Ocean of Dreams: Faial – Lisbon, Sintra, Fatima, Monte Portugal, Obidos June 2014

Dear Friends,

And so we left Faial, with gusty winds and choppy seas... First of all, trying to weave our way out of the several islands in the archipelago, and soon we were able to point the bow towards Lisbon.

It was under these conditions that we broke the ultimate speed record of the Onda Boa: 16 knots (surfing down a wave obviously did help…).. anyway, later on Dora caught a tuna fish (lucky for the fish, she/he met a pleasant death by overdose on alcohol… just put sugar cane rum in its mouth and it will drop dead…) so we thought… Later Dora is certain that when she started making a great fillet, the fish did sort of come back from the dead… Anyway, soon after this first one, we caught another. Since Dora had lost her appetite ( I mean knowing that you perhaps cut up a fish when it is still drunk… not for the weak at hart…) so all of a sudden Giovanni and I had to handle a mad volume of Tuna (sashimi, later on grilled…) too much actually.

My birthday was celebrated on board, including a marvelous cake, a great dinner and drinks, another day to remember.

Cold (night shifts of 3 hours), and during the day Dora took 3 hours… so, all in all we were making our way to Lisbon and 7 days after we left Faial, we arrived in Cascais.

In the middle of the night, before reaching Cascais, we had to cross two traffic lanes: first the South bound and the north bound. Very happy that once again, the Comar AIS did its job perfectly and we managed to stay clear from potential dangerous situations.

I decided to stay for two days in the top notch Cascais Marina (too expensive… ), we had to say good bye to our friend and awesome crew member Giovanni.

Cascais is a lovely place and since the world cup soccer just had started we were able to see some matches in the crowded pubs.

We left Cascais and sailed up the river Tejo to another top notch super marina: Parque Nacoes Marina.. great location. Here we had to wait for the autopilot computer to arrive and be installed.

Meanwhile we had esteemed visitors over for lunch, friends of Dora (Edson, Karin and his father Sr Zico..)

We learned that renting a car was not so expensive, so we left Lisbon and went for Sintra. Great historic place, and there in a small wine and olive oil shop, we started our own hunt for the perfect olive oil. Monte Portugal is the name and after being quickly educated about the ins and outs of olive oil we tried to find the place. Thanks to the navigator app on the smartphone, found the place. Great reception by Joao (owner) and we decided to stay overnight in one of their great renovated, stylish cottages (including a now indepth crash course on olive oil).

Since we were mobile, went the next day to visit Obidos a very old (but now restaurated) city, completely embraced by a protective wall.

Enough land travel, and back to sea… The computer was installed and the autopilot was working again..What a relief.

We headed back to Cascais, finalize some grocery shopping and of we went north… Porto… And we knew it wasn’t going to be easy… beating against the notorious northerly winds…