by Pam Graham
October 1992
In Part 1, Kapalua II left England’s cold climes and headed for France. In this issue, we continue with Pam and Len's voyage of discovery as they explore Portugal and the Canary Islands ...
Gradually we settled down to our nomadic way of life. Living on a boat has many compensations, as well as disadvantages like weather, availability of water, diesel and suitable anchorages etc, but just picture us on a gloriously hot day snorkelling around a lovely rocky bay or on a calm moonlit night with dolphins playing around the boat and you may understand.
After the family left us in Lisbon, we drove back to Porto to find the port officials anxiously looking out for us to move the boat a little further up the quay. Unfortunately, we omitted to switch the water inlet to the engine and melted the plastic waterlock, which kept us in Porto for another week. That’ll teach us! It took 4 days, but it was tax free and we made some more friends.
Sunday 4 October, 1992: We rose early and were first away from the quay. The mouth of the river was very confused and we had water on board almost immediately. The wind increased to 37 knots at one stage and we arrived in Figueira da Foz after dark and very tired.
On to Peniche and if you treated the Pilot books as your bible then you were in for a shock. First of all, the promised pontoons were non-existent; there were moorings for the fishermen that were not mentioned, the anchorage was very soft mud through which our first anchor dragged, and in addition the seagulls were impersonating buoys!! All this was done in pitch dark with the aid of a torch. Eventually we anchored in between the moorings with our new Fortress anchor, with which we are extremely pleased. It has held well in mud, sand and kelp.
We decided to press on to Lisbon to meet friends. Imagine our delight when a voice called us on the VHF just as we were deciding where to dock telling us where they were. They even had their lights blazing to show us the way in the dark. Lovely people! What makes you think we’re always last?
On to Lagos, the Algarve, and better weather ... warm sunshine, white buildings, cactus, light golden sands, palm tree lined streets ... this is it! Terrible thunderstorms during the night and everything leaked. Lots more work to do on this boat.
Friday 16 October, 1992: We woke in the morning to find men shouting at everyone to move; they appeared to be taking up mooring buoys and relaying new ones, but as the
wind increased they had to give up and they didn’t work all weekend, which gave us all a reprieve.
Monday 19 October, 1992: We left, before the workmen reached us, for Vilamoura where we would be able to stock up, fill our diesel and water tanks and change batteries, etc. Portugal is well known for its rubber stamping of all papers and endless form filling. We were reliably informed at the airport in Porto that had we visited four years ago it would have been 20 rubber stamps but now it was only 5. Formalities in each port varied. Vianna di Castello was a real run around to various buildings; Leixeos the same - one of their offices was in an old fortress behind the harbour; in Porto everything was done by two offices both on the quay; Lisbon was the same, but with only one office; Vilamoura was well organised with a book of rules and regulations ... ugh! ... but it was three offices all in the same complex and at least three rubber stamps. It would appear that alertness to drug smuggling on the south coast is the cause.
We commissioned our bikes and travelled on relatively flat roads around the marina complex and the town. The weather was improving daily and we were looking for a 5 day slot in which to make our next longest trip to the Canaries.
Sunday 25 October, 1992: The forecast was perfect with light northerly winds, so we prepared for the voyage. Needless to say the first 12 hours were south-westerly but the wind gradually came round and we were sailing with a reefed genoa at 6 knots in a northerly Force 5 to 6. We ate our first civilised meal at the table down below with a glass of wine on
Monday 26 October, 1992.
As the wind dropped we enjoyed lazy, leisurely sailing at 4 – 6 knots. The nights were very dark as it was the time of the new moon; sometimes a bank of clouds seemed to build up in the distance, only to disperse either side of us as we journeyed on. We often had music playing and Alan and Maggie’s Party Singles have given a disco flavour on board.
Friday 30 October, 1992: At 0300 we sighted the lights of the islands north of Lanzarote and although the GPS reported magnetic error we continued to navigate by Dead Reckoning, checking our position with compass bearings on the lights and landmarks. Later the GPS recovered but it made us aware of the need for old methods alongside the new.
Whilst we were in Puerto da Naos, Arrecife, Len made a hole in the side of the boat as an outlet for our water maker (desalinator). It worked and now we don’t have to worry about the bilges filling up and sinking us! Whoopee!
One of the highlights of this stay was meeting three boats from Czechoslovakia. The language problem was overcome eventually when we discovered one played guitar and
another the piano, so back to Kapalua for a nightcap and some music. Out came Pam’s guitar and the piano keyboard. That was such a good evening that two nights later we fetched out the champagne and five Slovaks, one Swede and ourselves got the instruments
out - guitar, keyboard, Len on his harmonica - and some singing books; food was brought over by the Slovaks and later another bottle of “bubbly” by the Swede. It was quite an emotional night when one of the fellows played traditional music on the guitar. Also we were leaving the next day.
We travelled to Gran Canaria to the marina at Pasito Blanco, well protected and very, very warm. We swam in a special area and saw many colourful fish. Provisioning for a long trip was easy with Cash & Carry supermarkets willing to deliver to the boat. Here we used the awning for the first time and took apart a tank that leaked, which will be our third water tank for now and become the holding tank in places where you may not use the boat toilets.
After family visits, we arrived in Tenerife and put down the anchor in Los Cristianos. The plan was to leave from there when two friends from our UK yacht club joined us for our exciting sail across the Atlantic Ocean ...
