Spanish Day
Mark and I got up at 7.00am to prepare the boat to depart for Mazagon by 9.00am.
We put the dinghy on the davits. This is bit of an exercise as we have to bring the dinghy to the stern and then crane the outboard (40kg) from the rear crane on one of the poles on to its bracket at the push pit. It means fitting the engine harness and having a line to a block and tackle at the back of the crane as well as a third person with a rope preventing the engine from swinging into the davits. We are getting better at it but we had to do this in intervals as the passing boats caused wash. Once the engine is on its bracket we have to fit the harness lines to the dinghy and then wind it up using the davit handles. We then secure the dinghy with racket straps. It works but it is a bit of an exercise each time. Due to the position of the davits it is not possible to lift the dinghy with the engine.
We stowed everything away and then had breakfast. It was a lovely morning and Tavira and the Ilha were gradually waking. The hop to Mazagon was about 40nm and meant hugging the coast under the 20m contour to avoid orcas. Attacks were continuing in various places and we could not be complacent. We left at 9.00am and with the tide nearly fully in getting over the sand bar was no issue and we were soon motoring at about 7.6 kts on a calm flat sea. I looked for my hat on the way out but there was no sign if it.
The wind gradually rose and we set sail and in about 14-17 kts were cracking along at about 8.5 kts. I thought this would be good if we had this all the way. However, the wind eased off after a couple of hours and we were back motoring again. There was little traffic initially, but we still had to dodge the lobster pots which were often poorly marked, some just with a small plastic bottle. You could never see that at night.
We passed the border to Spanish so down came the Portuguese flag and up went the Spanish flag which Corinne suitably sung to. This also meant advancing the ships clock one hour (we have a second clock always set on GMT). We had a tuna mayonnaise sandwich (made from the tuna left from the night before) and gradually watched the anchored tankers outside Mazagon loom up and get larger. There was clearly a large oil refinery here and we had again for the first time since Cascais having to navigate around tankers.
We negotiated the tankers and the buoys and called the marina regarding our arrival. We refueled at the fuel berth and after completing all the admin were directed to the hammerhead of F pontoon. It was very hot and I got out for the first time the rear screen/mesh for the bimini which gave us welcome shade as at our angle the sun was streaming under the bimini.
After a quick shower we went for a beer/ice cream in the marina. We were clearly now in Spain with not only the language but also the volume.
We sorted ourselves out and filled the water tanks. We had a barbecue supper and sat on the aft deck watching the boats return to the marina where they had been out for an evening swim or to fish. It appeared a nice lifestyle – a day in the office followed by an evening swim/fish or zoom in the multitude of small speed boats knowing that the majority of the time the weather will be lovely. Quite different from the UK.
The extra hour change was noticeable in that it got dark later and this extended the evening. We were now almost ready to change crews. Jules was to leave in the morning and Corinne the following day. Thought began to turn to the trip to Madeira. Lots to do before we leave and we need to explore Mazagon and to provision.
If you have any questions, comments, suggestions – do email me on hine.nick9@gmail.com