguese coast together with Peniche is a surfer’s paradise. Nazaré is famous for its giant waves which can reach up to 24 m. This is because of an underground canyon which funnels the water from the Atlantic to the beach to make these giant waves. Luckily, we didn’t see any!
Finally, after a week with long days sailing from sunrise to sunset, we reached Lisbon. Although it was quite difficult to get a place in a marina we managed to go to Doca de Alcantara Marina. It is not really a nice marina, as you are surrounded by a shipping harbour with huge walls of containers and also very close to the Ponte de 25 Abril, a massive bridge with a striking similarity to the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. Both the container ship harbour and the bridge are very loud, but to be honest it didn’t bother us much, we were just happy to have found a place at all, especially as there was some bad weather coming our way.
Lisbon is really a very nice city. Jenny, Flurina and I had never been to Lisbon before, and we didn’t know what to expect. But we were really surprised by its beauty. The city centre is full of colourful buildings without a single ugly one. It’s also great if you like coffee and brunch, too many places to choose from, so we ended up going to a different brunch place every day. In Lisbon, we were also joined by Clara, a friend of Jenny and mine who would join us on our adventure to the Caribbean. The three girls found a Yoga Studio where they could join a trial week which allowed them to go to as many classes as they wanted to go for only 22 euros. It turned out to be quite the hotspot for influencers but they still enjoyed it very much and went to a different class every day. We also spent one afternoon going to a chandlery, about the only one in Portugal where we found everything we needed and bought some ropes and a chain hook to build an anchor bridle. This is used to attach to the anchor chain so that firstly the boat is not held by only the anchor winch, and secondly, the load of the boat is split across the two outside hulls.
In Lisbon, we also visited the Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology (where I of course was mostly interested in the technology part). The museum is split into two buildings, a very modern new building where there are exhibitions on modern art and the technology exhibitions are housed in an old power station displaying all the old machinery. It was a coal power station built to supply Lisbon with electricity. One was able to follow the whole process of electricity generation, starting at the inlets pumping water from the river to the distillery and further to coal burners to produce steam which was supplied to the steam engines turning the alternators and generating electricity. Most of the machines were huge filling big halls and when they were turned on (we saw the coal burner belts and a smaller version of a steam engine running) it seemed like an engineer’s dream. And we felt quite patriotic as most of the machines were built in Switzerland by Escher Wyss, Brown Boveri and other Swiss engineering companies.
When you visit Lisbon a mandatory day trip is visiting Sintra. Sintra is a small town where many Portuguese Kings built their summer residences. The surrounding hills are full of castles built by noblemen during different time periods with sometimes fairy-like appearances that could stem directly from a book or movie. The only thing ruining the fairytale is the hundreds of tourists that are unloaded from their buses every morning. We visited Pena Palace Gardens and Quinta da Regaleira Palace. We did not enter Pena Palace as you had to book a time slot, but instead visited the immense garden. You can spend hours in this wild garden (or rather forest) and still not see everything. We then walked downhill towards Quinta da Regaleira Palace. The “walking”-part was a bit precarious, as we had to walk along very small and curvy mountain roads which really were not meant for hikers. We thought we found a hiking trail, which got wilder and narrower the further we went downhill until we found ourselves climbing over and under fallen trees only to ultimately be stuck on a big rock where continuing seemed impossible. So we had to turn back around uphill and walk along the busy road once more. Quinta da Regaleira was also really worth our visit, we strolled through the gardens and the (rather small) palace itself. We also would have really liked to have a look at the Initiation Well, which is a very deep well that you can walk down along a circular staircase. But after the people at the front of the queue told us they were waiting over 40 minutes we decided to skip it. After having a bite in a very unfriendly cafe (as you would expect from such a tourist site) we walked down to the Sintra town itself and took a cab back home to the harbour, falling asleep on the way after a long day.
