http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/s-v-Tsamaya/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from s v Tsamaya en-us Sun, 19 May 2013 06:04:45 +0000 Sun, 19 May 2013 06:04:45 +0000 May 7 May 14 2013We seem to have accomplished quite a bit in our first week in Spain. Unfortunately one of the things we have not done well is not transition to Spanish We seem to say our greetings easily in Portuguese so we have to stop and think before speaking to be sure we change over to Spanish. Fortunately Cangas is located in Galicia an autonomous community in Spain which historical http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Spain/Galicia/Cangas-de-Morrazo/blog-785767.html It is always hard to get the blog updated with what we have done just before leaving a port. As a result will go back in time to just before we left Lagos to fill in the gap. Lagos had a Festival of Discovery that was held between April 26th and May 5th. This is to mark the period during the 16th century when the royalty entered and elevated Lagos to a city as well as the departure of the Navy and http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Portugal/Algarve/Lagos/blog-785408.html Some of you that may have read our other blog some of this will be a repeat but we have tried to fill in some of the details for you about our trip thus far since leaving Lagos.As you may have figured from our previous entries we have been somewhat anxious to get moving again. We definitely enjoyed our stay in Lagos Portugal but figured it was time to start moving north toward the Baltic. We de http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Spain/Galicia/Vigo/blog-785091.html Well as one of the cruisers on our dock so aptly put it it is now time to cut the Velcro around the waterline on Tsamaya and head north to explore new places Lagos has been known as the Velcro marina we understand why it has that reputation. We have thoroughly enjoyed our stay here taking advantage of the many benefits of the area. The marina has been a great place to meet cruisers from all ove http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Portugal/Algarve/Lagos/blog-784007.html Just realized after posting our last blog that it is not good to write captions after midnight as the brain is not fully in gear. The 6539 Oyster sailboat is a full 25 feet not 15 feet longer than our 4039 Caliber. One other positive of a 4039 boat was clearly pointed out by our friend Dave we definitely are happy that we do not have 25 more feet of bottom to sand or paint It was http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Portugal/Algarve/Lagos/blog-783309.html The last blog showed a few of the activities we did for enjoyment during the last 2 weeks of March since returning from the US. We filled the rest of the time with book exchanges computer group get togethers where we shared ideas caught up with friends Sandra and John as well as numerous cruising friends and treating ourselves to eating out a few times at local restaurants. Between rainstorms http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Portugal/Algarve/Lagos/blog-780710.html Well we are now back in Lagos Portugal after a much longer than planned trip from the US. Our travels started on Thursday March 14thwith a road trip to JFK to return the rental car and catch an American Airlines flight that evening to London. The original plan was to have one hour in Heathrow Airport and catch a flight to Lisbon which would get us there about 1030AM transfer to the bus statio http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Portugal/Algarve/Lagos/blog-777032.html Most of February was taken up with a 3 week road trip from upstate NY to Florida stopping to see friends and family and giving Bob a much needed boat show fix in Miami.As a result of taking photos for the blog we have started to look at things differently. Our long absences from the United States give us an opportunity to see it much the way we do when visiting new countries. Things that we have p http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/New-York/Clifton-Park/blog-776479.html We are enjoying our time in the US with family. We are getting settled into somewhat of a routine but find that we still have not gotten used to the bundling up allowing more time to uncover the car from the snowfall the night before or scraping off the ice on the windshield. We have had some time with some members of both Bob and Janices family since being back. We both have been spending tim http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/New-York/Clifton-Park/blog-768426.html Sorry we have been so negligent in getting any updates on the blog but we thought we would have more free time since getting back to the US needless to say that has not been the case. Our trip back to the US actually started with a couple of days in Lisbon. We wanted to meet up with our friend Vanessa and as she was returning to Terceira in the Azores for her University break we took the bus http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/New-York/Clifton-Park/blog-764847.html Well I finally couldn39t take it any longer and decided to part company with some really irritating gallstones. The plan originally was to wait until we return to the US but that would39ve meant waiting until January and these suckers were really beginning to irritate me sorry couldn39t resist. There is a public hospital and a private hospital in Lagos. Our friends Sandra and John told http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Portugal/Algarve/Lagos/blog-760708.html What follows is a short highly abridged history obtained through Wikipedia of this part of the Iberian Peninsula. Feel free to skip this paragraph if you are one of those who are still recovering from high school world history sorry John.PreCeltic tribes are the first to leave their mark on this part of Portugal. A number of burial mounds and stone carvings have been found in the area around Li http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Portugal/Lisbon-and-Tagus-Valley/Lisbon/blog-755681.html Now that we are overwintering in Lagos Portugal we have decided to take advantage of the time and do some overland traveling. We choose to use public transportation for our travels to both Oporto more commonly referred to as Porto and to Lisboa Lisbon. Conveniently the bus station is very close to the marina in Lagos and took us to Porto with only a halfhour layover in Lisbon on the way nort http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Portugal/Northern/Porto/blog-755674.html We are now back on Tsamaya after having a wonderful 9 days away exploring Lisbon Porto and Sintra. It was a nice break for us and we enjoyed our explorations. The weather was mixed with some rainhowever it was never to a point to stop us from seeing the various sights. Our hardest tasks now will be sorting through the hundreds of photos and trying to decide which will be the best ones to put up http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Portugal/Lisboa/blog-754699.html Sailor The Loss of a Great CompanionOn October 25th we lost our companion Sailor. Even though the veterinarian had warned us that she wouldn39t be with us much longer it is still very difficult to realize she39s gone. For 10 years the three of us have been a family. From the first day we brought her home from the SPCA in Ithaca she has met us at the door when we came home and been an e http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Portugal/Algarve/Lagos/blog-751980.html We have now been in Lagos Portugal since October 3rd hard to believe that almost a month has gone by. We have met quite a few of the cruisers that are here for the winter in the marina most are from Europe and many are repeat customers coming back to Lagos year after year. One of the first comments we heard was that many call Lagos Port Velcro. We understood what was meant by this a http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Portugal/Algarve/Lagos/blog-750948.html September 25 October 3 2012 Crossing to Portugal the final leg across the Atlanticare now aware we are safely in Lagos Portugal after a 7 day crossing. We had originally thought it would take 6 days to make the over 800 nm 920 mi trip but the winds were from the northnortheast so we had to sail into the wind as tight as possible so we wouldnt be pushed south by the wind and the wave http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Portugal/Algarve/Lagos/blog-749697.html I know this one may be getting you wondering are the Waller39s giving up sailing Have they moved quickly back to Grenada in the Caribbean The answer is no definitely not What is happening is friends of ours that we made while in the Caribbean have gone back to Sweden to work and they have decided to sell their sailboat Snowbird. The boat is currently located in Grenada. They are t http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Grenada/Saint-David/blog-750347.html September 17 September 25 2012note I have included many collages to include more photos if you can not see them click on the photo to make them largerYes we had said that Sao Miguel would be the last island in the Azores we would visit before going to the mainland but tropical storm Nadine had other plans. Earlier in August hurricane Gordon came through when we were in Terceira. The ma http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Portugal/Azores/Santa-Maria/blog-747950.html Just before we left Sao Miguel we were strolling on the walkway near the marina at Ponta Delgada and all of a sudden the sky became enflamed and luckily we had our trusty camera with us. It seemed that every couple of seconds the sky kept changing and as a result we took numerous photos to try to capture some of it. As we had so many photos that appeared to be quite good we recruited some help fro http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Portugal/Azores/S-o-Miguel/blog-748060.html