Portugal

We left Iles de Cies at Lunchtime, just when we couldn’t stand the rolling any longer and the day trippers had reached critical mass. The wind forecast had changed almost hourly, but was showing the bulk of the strong winds  away off from shore. So we started off with a reasonable sail, which as the wind built in the afternoon, leading to a slightly more exciting sail, at 20 knots plus.

Allegrini likes having a bit of wind to blow her along so with the sails in a Gull-wing configuration (the Genoa out and the mainsail and boom pulled out sideways) we managed to capture as much of the 22 knots of wind we had and convert it into nearly 8.5 knots of forward speed..

We had a great run down, interspersed with some really big swells and two visits from Dolphins the second visit was by a huge pod of 15-20 dolphins, who stayed around for at least half an hour or more. We hadn’t seen a pod this size before, we had seen twos and threes on our way down the French and Spanish coast and even Pilot whales across Biscay, but this was something else completely.

Check out the video on youtube (and please remember to subscribe to the channel when you get there!).

We arrived in Povoa De Varzim in no time covering the 50 miles in just under 9hrs averaging a comfortable  6 knots per hr. Povoa Is a basic marina, but I needed to get the Fischer Panda Guys out to look at the generator, they were in the next town and local to this marina and Helen needed another quickie business trip home, so it suited us till then.

2 Comments

  1. This is all looking really good guys and it is great to see your updates.

    Keep safe and hopefully the wind will stay behind you- no one likes spilling their drinks while close hail.

    Alan and Amy (and now baby Imogen Sheeley)

  2. Great to see your safe progress and we are enjoying reliving our trip. 7 years ago I know but are the 2 British guys still there organising socials and shopping trips? We came into Povoa in 40 knots and found out 2 sailors died attempting the same entrance a few months prior. Have fun x

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