The final approach to the Portuguese coast is a bit of a horror. There is a shipping separation zone to separate the north and southbound vessels, most of them very big freighters and tankers with a few yachts here and there. The idea is to get close to the Portuguese coast to the north and avoid the choke points where they all try to leave or get into the zone. We got there at 2 am and Pete and I stayed up all night getting through it safely. The boat speed was getting up with the high winds so we took sails down to slow us up and be able to control the speed and direction better. The next trick was the catabatic winds from Cape St Vincent as you round the cape to Lagos - having had too little wind most of the trip it ended up all about too much wind at the end!
Once again we sneaked in just ahead of the finish time and got another first in the catamaran category! (just us again).
We were all pleased to be at the end of the trip – especially Bobbie who had been ill most of our days at sea with ongoing, non specific, unresolved food and stomach issues that made her miserable for almost the entire time. She and Neil vanished off after a quick help with the boat clean to go to Italy. Jesper stayed on a couple of days and had many goodbye drinks with the friends he had made on the passages.
As the north coast of Portugal is the wrong direction for sailing at this time of the year, Pete and I have booked a car trip to Porto and a wine trip to the Douro region for 6 days then back via Lisbon where we both have skin checks booked with a dermatologist. A couple who we met on the World ARC are doctors in Lisbon and have organised it for us.
We love Portugal already and Logos is lovely. The marina is expensive but has excellent facilities and food and drink establishments. We are just a foot bridge walk away from Lagos old town centre.