John Neal and Amanda Swan had recommended that we store our boat in Cascais many years ago when we were talking to them at the boat show in Seattle. Now it was amazing to actually be in the town that they had recommended. This marina is very big and very expensive. Each pier had a special gate pass card so you couldn’t go visit someone else on another pier.
The first night we had dinner with James and Karen from SF – on an HR 43 called Blue Heron. Their boat was on the dock next to ours.
When we were in the marina store, we met another American sailor and started talking with him. They had just come across the Atlantic. When he said they were from Florida, I asked where. We had just met Dick Bishop, Mom’s friend from Sun City! His wife Eileen we met shortly and toured their boat, Truimph. What a small world.
(Map 10) July 20 to July 27, 2004: We took the train into Lisbon and walked around the town. After seeing Porto first, we were not that impressed by Lisbon. In the plaza by the waterfront, they had the “Earthviews – 365 days.” It’s the book we have so enjoyed this past year. Very unique photos of different places on Earth. We did find a great Hard Rock Café and Steve got his “buger fix”. Plan to leave tomorrow for next port.
7/22 – We sailed from Cascais to Sines. It always happens I guess, but we can’t remember anything about this town, but we were there.
7/26 – We left Lagos but decided to go back to the point and anchor at the Grottos. They sell lots of tours to the place so we decided to check it out. We inflated the dingy then spent the afternoon going in and out of the caves. We took some movies with our camera. What fun. Steve dropped his swiss army knife into the water so I put my fleece diving suit on and actually found the knife. While looking, I saw that the propeller had gotten tangled with fishing line. Guess we hadn’t missed all the crab pots. I took a knife and cut it off. Then, with Steve holding a line, I went around the boat and cleaned the bottom edges. Later in the afternoon we left the grottos for Portimao.
7/27 – Portmao – We rented a car in Portimao and drove east looking at different marinas. Now that Gibralter didn’t have space, we needed to find where to put up the boat. We didn’t like the security in the one marina we found in Aguadolce and hated the massive condo overbuilding in La Roquetes de Mar. We drove through Seville but it was SO HOT that we only stopped at Carrefoure to shop.
We spent a few more days in Portimao – not that it was an interesting place but we had good internet next to the Pizza Hut so Steve finished all the invoicing for Sweden and Austria and England.
7/28/04 – We headed south, with 2 reefs in the main, heading for Cadiz and Rota. What a fun part of Spain. We had heard of Rota before, remembering the military presence there in the 70’s. We were pleasantly surprised to find a quaint town with no hint of US military presence. The town is wonderful to visit and ranks high as a place for over wintering the boat. The beaches are jammed each day with Europeans. Rota is quite the resort town but only for Spaniards and Europeans. The city has lots of free entertainment each night. One night we saw flamingo dancing, another night flamenco singing and also a string ensemble. The flamenco singing is obviously about a “sad story.” We always try to guess when the end of the song is coming. Seems the only way to tell is when they stand up. Check out the photos and movies that we have attached. There is also two beautiful video of the string ensemble. What a fun town.
We’ve decided to go further south to check out Gibraltar and Morocco for other possible sites for keeping the boat. It’s a fast day sail from Cadiz. We left at 815 and arrived in Gibraltar at 1948. The currents are great in this area, with our fasted SOG clocked at 9 knots. It was so fabulous to see the Rif Mountains in Morocco as we got near Gibraltar.
8/2 – Gibraltar – It’s amazing to have spent years talking about “when we get to Gibraltar” then to finally one day arrive there. Today was one of those milestones. We can’t believe we’re actually walking the streets of Gibraltar! The British influence is so unexpected. After all these months of being in Spain and France and “speaking” in either French or Spanish in grocery stores, its amazing to hear all the people speaking English. We had heard that anything you wanted would be available at the Gib. True enough, but we sure are paying a high price for that privilege! Can’t believe the prices in the Safeway Store (yes, that’s right, a Safeway Store of all things! It even has maple syrup in exactly the spot you’d find it at home.) We are in Marina Bay next to Shepherds. Shepherd’s Marina is basically closed now as they have sold it off for Condo development although the store is still selling anything and everything – at a very dear price.
The best deal we found is the guy selling charts and books in the building next to Sheppard’s. Those and gas are the only deals in town.
8/7 – Smir, Morocco — We wanted to see Morocco, but were a little worried about visiting the country. As it was definitely “out of the EU”, it would restart the VAT tax clock that non-EU boats constantly worry about. (A non-EU boat can only stay in the EU for 18 months before they have to pay the 20% VAT tax on the value of their boat.)
In addition, we had heard that the King of Morocco kept his boat in Smir, so security there would be top notch! We had been advised to bring a carton of cigarettes to give to people we met in Morocco.
As we headed towards Morocco, we should have known something was up. We kept getting passed by 3 or 4 powerboats traveling together. When we arrived in Smir, we learned that the owner of the marina had invited members of Spanish and French marinas to his place for a party that weekend. The marina was packed with some very fancy powerboats. It was tough to get a slip. The owner had arranged for an elaborate “traditional Moroccan meal" for that evening and a variety of traditional performers. Our guide said we should go even though we had not been formally invited as it was for “Westerners.” The guards at the gate obviously thought we “looked right” as we were ushered into the party compound. What a spread of food! The performers were incredible. First there was the waterman going around ringing his bell and posing for pictures. Then the snake charmer started bringing out his different bags of snakes. “Lady, want a photo with a snake around your neck?” Yea, exactly what I wanted. There were gymnasts and a group of soldiers that marched around and periodically shot their muskets. The vendors hawking their wares included the rug man, a guy selling pottery, another selling shoes, and a guy selling lamps. We haggled over the lamps for awhile, then gave up as the prices seemed a bit high, even though we had just arrived in Morocco.
Although the Muslims don’t drink alcohol, they were giving away free bottles of wine to the Westerners with the free meal. Most of the Westerners were sitting on the rugs that had been laid around the grounds, watching the entertainment. As different people got up to leave or shop, we noticed the “waterman” and some of the performers would come by and grab the bottles of wine, hiding them in their long billowy sleeves. So much for the religious rules on drinking.
The next day, with Rashid’s help, we met a guide in Tetouan and he took us around the souk (the ancient market.) You really need to know where you’re going as it seemed to be a huge maze. We found it very fascinating and the contrast between old and new was striking. A shop that sold handmade djellabas (the long gowns the Moroccan men wear) was next to the stall selling cell phones. We bought some of the world’s best dates at one stand. While other cruisers had told us how much they had been harassed by street vendors when they took the ferry across to Morocco, we didn’t have that experience at all. However, once our guide left us after lunch and told us how to catch the taxi back to the marina, we did start getting the hard sell. The closer we got to the taxi, the lower the price became. Sitting in the taxi, we could have gotten anything at a really low price. Whatever the vendor starts at, figure you can get it for less than half that amount.
Ok, so now its time for the rug story. Up front, we told our guide early in the morning that we weren’t interested in buying a rug. No problem. However, he felt we should at least see how the Berbers make rugs. NO trip to Morocco would be complete without this knowledge. After saying no three different ways, we found ourselves just looking at how they are made with no intentions of buying a rug. “I understand you do not want to buy a rug, but if you were to buy a rug, would you like this one better than the other one?” It went from there. Then, we told them we lived on a sailboat and didn’t have room for a rug. “NO problem, we have small sailboat rugs.” And so, as they loaded us into the taxi at the end of the afternoon, we had the world’s best Moroccan sailboat rug tucked under our arms.
The marina had armed guards posted every so often around the marina. There were other guards at the gate of the marina checking cars that wanted to come in. The locals couldn’t just wander down to see who was in the marina this afternoon. Apparently the King likes to jet-ski so now everyone in Morocco likes to jet-ski. The mechanics at the marina were constantly tuning jet-skis. Amazing.
The nights in Morocco seem to never end. People were constantly streaming by our boat looking in. We had our American flag up and we were amazed at how many people wanted to have their picture taken in front of our flag. Jan was getting a bit nervous about it all and finally took the flag down for the night. We never once had anyone say or do anything that didn’t seem to be in a positive mode, but just the added attention started wearing on her nerves. The party atmosphere in the marina kept going until about 4 am. Small wonder things started slow the next morning. This place really likes to party.
The next day we decided it was time to head back to Spain and find a place to keep the boat for the winter. We really liked Rota and were afraid if we didn’t commit soon, perhaps they would fill up. So, we headed north again to Gibraltar, only to find that its much harder to sail north to Rota that south to Gibraltar. We ended up making it a 2 day trip, trying to get the tides and currents in the right way.
One thing to keep in mind when selecting a place to overwinter is “how hard is it to get there and back?” Rota is about a five + stop city. By this we mean you have to take a taxi to the Rota bus station, then the 2 hour + bus to Seville. From Seville, its another taxi to the Seville train station, where you take the express train to Madrid. Probably at this time, you need a hotel so it’s a cab ride to the hotel and, because some hotels don’t let you store bags downstairs, you have to slepp the bags up to your room. The next day it’s the reverse slepping of bags, then trying to find a taxi that is big enough to carry you and your bags to the airport. Remember, airlines usually allow 2 rolling bags each (about 60 lbs each) then we also would have 1 – 2 carry-ons. As you can see, it gets ugly. The Madrid taxis seem to be very small and we had a very hard time finding one to take us to the airport. But, luckily we found one with a roof rack so we went speeding through the freeways of Madrid with 3 bags on the top and the rest jammed inside. We keep saying we won’t do that next time, but, time will tell.
The one thing we really enjoyed in Madrid was the hop on- hop off tour bus. They had three different routes so we had a fun filled day discovering the nooks and crannies of Madrid. Also check out the movie of the street musician in Madrid. We loved his music and ended up buying his CD. It’s turned out to be our favorite CD of the year. Its called Las Calles de Madrid (the Streets of Madrid.) Madrid turned out to be the surprise city of the summer. We really enjoyed it and plan to spend some time there on the way back to the boat.
This is the end of year two. Thanks for hanging with us.