Saturday 15th July 2006
Fliss………
We arrived Leixoes at approx 9pm last night after 50/50 of sailing and motoring. To say that its an attractive port would be absolute lie and no matter how much the local mayor offered the “Rough Guide” to mention it, they didn’t.
Imagine Fawley fallout meets Dungeness then that’s the backdrop, you could taste the fallout and as we got closer my skin itched and the air got warmer.
Lovely Leixos
With this in mind we decided to give Porto a miss (plus save marina fees) and anchor off the beach for a quick exit to Aveiro in the morning.
More joys to behold. Leixoes has a long sweeping beach (people were swimming! Are they mad? they must be given the amount of fallout dumped on them each day). To the left of the beach was a live concert playing at full volume (thankfully it wasn’t traditional Portuguese music, slightly rock I would say) in the middle of the beach a theme park with a commentator who loved the sound of his own voice and wanted everyone else to enjoy it. At the far right hand side an open-air disco or rave again played to maximum volume. The crowning glory was the thunder & lighting just behind them. The whole package reminded me of Dante’s Inferno and it made me think that this was what hell must be like. I’m turning vegan & embracing Christianity, I’m not taking any chances!!!
Leixoes translated means “Port of the Damned”.
People say that the North Portuguese coasts pales in comparison to the Spanish Rias (good call on the Spanish keeping the North-West coast) I hope not but Leixoes is a bad example.
Something we find amazing is that Portuguese don’t take the VHF seriously (Spanish too but to a lesser extent). Yesterday a chap called up another boat and asked if he wanted a banana as he was a monkey (channel 16 – emergency channel) the other skipper impressed us with his understanding of the English language & promptly told him to be quiet and he also questioned the other guys parentage. This happy little banter went on for a good 30 mins, maybe more. Same subject, same response.
No wind today. We did put the xxxxxxx chute up. You may wonder why the x’s well we don’t refer to it by it’s full name as we believe that when we do we jinx the wind and the wind dies, just like you say the Scottish play not Macbeth…Damn I’ve done it now we’ll be motoring all the way!
Calm seas, boiling hot & only 15 miles to Aveiro.
Pete………
Well, I can’t add too much more. Fliss’ description of Liexoes is very good. You can see the red and white striped chimneys of the oil processing plant from miles away. They belch smoke and flames that drifts horizontally until it falls over the town to the South. The smell of petrochemicals is diabolical and the Marina is known to be oily, dirty and smelly. We parked in the lee of the outer breakwater just off the sandy beach with the view of going into the marina for a day and visiting Porto. However, we are not on a forced-march through the old historic towns of Portugal and the weather has been so hot that marching dry, sun-baked streets did not appeal. So we are on our way to Aveiro (40 degrees, 38.5 West, 8 degrees 39.6 degrees West).which is up a series of canals inland.
Absolutely no wind, the boat sat for 20 minutes with the super-light cruising chute hanging like a curtain. So, again we motor!
Lifeless xxxxxxxx Chute
Sunday 16th July 2006
Fliss………..
Aveiro.
We arrived at about 6pm, swelteringly hot and played dodgems with all the power boats racing at top speed through the canals.
There was another British boat anchored at the entrance of which we recognised, they’re not very friendly and we have renamed them MW. I won’t elaborate.
Let me quote a passage from the Portuguese cruising book:
“Aveiro is a remarkable and pretty provisional town. It is often called the little Venice of Portugal, as it is surrounded and criss-crossed by many small canals. Aveiro sits at one end of a bizarre lagoon with slat pans shimmering white under the piles of salt on the narrow causeway between”.
Steady on old chap! I think someone got slightly carried away or had his palm crossed with silver.
Lets rewind a bit to the beginning. We motored up the under whelming canal right to the top and ended up a Yacht club pontoon. We were made very welcome and a nice man said that we could moor alongside another boat. The chap was almost embarrassed about the mooring and qualified it by saying that it was a friendly and sympathetic club. This is true.
It is mosquito hell, so you wash off the factor 40 and then stick on your 50% deet. This is the bit that I dislike most about cruising in baking hot countries. Your skin never gets a chance to breathe.
The yacht club is situated in a derelict and totally run down part of Aveiro, remember Mad Max the movie well I’m sure that they must have filmed it here. There are loads of stray cats and dogs and going on what the dogs were up to last night there are bound to be more soon.
Aveiro Yacht Club - Very Freindly
The people of the yacht club were lovely and said that we could use their showers, water & electricity and we’ve tried to pay on a number of occasions with no luck and no-one has asked us for money.
The town is nice but it’s just another Portuguese shopping experience.
So at 9pm tonight were off to Berlenga (an island off Peniche) to swim and be au-natural again. Its around 90 miles.
I haven’t disliked here but I can think of nicer places to moor.
Pete…………..
Again, Fliss has beat me to the juicy bits. The entrance to the canals was a bit like the “River-Hamble Scramble” (VERY busy narrow entrance) except that no-one bothered with keeping to port or starboard in the channel. It was a free for all. This was not helped by 4/5 knots of tide up our chuff and we surged up the maze of channels running the engine at tick-over just to keep steerage. The nautical almanac said that the only place to stop was through a lock and to moor between piles but the cruising guide indicated that there was a club pontoon immediately before the lock. And so there was, a hard-left hand corner where the surging tide eddied unpredictably so we about-turned to head into the flow and were told to raft alongside another yacht by the helpful staff/members.
Having parked, I looked back downstream and noticed pylons over the river (not noticed on the way-in due to concentration on tidal eddies, navigation etc). There was noting in the guide about them so I assumed that they were suitably high enough no to make any deal about them. However, one very tall mast looked as though it would have trouble getting underneath. As we sat sampling the local Port on deck in the evening, a British couple returned on bicycles and stopped for a chat. They owned the tall-masted yacht and had indeed hit the wires. They said it was like a lightening strike and it had fried all their sensitive electrics and navigation gear! Since there is no possibility of any repairs here, they are off to Lisboa (Lisbon) to see what can be done.
We will be leaving at pretty-much high tide tonight and will approach the cables with extreme caution. I still need to find someone who knows how high the cables are so that we have a bit more confidence in running this particular gauntlet.
Ah, Oui! Je pense que le bateau a la entrée de le canale containiere les Vanquier Miserables!
Monday 17th July 2006
Well we made it to Berlegena and so far it has been quite eventful.
We left Aveiro and motored down the waterways, the channel was very well marked so Pete piloted us out & I helmed until we got closer to the entrance (or exit which ever way you look at it) and there were port & starboard lights everywhere they were marking entrances to different canals. Thank god for the almanac. The almanac says you should line up the 2 red lights on leaving or entering the harbour walls, Well it got to a point were I was going to get the boat hook out to fend off that I said to Pete “I’m turning no matter what” we were that close!
No wind again so we had to motor (has anyone ever motored around the world?) I couldn’t sleep so I said to Pete that there was no point us both being up so he might as well go to bed, we hadn’t sighted another boat for hours. You guessed! it within an hour I was surrounded by them. I kept calm and waited until I tracked one boat in the distance who I really couldn’t work out what he was doing so reluctantly I had to wake the skipper up. Pete said don’t worry he’s heading for Finger of Fudge (Figueira Da Foz) but I then spotted his starboard light, he was heading straight for us, travelling really fast and with no intention of changing his course (we had right of way). We had to make a drastic course change and go behind him. Pete put the radar on and we tracked at least 7 other boats within 3 nautical miles of us. I was glad that I hadn’t woken him up pointlessly.
I went back to bed an hour later (still couldn’t sleep) and he didn’t see another boat.
We had company just off Berlenga a school of dolphins playing with the bow wave, I just love watching them playing as they are so graceful!
It looks lovely here and we’re anchored in 19 meters of water and not too far from the shore, well go exploring later.
We haven’t mentioned this but our GPS anchor watch system appears to be very frightened of waking us up, it timidly bleeps, almost apologetically. On return we are going to market an anchor watch system that shouts “WAKE UP YOU LOSERS WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE!!!” at a hundred decibels.
Interesting situation with a fake galleon this morning which I’ll leave Pete to explain to you but the skipper has just come over & invited us to join him, his crew and guests for a drink at 1pm,,,,, what shall I wear???????.
Pete…………………….
39 Degress, 24.6 minutes North, 9 degrees, 30.4 minutes West
As Fliss said, we left Aveiro at 21:00hrs and, of course, it was soon dark. The navigation was a bit tricky since, with channels all around, we had to leave starboard lights on starboard (which is usually a complete no-no) and head between pairs of port markers. All in the dark unable to recognise the channel we had come-up the day before. Anyway, no issues except that the leading lights in/out of the final channel moles lead us very close to the northern one (hence the boathook to fend off!).
We started sailing at a respectable 5 knots but that soon dropped to 2 knots and, as usual, we motored almost all the way. The mainsail went up, flogged like mad in the small swell and came down again, up……., down……, up – you get the picture!
Over the night, I heard a clear, crisp British voice from HMS Liverpool asking for details from various boats that were coming and going around the separation zone to the West of us. They often got no response. However, after one exceedingly British and polite request for information, the (delayed) response was “Why doesn’t her Royal Highness have an ice cream and leave us alone?”. No further communication was made!
Also on the VHF we can still hear Mr Monkey and his banana. He broadcasts day or night and must have a serious range because we have heard him for well over 100 miles now. His tuneless whistle is the most irritating.
Fliss: I’m sorry but it makes me laugh every time!
We have no charts of Berlenga Island but the C-Map chartplotter has sufficient close-up detail. The guidance in the Almanac says that this is a poorly charted area and navigation must be made with care so we downed sail (not that it was doing anything) and motored-in staying well-off until the final point. The depth is 20 metres and appears to be all rocky bottom so we rigged a line to the crown of the anchor and used an anchor bouy just in case we get the anchor fouled. This is the first time we have done this, and it seemed to work ok. Out went 60 metres of chain and we dragged it over the rocks until it came-up taut and firm.
Arrival - Berlenga
18th July 2006
I got up, made coffee and got fresh sliced pineapple for breakfast and then got back into bed to have the coffee and read. A mock-galleon that was moored well offshore of us had swung and was fairly close but I kept my eye on it as the kettle boiled – no problemo. However, as we lay finishing-off the coffee, a whistle was heard and we jumped out of bed to find the Galleon only a few feet away. He had swung round with the wind and we should have done so as well thereby keeping the distance between us. However, we had not swung round our anchor since it was behind us (glad we had marked where it was with our anchor buoy). We therefore deduced that the chain had got snagged somewhere so I put Nadezhda in reverse to pull us back. No luck, we were firmly attached to something so we had to raise a whole length of chain coming perilously close to Mr Galleon as we did so. It then broke free and we reversed back beyond where our anchor lay before laying it back out again. It seems that holding is good on rock since the chain is enough in itself to snag on things!
Anyway, lunch ashore with Mr Galleon & Crew.
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