Hola Portugal and Pavoa de Vazim

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Hola Portugal and Pavoa de Vazim.

We left Bayona on the 31st of August with the harbour starting to show signs of a big Atlantic fog rolling in. Sure enough it continued to fill and soon we were heading along very cautiously, eyes paying particular attention to our radar, G.P.S and having Luke and Debs up on the bow keeping a lookout with eyes and ears peeled.

We got past Cape Silleiro, the western most point of the Ria de Vigo and after clearing the rocks off the cape we turned south to Portugal. At least our course was easy once we reached our turning waypoint. Simply point the boat at 185’ magnetic and set the auto pilot. As the fog was still thick we continued to plot our position, speed and course in case our G.P.S failed and we had to resort to the old dead reckoning practice of times gone past.

The fog cleared after a couple of hours and while we didn’t have a problem with any fishing boats, yachts or ships coming near our boat, you had to be ever so vigilant for the hundreds of fishing pots that you see every day you go to sea.

We did a combination of sailing and motor sailing under brilliant sunshine all the way down the coast. The conditions were very ‘cruizee’ and apart from lobster pot watch, there wasn’t a whole lot to do except the hourly logs, cups of tea, lunch and amusing oneself.

It was about 50 miles down to Pavoa and we arrived about 1730. It looked a bit like the Gold Coast at first with high rise buildings and apartment blocks right on the coast, a big Casino making a large impression on the landscape and hundreds of people on the beach, soaking up the afternoon sun and hundreds more walking along the promenade.

We headed into the marina, expecting to be inundated with the authorities we were led to believe would want to see every bit of official paperwork we had for the boat. Instead the very friendly and well spoken marina staff member greeted us, helped us tie up to the very short pontoon and told us to bring the paper work up the following morning.

It wasn’t a very big marina but we soon saw a few boats and crew we had been running into since leaving France. It’s a bit like running into old friends and very quickly you start sharing in cruising stories of where you had been and what you had been doing. I had been a bit slack and didn’t have a repertoire of basic Portuguese to start of our visit to this new country but that was soon shown to be not crucial as everyone who worked in the Marina spoke brilliant English. The other very nice surprises was that we were going to be charged only 18 Euros a night to stay here. That is so incredibly cheap compared to anywhere else we had stayed and that included water, electricity and wi-fi - absolute bargain.

We soon found out there was quite a large community of permanents living in the marina, either on board in the water or on onshore on the hard as most yachts were only paying about 1000 Euros a year to stay there. Most of the permanents were British and most of those were ex squadies from the British army. Cheap marina fees were not the only attraction as we were soon to find out that Portugal is so much cheaper than anywhere else we had been in all of Europe.

One of the main reasons were came to Pavoa de Vazim was its very close proximity to Oporto and the opportunity catch an express train from the metro station about a 15 minute walk from the Marina straight into the centre of Oporto. (Will do a separate short blog entry on Oporto after this one)

We ended spending 6 nights in Pavoa, weather was great and met some really nice people in the marina including Dave Frances and Jo McHugh, a young English couple who had their boat in the marina and they had ridden their tandem pushbike from France to Pavoa, a distance of about 2500 klms. We had a couple of great nights with them, one in the yacht club the second night we arrived there and another on our last night in the marina. Dave had spent about 7 years in Australia and a fair bit of time in the Coffs, Arrawararra area and combined with his knowledge of Australia, his sailing and biking background, we had heaps to talk about.

We also met the Stellerman family from Belgium who were heading south to the Canaries where they are going to join the A.R.C to the Caribbean, through the Panama, across the Pacific to Australia and possibly further west on a circumnavigation. Willem, Haike, Ward, Sepka and Flor make up the family and the children are 11, 10 and 7 respectively. We had coffee with Willem and Haike one morning and from there, our friendship grew very rapidly with Layni soon making friends with the children even though their command of the English language was very limited and of course Layni’s knowledge of Flemish was zero. Kids being kids though, it didn’t take them long and at last Layni had some kids of her own age group to play with, something she has not had since here time with Daisy Ford back in England so very, very long ago.

It didn’t take long and we had soon decided to cruise in company heading south. I have not seen Layni laugh and smile so much for so long. Flor took a particular shine to Luke and he hardly left his side when ever Luke was around. Both Nikki and Luke were also enjoying the company of the children and both were showing signs of being such naturals in their ability to relate to and react with them in such a positive manner.

I guess it is fair to say our first impressions of Portugal are that it has and is suffering badly from not only the current global recession but years and years of financial hardship. Aside from that, the people are incredibly kind and helpful and most speak excellent English and are very keen to engage you in conversation whenever they can.

Our bikes got a very good work out here with any of the supermarkets a good 10 to 15 minute ride away but of course the cheap prices make our visits for provisions a very positive experience. We did bribe the younger crew members one day with our request for help with a big supermarket shop - A visit to Macca’s which was just next door. Sometimes a parent has just got to do what a parent has to do!!

DISASTER HAPPENED AT PAVOA though, one morning while Debs was about to start a big days washing, the unthinkable occurred, the spin dryer stopped working. God help us please, without this bit of essential kit no end of problems flashed through my mind. Luke quickly suggested there was a power breakage to the water pump and my first reaction was quick, call Blackie but hang on a minute, no Blackie in Pavoa, it’s up to you Alsy, well, Alsy and Luke. So we grabbed our trusty tools and pulled the dryer apart and sure enough, we found a wire had been worn through and after having to rejoin it in about three places we got the old beast working better than ever, yahoo, another repair carried out with success.

And so our time at Pavoa had come to and end and we readied the boat and crew to head off to our next port of call, Aveiro, another 40 odd miles down the coast, this time looking forward to sailing with the Stellermans and their beautiful new Beneteau 46 Cruiser aptly named A Small Nest.

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Photos

Leaving Bayona
Just as the fog is starting to roll in

Heading into Portugual
Changing over the courtesy flag from Spain to Portugal just near the border

Pavoa marina
The morning we were leaving

Sunboy heads out
Leaving Pavoa marina