It's been something of a bittersweet week, what with the knowledge that we're moving on today for new, exciting cities, but also tinged with the fact we're leaving behind so many great friends and a quaint fishing port full of good, down to earth people.

We started the week in town at the opening weekend of a festival. We couldn't work out what it was for, but everyone seemed to be having a great time.

And other than a few dinners and visits to the beach, there was time for just one last sunset....

It's hard to sum up somewhere that was supposed to be a 48 hour stopover (and that we came SO close to skipping altogether), and instead transformed into a five month home. The crazy carp, the fishing boats surging back & forth, the mix of the surfers, fisherman, liveaboards and civil servants, and the constant crash of waves on the south beach.

It's not been all smooth sailing - the intermittent internet, the creak of the broken pontoons (7 weeks and going strong!) and the weather (sometimes amazing, sometimes horrific) - but we've enjoyed ourselves all the same.

We say goodbye to the fisherman, Avo Ricardo, the dogs - Boris, Whisker, Lilly, "Bubbles" and Cabbage, the crazy beagle who would come bounding up everytime Lauren or I left the pontoon gate - the community of liveaboards who for one reason or another, sat out another winter in Nazare, Luis and his cafe, Helder & George, and eternal Nazarites (Nazarians?) Dody and Alec. A huge thank you to everyone for making our winter 2015 / 16 the experience that it was.  

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I can't believe it's almost the end of January already.... we've had another busy week while we await a window to head south. It looks like we might get one this coming week, but then we've thought that before, so for the time being it's a case of tinkering with the boat, playing with the resident beagle & staffie x lab, and enjoying the brilliant January sunshine and warm temps.

We thought we'd start the week with a hike along the hill tops that surround Nazare, given the harbour entrance looked pretty grim and test sailing just wasn't going to happen.

 

After that, we were pretty worn out so took a couple of down days to let our legs recover. Our main mast had some grease left on it from when it was craned on, so Lauren strapped in and cleaned everything up.

I then spent the next day pulling apart our engines exhaust system to remove these elbows. Another "quality" marine product - not even a couple of years old and already falling apart..... Anyway, Alec and I had welded up some stainless replacements and they're now in place with the engines running sweet again.

Last up, the new sail covers needed buckles stitched on to finish them off, so out came the trusty Jones sewing machine to knock off that job. Funny how the Jones was built in the '60s and still works spot on (best £8 ever spent on ebay), yet all this new "quality" marine rubbish lasts a year or two before breaking down or falling apart. Ok, I'll leave that topic for the time being.

So that's it for the moment. The winds are all coming from the north so once the swell drops off a bit, we're hoping to get out for a final tweak & tune of the rig, before scooting south sometime mid-week.

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And another week rolls by. Hard to believe we're almost done with January, but there we have it.

A pretty quiet (ish) week this week - Alec knocked out the two toggles for our lower rigging, I fitted all the toggles and tightened the entire rig, then we also banged out a couple of sail covers for the new booms. Oh, Alec & I also welded up the eight stainless exhaust elbows to replace the crappy aluminium ones. So quiet, but busy.

We were hoping for a test sail yesterday but the wind never really got going, whereas the swell did. To be honest I'm not sure we'll get any testing done in Nazare (there's just no point heading out to test in 5kts / light winds) - our marina month ends on the 3rd Feb so we're going to try and go for a sail or three this week. Otherwise it might just be a relatively easy motorsail down to Cascais where we'll try and get some testing done out of the Atlantic swell.

 

The weather's holding out nicely for us (22C today!!!) and looks to stay just under the 20C mark this week, so if we're not sailing, there'll be a great chance to do one last tour of Nazare before we get going.

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Well, it's a balmy 14C here in Nazare (we're back up to 19C next week) and calm blue skies... can't complain for a January day really, and it sure beats being freezing on the UK south coast like last year.

We're still waiting on a few bits & pieces for our new mast (more on that lower down), so the last week and a half has been pretty easy going around here. There was a vegan brunch at Armazam 52 that kept us going for most of the last wet & windy day we had here...

While Lauren was busy writing, I also got stuck into helping out on another fishing boat re-launch.

The weather then turned good enough to start eating outside again (plus it gave us a chance to test the new aft deck seating).

And then onto boat jobs. It turns out the new taller rig needed the bowsprit connection plate to have a different angle (and be reinforced), so Alec from Nazare Nautica came down for a bit of welding work.

It's one of those jobs I could have done, but with the boat moving around with harbour surge and the fact it was a stainless weld, I thought it best left to the professionals....

After that, we swapped the bobstay wire for 12mm stainless chain. The chain is stronger by a long way, and also more chafe resistant should the anchor chain rub on it.

As ever with boat projects, it turns out one thing leads to another.... We ordered stronger turnbuckles for our new mast (they tension the wires holding the mast up) but it turns out the stronger versions are shorter.... ugh. So now we're waiting on toggles to extend the turnbuckles. In true leisure marine fashion, we've also found the aluminium 90 / 45 degree pipe connectors for our engines have started corroding after two years (quality stuff, that), so we've got some stainless replacements on order. Frustrating, but it'll all be here this week. What else... on yes, the Rutland 914 wind gen has broken for a second time in 12 months (only 14 months old!!!) and our Garmin anenometer (wind speed reader) has decided to seize up. Ah well... as it turns out, the wind here is either full force or non-existent so we couldn't test sail even if we wanted to. There's plenty to do to keep us amused (I think we're off on a cycle through town today) and we'll keep planning towards the next hop down to Lisbon, then onto the Canaries....

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