Bulletin - 13 October 2000

Vilamoura, Portugal

800 miles and six weeks since we left the Solent we have stopped at Vilamoura.

We left Camper & Nicholson’s yard in Gosport, on Friday 1^st September.  We had planned just to slip away, but in the end were pleased to be waved off by a small group of friends from Odiham, who also kindly ferried us down, acted as willing pack horses for the many bags and boxes still to be loaded, decorated the boat with streamers and balloons, and helped us reef the mainsail right down so that we could leave to sail to Cowes in the teeth of a South Westerly gale.  We managed to leave just before a downpour, so that at least our send off party, we hope, remained dry!

We spent the night in Cowes, victualled for Dartmouth, received a much improved forecast and sailed down to Dartmouth, arriving to sunshine on Sunday morning, 3^rd September.

It had always been our intention to spend a week or so there, with our friends Roger and Bronwen Baron, completing a few of the jobs still left on the boat, and preparing her to cross Biscay.

Our thanks go to them for their hospitality, all Roger’s help with the boat and Bronwen’s with victualling, including the night she offered service as excellent restaurant, bath house, launderette and internet café combined!

We had planned to leave on Sunday 10th September, but on checking with the Met Office on Saturday morning were warned of strong adverse winds in South Biscay at the end of the week, so hurried to complete the remaining essential tasks and sailed out of Dartmouth on Saturday afternoon, giving us a little extra time to complete the crossing with the otherwise good forecast.

This certainly gave us a very smooth, fast passage – we sailed outside the shipping separation zone off Ushant the following afternoon; passed Finisterre, invisible in the fog on Wednesday afternoon and arrived in Leixoes, in Northern Portugal on Thursday.  We were rather stunned to hear that England had ground to a halt in the few days since we had left, but relieved that there was no diesel shortage here, as we had motored a good part of the way across Biscay to keep up our speed.

We spent a day exploring Oporto and visiting the Taylors’ lodge there and then set sail south for Cascais, just outside Lisbon.  This was a much shorter passage, thankfully, as it was extremely foggy for much of the way, allowing us to become really familiar with our new radar set, which had already proved its worth off Finisterre.  It is easy to take the accuracy and certainty of GPS for granted, and certainly the two together allowed us to make a passage which would have been very much harder without them.  The fog cleared just as we approached the Cabo do Roca, the Western most point of Europe, and then closed in again as we made our way the final few miles along the coast to Cascais.  We were just beginning our blind approach to the new marina, when it kindly cleared again.

We had decided to spend a week or so in Cascais, carrying out further work, principally making a new canvas sun awning and bimini cover, while there was shore power to run the sewing machine.

As every boat owner knows, there are always hundreds of small jobs to be done, and in our case, having had so little time on Flame since we bought her, and wanting to concentrate on sailing her as much as possible, we set off with a long list of small items needing to be done.  Helpfully, the recommendation for yachtsmen going South from the Channel is to leave as early as possible in the summer and certainly ahead of the equinoctial gales in September, but one can’t set sail from the Canaries for the Atlantic crossing until mid-November at the earliest (until the Trade winds have started and the hurricane season has “ended”).  This means that one has quite a lot of spare time available in Portugal and the Canaries which we had always planned to spend catching up on at least some of these many tasks.

After a very pleasant week in Cascais, we sailed on down to Sines, half way to Cape St Vincent, where we spent a few nights enjoying this pleasant small Portugese town.

We left Sines with quite a swell running and had a very rolly sail down to Cape St Vincent, and a smoother, faster one along the coast to Vilamoura where we arrived early on Sunday morning the 1^st October, exactly a month after leaving Gosport.

Some friends from Odiham, Sam and Audrey Barder, who have a house just outside Vilamoura where they spend the autumn, had invited us for a bath, which was a welcome prospect.  When we called Sam, we discovered that the bath was to include a very comfortable bedroom and the use of a car, enabling us to become house guests and enjoy a spell of life ashore while not neglecting the boat and its many demands.

It was our plan to spend 10 days or so in Vilamoura, but again the forecast intervened so that ultimately we stayed a few days longer, allowing us to enjoy the visit to the Barders of more friends from Odiham, Emma and Nevil Macready.  Was it our imagination, or did we detect a degree of relief from our generous hosts when the Met Office gave us a forecast, which if we move speedily, we hope will avoid strong south-westerlies as we approach the Canaries?!  We are very grateful to Sam and Audrey for their extensive hospitality and many kindnesses.

We have discovered that Internet cafes are somewhat erratic, so although we have been able to read email, we keep getting error messages (in Portugese, so not understood!) when trying to send.  So apologies to everyone who has emailed – please keep it up, it is lovely to read your news, and we will somehow, and eventually, find a way of replying, even if by postcard!  Meanwhile, this bulletin is travelling back to England on floppy disk, courtesy of the Macreadys!

So today, Friday 13^th October, we set sail from Vilamoura, bound for Lanzarote, the nearest Canary Island, which we hope to reach in about 5 days’ time. More to follow from the Canaries in about a month, before we set sail from the Caribbean.

John & Helen Fleming
Flame of Gosport
13 October 2000 20:17