Please accept our apologies for not having blogged sooner but the cyber cafes in Portugal are rather strange. You can work an hour on the computer and then get cut off with no work saved or posted. The mail must get through however! So we are trying from Lisbon, where it has been raining and the weather is rather unsettled.

We left Baiona (Spain) two weeks ago and day sailed (sometimes motoring) down to our present berth at Alcantara dock in Lisbon, which Atlantia last visited four years ago on the way to Scotland. Although the restaurant that was good to us in Lisbon then is still here, it has become quite expensive, so we went to the Arts Club for dinner on our first night. It is in the style of the Alhambra. A very good meal. (The gents urinals were made by Shanks of Barrhead!!)

On our way down the Portugese coast we have visited the history of the discovery of the Indies and the New World, along with the history of Port! To have seen these places may well be important to us as we sail around the world imagining Spanish Galleons and British Raiders sailing to and from the remote places we hope to visit.

First stop was Viana do Costella near the northern border. The river was lined with people waving and cheering us in, which was very kind of them! We then discovered this was the weekend of the most important Fiesta of the year. We were followed up the river by lots of little boats, jet skis and fishing boats all bearing religious relics and covered with flowers. The following day there was a carnival with many young ladies (and older ones) and children in traditional dress.

The whole of our stay was accompanied by twelve piece drum bands with the occasional bagpipe or accordian for a bit tune! Quite a racket. Portugese bagpipes tend to have only one drone. The port trade with England apparantly started here four hundred years ago.

Our visit to Porto (or Oporto, as we call it) was a great success, with a wonderful afternoon having lunch at the Taylors winery and tasting the port.

We moored at a marina about twenty kilometers north of Porto, which was very cheap (18 euros per night).

The marina at Porto was closed and so we took the slow bus to Porto, which took about an hour. Porto is a very old city built within a shallow gorge. The tide can sometimes run at six knots. We were quite pleased that we had not taken Atlantia up there. The traditional boats that carried the port barrels are very interesting, since they steer from a platform looking over their cargo. We saw one under sail.

Our next port of call through fog was Aveiro, which is in the middle of one hundred square kilometers of marshes. Aveiro used to be an important centre for trade with the New World before it silted up in the sixteenth century. It was reopened in the eighteenth century and became an important ship building port. We anchored near the entrance to the river and went the last ten kilometers through the marshes to Aveiro by dinghy, with the tide. At one point we measured that we were doing ten knots over the ground. A lock marks the entrance of the town to keep the water out, rather than in. This is to prevent flooding at the town centre at high tide.

The town itself is fairly similar to any European marshland town, with small houses with red pantiles and warehouses with shiplap boarding. The only major difference to Maldon or Medemblick was the front of the churches, which have the most beautiful blue tiled pictures on them.

It was also rather stange sitting in the fishmarket square drinking Sangria and listening to Norah Jones!

The bicycles to ride around the town are provided by the Town Council free of charge, so we cycled out to the marshes. There we saw a Little Egret (very oriental!) and a Marsh Harrier (very British!). On our return by dinghy to Atlantia we nearly lost our way since the whole marshland was flooded and we had forgotten to turn right at the second telegraph pole and left round the fishermans hut, all of which dotted the landscape amidst the tops of sea walls and water!

The next stop was Figueira da Foz, entirely forgettable as being very expensive in the marina and like Tossa de Mar in Spain (but without the English pubs). Relieved to sail away we sailed to a charming island (Berlenga) with a fort on it. The island was about the size of Inchkeith and was mostly composed of red sand stone. The fort was built by the monks who were fed up with being raided by pirates. There was a considerable swell in the anchorage and we found out the repose of all the loose bottles, glasses and rigging. The boat was quiet by 6:30am but there was still a swell!

A day sail followed to Cascais near Lisbon being chased by rain clouds. Cascais is the playground for rich Lisboans. There is a super marina, very expensive and a super anchorage over sand. We anchored. We were surrounded in the night by fluorescent lights being suspended from little boats fishing, very picturescue but a little unnerving. We put over our new lobster pot but only managed to catch winkles. Better luck next time!!

The short motor against a three knot tide into Lisbon was quite eventful trying to miss all the lobster pots dotted around the river side. To see the famous monument to the Navigators was quite an event even though visibility soon reduced to twenty meters due to a really heavy shower of rain.

We were taken on a guided tour of Lisbon on our first night here by Carlos, who had a seven seater van and a Beneteau 37. A very pleasant man with good English who told us that he had been part of the bloodless revolution in Portugal in 1973 when the dictator abdicated. He had kept the printing presses away from the Communists for three days whilst a democracy was formed. He also recommended the Arts Club to us. We were pleased to have met him.

Yesterday we visited a fifty gun frigate built in 1843 and hope to cycle to the castle today or tomorrow.

Lisbon is huge and the weather very mixed, hot one minute, wet the next.

Love to all, Will, Margaret and Susan