Leixoes to Lagos, Portugal.... Can you believe it, last stop until the Canaries and 15 days until the start of the ARC.
What a blinder
of a week, the sun hasn't stopped shining yet!! Leixoes bought to us the joys
of Tapas Papas, a wonderful little restuarant that served jugs of sangria, fine
seafood, and a great chargrilled Lamb chop!
The 5th November the Disco celebrated in style with Sparklers and the Whopper,
all of which travelled across the Bay and still worked, it certainly caused
quite a stir in the Marina.
The following morning saw Paul, Suzannah and Matt B up at 6AM to start the 280nmile trip down to the Algarve. It was a blast and we arrived at 8am Thursday morning in the blazing sun. The trip was much fun as the sun was hot and dolphins were in high supply every watch, if we didn't see them for 4 hours we were a little concerned. I think the most that were spotted in a pod was around 30, most were mother and calf, very playful and checked us out thoroughly which was very exciting. We are still keeping an eye out for a whale though! We tried our first home cooked Chinese dinner, which was definately a success.
Lagos is very picturesque and has a large number of English couples living on yachts here. We have been to the first of the happy hours, so far and its looking good. We've had our first Margaritas, Do Cais (house speciality) and Mudslides. We even had beans on toast and the full english breakfasts. Ali got to choose our first meal here as she doesn't eat meat or fish, so we went for pizza at a very English Pizza Hut that was very good and wiped clear the pizza jinx from Bayona. It also saw us to our earliest bedtime yet of 9.30PM! It had been a very long day with some of the crew up since 6AM.
We were greeted by El Syd, who have been here a week and have had the pleasure of a friend's villa and a maid, they volunteered to take us to a restuarant they liked, we were a little dubious after having taken them out for pigs ears and noses in La Coruna, but they came out tops, and a great dinner was enjoyed by all and the wine certainly flowed a treat.
Tonight is our final night here and we're off for fondue with forfeits, so it should be a highly entertaining night. Tomorrow we leave at 9am for Las Palmas, Gran Canaria. We're planning for a maximum 6 day crossing but if the wind stays in the north east our arrival should be a little sooner, and El Syd have promised to greet us with a fine bottle of Port.
This week has also brought us the first English newspapers we have seen this trip and we were delighted to see the weather in England and Scotland is absolutely terrible and winter is kicking in already. Unfortunately for us the weather is only going to get hotter and its already in the thirties!!!! Jealous.....
Revised -- Saturday 10 November 2001
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