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 Dolphin and whale watching under sail

Cape Clear to Cabo Verdes
Peachy Portugal

The fair wind took a bit of time coming. As we left the Bay of Bayona there was very little of it at all, and a dirty swell running to boot - but soon a light NNW breeze manifested itself. By noon Anna M was getting into her stride, with the main boom well trussed with a preventer line foreward and a down-hall as she reached across the swell to the sou-west. As evening fell we were able to turn sufficiently down-wind to boom out the genoa as well, the swell was coming off all the time, though it was still 2 or 3 metres high, and the glass was high and steady.

Silver harvest off Portugal
Getting Peachy
Next day, 4th Nov, things were really getting peachy, with the North wind gaining just that little extra conviction and the moderating sea finally coming around astern. The only uneasy note was some heavy gunfire out to sea. The booms of it were loud both to our ears and on the hydrophone, though all we could see of it was the puffs of smoke on the horizon. We shot the fishing line in the evening and caught a couple of small tuna; we never got tired of eating them for the next week - this is when the Anna M's little barbecue on the stern rail really comes into its own.
The old lady really went for it on the 5th, skipping over the sparkling waves at 6 or 7 knots. Apart from a stern trawler pegging away (above), there were remarkably few fishing boats to the south of Lisbon. Again we threw out our line in the late afternoon, and had 6 fish about as quickly as we could manage them. After 2200hrs that we rounded Cape St Vincent, and finally with an accompaniment of dolphins came into to calm water again, and anchored in the Bay of Sagres at midnight.
 Approaching Lagos

The fresh North breeze died away as we headed East next day, becoming nothing but a tender air wafting those Algarve scents to us. The sea was calm, the sun was hot; as we dreamily approached Lagos, we had come into a different world. (above) Not that it is altogether to my liking - a couple of days to do the chores, lay in stores and make one's arrangements are what I mostly ask of such places; after that I find them claustrophobic.
We sailed east along on the 8th, left Tony at Culatra to get his plane from Faro, and followed home a few days later after leaving Anna M in the hands of a boat-yard were her cracked ribs will be mended, before we set sail again to the Cape Verde Islands in February.
Journey's end

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Revised:06 December 2002
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