If you’d like a shorter/summarized version of our posts, read only the “Highlights” section below and stop before “The Captain’s Log“, which is much more detailed, more like a logbook / diary and contains information for our reference as well.
We write the text for our website in English. The multiple language selection feature is an auto-translation by Google. This translation is not perfect; it sometimes uses peculiar words and even expresses things in a very different way than what we actually meant. So, if you’re reading in a language other than English, and you read something strange, switch back to the English version to read what we actually meant to write!
Highlights – the overview
We check in at the Oeiras marina office. We have decided to stay here 1 month. Next week, Sher travels to the US for 2 weeks. After that, we are signed up for a RYA first aid class and then we wait for a good weather window to go further south.
We take a scooter ride along the coast and then turn inland to try to avoid all the cobblestones. The entire coastline is full of artwork like this lovely whale tail.
There’s a forecast for a storm next weekend. Even though the wind will not be crazy here (the depression moves further north), the forecast for the swell is pretty impressive: 4-7m.
Hm. The wall that protects this marina is only 2-3m high at high tide… That would mean a lot of water crashing over the wall… Wim takes a walk to the wall to have a look.
The Atlantic swell at this coast is generally from the north-west (the blue arrows). We are at a southern coast here so we should be well protected. But, since the strong winds will blow from the south, the swell will be from the West (the red arrows). And that could hit this place.
Obviously, that has happened in the recent past. The western corner of the wall has been rebuilt. The concrete is new and so are the rocks at the corner (the light colored rocks). They have built a larger and higher heap of rocks there. Probably they’ve had some damage.
Dione IV is stuffed up between big yachts. Hopefully not too exposed when the storm comes.
Yay! Wim’s bear, “Schilder”, has new socks! This will get him through the winter! 😂
Sher made ‘m from a piece of left-over fabric 🥰
It’s a lovely summer’s day so when we return to the marina we have a delicious ice cream 😋
Life is good! 😍
We go scootering a few times and try to pick paths with few cobblestones, but we aren’t always successful. Still, we do enjoy our scooter rides!
Former fortress which is a military place now.
We ride along the coast and then inland into more suburban and rural areas. All the street signs are nice like this: beautifully made tiles.
Then the rain and winds begin. We spend the day inside.
Sher packs her bags for her trip to the US and does some sewing.
Wim does some work on his computer and installs a USB-C power supply socket under the salon table. Handy for our laptops.
Sher leaves early in the morning to fly to the US and visit MomCat. Meanwhile, Wim is starting on a big paint job: repainting the lower salon. First, he takes everything out and stores it elsewhere in the boat.
We painted the upper salon last year when we replaced some of the deck salon windows, so it’s only the lower salon that needs a repaint. While Sher’s away visiting MomCat, Wim will do the repainting of the ceiling, hatch wells, and walls in white. Later on, we’ll need to paint inside the cabinets and get the turquoise paint out and re-do the counter tops.
The lower salon needs a paint job because the white paint got old (some surfaces are from 2007) and dirty/yellow. Besides that, due to modifications over time, there are a lot screw holes and damages.
Also, this is a small modification we’ve decided to make… brackets for the bookshelves.
Sometimes, in extremely high seas, the books tipped over the edge. Sher tied a line across the books so they wouldn’t escape, but these new brackets will keep ‘m in place and look terrific!
To read all the details about this project and see more photos, click here
And remember the storm that was forecasted?…
In the night, a huge thunderstorm passes. It stays about one hour and Wim has never seen so much lightning! There’s a lot of wind in it: around 50 knots. he sees a gust of 58 knots!
The southerly wind causes swell. Although the marina is well protected by a wall around it, the swell generates some surge through the entrance. Dione IV pulls her dock line heavily. So heavy that the forward heavy-duty snubber breaks! Wow!
We don’t have spare snubbers and the little chandler at the marina doesn’t have them either. So, Wim triples the forward dock line and orders 4 new snubbers at SVB in Germany.
Back to work on the salon… The lights in the ceiling are almost 20 years old and they got rusty. So, Wim orders new ones on Amazon and then everything gets put back together. Beautiful!!!
In the afternoon, we take a 1 hour walk to Oeiras historic center with the crews of 4 boats. At the square near the church they have roasted chestnuts.
Last week, they have been busy installing Christmas lights everywhere. Tonight, they will all be lit for the first time, all over the city. And the roasted chestnuts are a part of the celebration today.
The square is really crowded. The girls at the marina office advised us to go at daytime because in the evening it is packed!
They are roasting big bags of chestnuts on big fires. The smell of the wood fires is everywhere!
Some guys fill small bags of chestnuts… They are free!
For a drink we have to pay 1 euro. It’s a very strong cherry liqueur.
The chestnuts taste great!
After the chestnuts we take a walk in the gardens of the Palácio do Marquês de Pombal.
It’s a beautiful building with huge gardens.
There’s a wine cellar where a 1000 barrels of “Carcavelos” wine ages. They offer a tasting but we decide to do that when Sher is back.
With the lower salon painting completed, Wim decides to turn his attention to some rusty areas in the bilge. That will require sandblasting with the little machine and glass beads…
After sandblasting there’s nice rough bare steel. First it needs layers of primer, then paint. In between, Wim decides to work on another project…
One of the jobs that were waiting is a tire change for our scooter, Thelma. On our last scooter ride Wim discovered one of Thelma’s tires was soft and it appeared to be leaking when he tried to inflate it.
Well, we have a tire at stock and we have the tools since he changed Louise’s tire in Viveiro. But, it is a very tough job… Wim finally get’s the new tire on, using a LOT of force, and inflates it. Great. It stays hard!
Then, suddenly: a loud PSSSSSTTTT!! The tire valve broke! Oh, no!… he has to give up. Wim will have to buy some replacement/spare valves… Bummer!
He starts cleaning up and throws the plastic wrap of the new tire in the waste bin. Then he notices a small part taped to the bag: it’s a new valve! Obviously it came including a valve. We didn’t notice that with the previous tire change and we’ve probably disposed it with the wrapper! Anyway, he has to take the tire off again, to replace the valve…😩 But, after that, it’s all right 🙂.
We’ve ordered a water tester. Why? Mainly because we have purchased a tiny little watermaker (yippee!!! 🥳) More on that, below.
It tests multiple values (Ph, Salt, TDS) but the most important one is the TDS (Total Dissolved Substances).
The tap water from the pontoon is about TDS 300. A TDS of 500 is considered the limit for clean, healthy drinking water.
The water from our RO-unit (where we fill our bottles of drinking water from) has a TDS of 16! That is almost entirely H2O molecules and almost nothing else.
When Wim tells our neighbor we got this tester, he wants to test his water, too and he brings a glass. The TDS value reads 950! Oops… He has to check his tanks…
Look what Sher brought from the US! A water maker!
Since we were in the Spanish Ria’s and we didn’t have any rain for many months, we’ve been investigating water makers. Wim has always thought he didn’t need one because Dione IV has such an excellent rain water collection system. Wim has spent many winters in the Netherlands (marina water supplies closed for for 6 months, preventing for frost), 100% depending on rain water, and he always had plenty of water. But now, it’s different. We’ve had 6 months with no rain at all and we were depending on filling our tanks with tap water in marina’s. That was never a problem, we had to go into marina’s while we traveled abroad or while we had to seek shelter for storms. Dione IV has 1050 liters of fresh water on board and we easily can survive a month on that, with a normal usage of water (so, not being sparingly, including taking daily showers, running the washing machine, cleaning the decks, and such). But we realized that when we can’t go into a marina on let’s say, a monthly basis and there’s no rain, we should have a backup. So, we investigated water makers. Making fresh water out of sea water – desalinization – by means of reverse osmosis.
We decided to buy the smallest water maker on the market: the Katadyn Powersurvivor 40. A Swiss brand, manufactured in the USA, by the same company that makes Spectra watermakers… a well-known solid brand. It produces about 5 liters of fresh water per hour and the high pressure pump consumes about 4A at 12v. Running it a couple of hours per day will sustain our water usage.
Since it’s manufactured in the US it is easier to get there (at stock at most marine suppliers) and less expensive. So, we ordered it and had it sent to Sher’s mom. Sher had to disassemble it (taking the motor off) to fit it in her suitcase 😄
We are going to install it under the floor, close to were all water systems are (in the angular cabinet to the right).
Here, we’re trying ti see how it will fit. Installing it will be a major job! Lots of plumbing.
Now that Sher’s back home, we go wine tasting in the cellars of the Palácio do Marquês de Pombal with our friends from the boats “Bird Song” and “Zee van Tijd”.
The Carcavelos fortified wines really surprise us! We taste wines of several different ages and find our sweet spot with the 7 year old one. We buy 4 bottles, since it is so reasonable and a good anytime fortified wine. We can save our higher-end ports for special occasions!
After the tasting, we admire the Christmas lights on the palacio and in town.
Bummer! Wim broke off a piece of a molar. He was starting to complain that there was something hard in his granola and he could have broken a tooth, when in fact it WAS his tooth! This is going to a major restoration… There’s a big. old filling in the molar and the outside broke off.
He calls his dentist in The Netherlands for advice. She says: “it’s complicated” (she knows the state of his teeth). She says: “if it were me I wouldn’t go to a strange dentist abroad. He doesn’t know your teeth and you don’t know his capabilities. He would probably extract it. I would mill the old filling out and try to restore the molar with composite.” Hmm. Wim knows she can do magic with composite. She’s well known for that… Well, this is going to cost money anyhow, so he decides to make an appointment with her and fly up and down to The Netherlands. The appointment will be in 2 weeks from now. Better a broken tooth than a broken heart!
The Captain’s Log [T484,485,…511] – the complete story
Salon Repainting Project
Bilge Rust Project
October 22-23.
A relaxed day. We check in at the marina office. We have decided to stay here 1 month. Next week, Sher will travel to the US for 2 weeks. After that, we have a week to wait for a good weather window to go further south.
Wim takes the scooter for a 20 minute ride to a big hardware store to buy some things and Sher does some laundry and some computer work.
October 24.
In the afternoon, we take a scooter ride along the coast, Praia Carcavelos. It’s a popular wave surf beach. At this moment, the breaking waves are only a meter high but there are hundreds of surfers in the water!
It’s a very pretty coastline.
The entire coastline is full of artworks.
We love this one!
It has even ripples in the stones!
October 25.
There’s a forecast for a storm next weekend. Even though the wind will not be crazy here (the depression moves more north), the forecast for the swell is pretty impressive: 4-7m.
Hm. The wall that protects this marina is only 2-3m high at high tide… That would mean a lot of water crashing over the wall… Wim takes a walk to the wall to have a look.
The Atlantic swell at this coast is generally from the north-west (the blue arrows). We are at a southern coast here so we should be well protected. But, since the strong winds will blow from the south, the swell will be from the West (the red arrows). And that could hit this place.
Obviously, that has happened in the recent past. The western corner of the wall has been rebuilt. The concrete is new and so are the rocks at the corner (the light colored rocks). They have built a larger en higher heap of rock there. Probably they’ve had some damage.
Walking over the wall, Wim notices a lot of shells in between the rocks and even shells lying on top of the rocks. So, waves seem to crash over these rocks, leaving these shells behind…
At the end of the breakwater there’s a view at the bridge of Lisbon,
And at Dione IV, stuffed up between big yachts.
October 26.
Yay! Wim’s bear, “Schilder”, has new socks! This will get him through the winter! 😂
Sher made ‘m from a piece of left-over fabric 🥰
Jellyfish in the marina
We go for another scooter ride. This time along the coast in easterly direction. Lovely coastline again!
Regretfully, the nice path ends and gets into a cobblestone road… So, we turn around and go back.
At our point of return, there’s a huge fountain, spraying 30 meters high.
It’s a lovely summer’s day so when we return to the marina we have a delicious ice cream 😋
Life is good! 😍
October 27.
Another beautiful sunny day, light breeze from the east, 25ºC.
Scooter ride in westerly direction. Gorgeous beaches!
Former fortress which is a military place now.
We ride along the coast until the nice footpath/bicycle path ends. Then, we turn into the hills. It’s a very urban area, lot’s of villa’s and apartment buildings. Here’s we have stopped at one of the rare view points and green area.
All the street signs are nice like this: beautifully made tiles.
Little piece of dirt road… But most of the roads are small and quiet.
Even though it’s a huge urban area with a variety of apartment buildings, villa’s, ancient houses but with no nice landscapes we enjoy the ride.
October 28.
A very rainy day! We haven’t had this kind of rain since Easter (in Ferrol). In the 6 months after that we have had almost no rain.
And there’s a lot of wind.
We’re happy that we’re tucked in, in the marina Oeiras.
We spend the day inside.
Sher packs her bags for her trip to the US and does some sewing.
Wim does some work on his computer and installs a USB-C power supply socket under the salon table. Handy for our laptops.
October 29.
Sher has left in the early morning and she’s flying to the US to visit Momcat.
Wim: I’m starting with a big paint job: repainting the salon. First, I take everything out and store it elsewhere in the boat.
The salon needs a paint job because the white paint got old (some surfaces are from 2007) and dirty/yellow. Besides that, due to modifications over time, there are a lot screw holes and damages.
October 30.
One of the things to be done is smoothing the edges around the hatches. Because they weren’t smooth and painted well, they gather dirt and condensation and that got moldy.
Some paint is really bad and has to be sanded down to the wood completely.
Everything was painted with a oil based 1-component paint. Now, I’m going to paint everything with a 2-compnent epoxy (like most parts of the rest of boat already done). This is a much more durable, glass hard layer which takes on less dirt and is easier to clean.
Filled and repaired numerous spots on the ceiling.
New glue around the edges of the hatches.
The bear Boz is watching from the bed 😄
October 31.
There is some surge in the marina that makes Dione IV pull hard on her dock lines. Because of this surge she moves forward and backward quite vigorously. I tie 2 extra spring lines to the middle bollard. That keeps her firmly in place! We know this from our experience in Cudillero last winter.
The forces are huge. A long 20mm line forward and a 4-fold 16mm line backward.
November 1.
After the PU glue has cured, it gets smoothed with MDF filler.
This is a small modification we’ve decided to do: brackets for the books.
Sometimes, in extremely high seas, the books tipped over the edge.
These new brackets will keep ‘m in place.
They are adjustable in height.
November 2.
I do the sanding in the early morning. It’s a lot of sanding: the ceiling, the walls, the cabinets, a number of small parts. Then, do some filler where necessary, sand again after a few hours, and do a layer of primer in the early afternoon.
I use a 2-component epoxy primer.
After that is done, I get out of the boat, leaving the companionway and the hatches open (luckily, the weather is gorgeous). Taking a walk or drink a coffee with friends or go to the supermarket. By the time I come back, the thinner has evaporated from the paint and the air is relatively clean. Only a little chemical smell of the reaction of the 2 components.
November 3.
Today, I paint the ceiling in a Satin paint. “Double Coat DD” from the Dutch factory “De IJssel”, color DC800 (pure white).
It looks great! 😀
November 4.
Today, I paint the walls, the couch and the loose parts in the same “Double Coat DD” but now I use the high gloss paint.
It takes about 1 kg of paint. That’s a lot. Of course, after that, I have to escape for a couple of hours!
I find all the ingredients for my favorite Broccoli-ham-Gorgonzola pie! Delicious 😋
Most of the times, it’s hard or impossible to find all ingredients for my recipes but this time is an exception: it tastes exactly like it should!
November 5.
In the night, a huge thunderstorm passes. It stays about one hour and I’ve never seen so much lightning! There’s a lot of wind in it: around 50 knots. I see a gust of 58 knots!
Reading the Portuguese newpaper next morning. 47,000 lightning strikes!! 😮
Today, the only painting I have to do is the rear sides of the loose parts. But, bummer! I discover I’ve used the last pot of DC800! After some digging in our paint crates I find a very old small pot, half used. It’s rusty but let’s see if it’s still usable…
It’s REALLY old! April 2001! I open it and stir the paint. Hm, it looks pretty good actually. I mix it with accelerator (which is 23 years younger 😄) and it looks all right.
I paint the parts and it looks fabulous. Wow! 24 years old paint! No problem. 😂
After the thunderstorm it stays pretty windy: around 20 knots from the south. So, big waves. Together with the crew of the boat “Smile” we take a walk along the coast to look at the waves,
Some waves crash over the marina wall.
Sacha gets wet when she tries to film a big wave 😂
November 6.
The southerly wind causes swell. Although the marina is well protected by a wall around it, the swell generates some surge through the entrance. Dione IV pulls her dock line heavily. So heavy that the forward snubber breaks!
We don’t have spare snubbers and the little chandler at the marina doesn’t have them either. So, I triple the forward dock line and order 4 new snubbers at SVB in Germany.
Another issue is the chafing of the lines on the middle bollard, The lines chafe over each other and get damaged. I solve with sling, that creates room on the bollard.
I feed the 20mm line back to the cleat on the pontoon.
All paint has cured now and during the day I assemble everything in the salon.
November 7.
The light in the ceiling are almost 20 years old and they got rusty. So, I have ordered new ones on Amazon.
New light!
All four lights (2 groups).
Putting everything back in place.
Here the New Zealand tide clock. And the little pot my daughter Dione made for me, for father’s day, when she was 6 years old. “Papa’s keeping box” 😄
Everything back in place.
It looks like a boat again! Instead of a painter’s workshop.
The new bracket on the book shelfs.
That night, there’s a beautiful super-moon!
November 8.
In the morning, new neighbors arrive. It’s the boat “Zee van tijd” with my old friends Annet & Rainier.
In the afternoon, we take a 1 hour walk to Oeiras historic center with the crews of 4 boats. At the square near the church they have roasted chestnuts.
The chestnuts belong to a tradition. Last week, they have been busy installing Christmas lights everywhere. Here at the marina, too. They were not lit.
Tonight, they will all be lit for the first time, all over the city. And the roasted chestnuts are a part of the celebration today.
The square is really crowded. The girls at the marina office advised us to go at daytime because in the evening it is packed!
They are roasting big bags of chestnuts on big fires.
The smell of the wood fires is everywhere.
Some guys fill small bags of chestnuts. They are free!
It’s a double bag. The other half is for the waste.
For a drink we have to pay 1 euro. It’s a very strong cherry liqueur.
The chestnuts taste great!
After the chestnuts we take a walk in the gardens of the Palácio do Marquês de Pombal.
It’s a beautiful building with huge gardens.
There’s a wine cellar where a 1000 barrels of “Carcavelos” wine ages. They offer a tasting but we decide to do that when Sher is back.
When we walk back to the marina we watch the impressive surf at the coastal walkway.
A supermoon that night.
November 10.
In the bilge under the bathroom are some rusty spots. I decide to sandblast and treat them with primer.
After sandblasting there’s nice rough bare steel.
These are quite big areas and the sandblasting takes time. The little air compressor has a hard time! It gets very hot and I put a portable fan on it to keep it from getting too hot.
All spots blasted and a first layer of primer applied:
November 11.
We’ll have a couple of rainy and windy days.
One of the jobs that were waiting is a tire change for the scooter. On our last scooter ride I discovered it was soft and it appeared to be leaking when I inflated it.
Well, we have a tire at stock and we have the tools since I changed Louise’s tire in Viveiro. But, it a very tough job…
I finally get the new tire on, using a lot of force, and inflate it. Great. It stays hard!
Then, suddenly: a loud PSSSSSTTTT!! The tire valve broke! Oh, no… I have to give up. I have to buy some spare valves… Bummer!
I start cleaning up and I throw the plastic wrap of the new tire in the waste bin. Then I notice a small part taped to the bag: it’s a new valve! Obviously it came including a valve. We didn’t notice that with the previous tire change and we’ve probably disposed it with the wrapper! Anyway, I have to take the tire off again, to replace the valve…😩 But, after that, it’s all right 🙂.
We’ve ordered a water tester. It tests multiple values (Ph, Salt, TDS) but the most important one is the TDS (Total Dissolved Substances).
The tap water from the pontoon is about TDS 300. A TDS of 500 is considered the limit for clean, healthy drinking water.
The water from our RO-unit (where we fill our bottles of drinking water from) has a TDS of 16! That is almost entirely H2O molecules and almost nothing else.
When I tell our neighbor I got this tester, he wants to test his water, too and he brings a glass. The TDS value reads 950! Oops… He has to check his tanks…
For dinner, I make a delicious Aubergine Parmigiano dish 😋
November 12.
Windy day….
And in the afternoon, Sher is back! 🥰
November 13.
Another stormy day. Look at the kite boarders in this video: the waves are 3 times higher than them. Meaning, these waves are about 5m.
Big waves are crashing over the wall and we get salt spray all over the boat.
Look what Sher brought from the US! A water maker.
Since we were in the Spanish Ria’s and we didn’t have any rain for many months, we’ve been investigating water makers. Wim has always thought he didn’t need one because Dione IV has such an excellent rain water collection system. Wim has spent many winters in the Netherlands (marina water supplies closed for for 6 months, preventing for frost), 100% depending on rain water, and he always had plenty of water. But now, it’s different. We’ve had 6 months with no rain at all and we were depending on filling our tanks with tap water in marina’s. That was never a problem, we had to go into marina’s while we traveled abroad or while we had to seek shelter for storms. Dione IV has 1050 liters of fresh water on board and we easily can survive a month on that, with a normal usage of water (so, not being sparingly, including taking daily showers, running the washing machine, cleaning the decks, and such). But we realized that when we can’t go into a marina on let’s say, a monthly basis and there’s no rain, we should have a backup. So, we investigated water makers. Making fresh water out of sea water by means of reversed osmosis.
We decided to buy the smallest water maker on the market: the Katadyn Powersurvivor 40. A Swiss brand, manufactured in the USA. It produces about 5 liters of fresh water per hour and the high pressure pump consumes about 4A at 12v. Running it a couple of hours per day will sustain our water usage.
Since it’s manufactured in the US it is easier to get there (at stock at most marine suppliers) and less expensive. So, we ordered it and had it sent to Sher’s mom. Sher had to disassemble it (taking the motor off) to fit it in her suitcase 😄
We are going to install it under the floor, close to were all water systems are (in the angular cabinet to the right).
Here, we’re trying ti see how it will fit. Installing it will be a major job! Lots of plumbing.
November 15.
Wine tasting in the cellars of the Palácio do Marquês de Pombal with our friends from the boats “Bird Song” and “Zee van tijd”.
The Carcavelos fortified wine really surprises us! We taste wines of several different ages and find our sweet spot with the 7 year old one. We buy 2 bottles.
After the tasting, we admire the Christmas lights on the palacio and in town.
November 17.
Bummer! Wim broke a piece of a molar. This is going to a major restoration… There’s a big. old filling in the molar and the outside broke off. He calls his dentist in The Netherlands for advice. She says: “it’s complicated” (she knows the state of his teeth). She says: “if it were me I wouldn’t go to a strange dentist abroad. He doesn’t know your teeth and you don’t know his capabilities. He would probably extract it. I would mill the old filling out and try to restore the molar with composite.”
Hm. Wim knows she can do magic with composite. She’s well known for that… Well, this is going to cost money anyhow, so he decides to make an appointment with her and fly up and down to The Netherlands. The appointment will be in 2 weeks from now.
November 19.
0845h
The weather has calmed down and the swell is almost gone so we decide to move further south.
Destination Setúbal.
Bye-bye Oeiras! We’ve enjoyed our time here so much!
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