Olá Portugal!

We lift our anchor in the bay of Baiona and round the fortress. We are leaving northern Spain and heading south for Portugal. We have loved our time here and especially in the beautiful rias of Galicia.

Around 3 o’clock, we turn into the port of Viana do Castelo. It’s the perfect time because this is a river and entering just before high tide is perfect: the current is still going in (so, on our stern) but not too much.

There is max 4 knots of current here but we enter with 1 knot on our stern.

In the morning, we take walk in town and have a look at the inner port. Hm, we like our place at the pontoon better: a nice view over the river and less noise from town. So, we decide to stay there.

The harbor master pointed out the best place to buy Pastel de Nata. They are most famous for the bolo de Berlin (donut stuffed with creme and served fresh and hot daily from 11:30am). We’ll try those at some point, but first pastel de natas… of course we buy some and taste ‘m with a cup of coffee.

Indeed, they are delicious! But our “Pastel de Nata standard” is extremely high since we know Castro in Porto and Lisbon.

Well, these come surprisingly close…

There are some steep climbs. Too steep for the scooters so we walk and let the scooter drive 5m/h on cruise-control so that we don’t have to push the scooter uphill.

We made it! Thelma & Louise park at the church on the hill.

The path over the stairway to this church was perhaps a 20 minute walk from the marina. We drove half a day, about 20km’s 😅. But we had a beautiful ride!

This is the bakery Manuel Natario where we bought the delicious Pastel de Nata yesterday. A very long line of people waiting!

There are wooden bars for the keel to rest on. This might be an idea… The tides are right for it, at the moment. There’s maximum tidal difference because we’re close to spring tide, high tide is the early morning, low tide around noon and the next high tide in the late afternoon.

Meanwhile, Sher continues with the Phifertex sun shades for the front windows.

Yay! They fit great!

All ready. This blocks 70% of the UV sunlight and will keep the decksalon much cooler.

But we won’t need ‘m now. The coming days will be cooler: 20-25ºC with some clouds and a little rain.

And there’s a reasonable good view from the inside out.

And now it’s time to move to the drying area… We tie up on the wall at 7am and wait for the water to fall while we have breakfast and coffee.

Every now and then we have to release our docking lines as the water level goes down. We make sure to stay tight to the wall, with our stern a bit closer to the wall then our bow. We want to make absolutely sure that our keel is above the wooden bars.

The harbor master brings the high-pressure cleaner and we connect water and electricity to the pontoon.

After Dione IV has touched the floor we bring out our heavy dock lines and put them on our Port bollards. Although we are leaning pretty good against the wall with our Starboard side we want to make absolutely sure that she doesn’t roll over to Port, even when there should be gusts of wind (which are not to be expected. But you never know… the weather can change quickly here. So do the forecasts…).

At 11 o’clock the water level has gone down so far that we can walk around the boat and start high pressure cleaning the prop and the dry area of the hull.

At 12 o’clock we’re completely dried out. Sher concentrates on cleaning the propeller and rudder while Wim does the high pressure cleaning. On the lower parts of the hull there is a solid layer of dirt that takes some effort to remove it. But the Coppercoat is in great shape… No damages, no scratches. A solid layer. On the stern we see some little pocks from barnacles. We will have to re-activate the copper there, to prevent this.

Tom & Marcia from “Bird Song” come to help. Thanks guys!

The hollow area in front of the rudder is full of mussels! Although the area is painted with Coppercoat, they seem to have a nice quiet area to attach themselves. We remove them and sand the Coppercoat to reactivate the copper.

At 1330h, the water returns.

We’ve finished right on time! 🙂

We’re very happy with all the work done and with the result! Dione IV is in perfect shape!

While we wait to be afloat again, we rinse the deck and ourselves. There was a lot of mud and dirt on the platform.

At 1645h, we’re a float and we return to the pontoon.

Wim has constructed a more secure way to fasten the super-scooter battery packs onto the scooters, then makes a test drive over the cobblestone roads in town and it looks good!

Meanwhile, Sher takes out the Sailrite sewing monster and starts her first Sailrite project: make a rain cover for the scooters. She uses the big canvas bag from our old dinghy. It doesn’t fit our new dinghy any more.

But… after we pass a small village it points to a rocky forest path… We turn back and take another route. We drive though the nice village along nice small roads. But… here they are again: cobblestones! No fun, with our scooters without suspension and shock absorbers. So, we turn around and take another route again.

Oh no! Now the road turns into an sandy track 😩. Again, we turn around and take another route.

Hm. Our next scooters will surely have to be off road models…

And this is how it is now.

We go on one last scooter outing, across the Eiffel bridge and what should have been a smooth path to a bike path… no so. Through some nice villages. But, wobbely-cobbely…😅

After we have lifted our anchor in the bay of Baiona we round the fortress. There’s almost no wind so Mighty Mitsu is doing his job while we hoist the mizzen to stabilize Dione IV in the 1m swell.

Once we round the cape Cabo Silleiro, a rocky cape where numerous ships have been wrecked in the past, we get a breeze. We unfurl the Yankee and shut down the engine. In the distant, we see the smoke of the forest fires.

Hm. After we have rounded the cape, the wind dies down. We furl in the Yankee and start the engine again. Because we gave the notorious cape a wide berth, we are about 5 miles off the coast. 3 other yachts rounded the cape very close and they bend of to the coast, into the smoke. Why would you want to sail in smoke, we wonder? Then we realize they are following the 20m contour! To avoid orca’s. They say orca’s don’t get into waters shallower than 20 meters. Well, we’re are not so sure about that. There have been “attacks” in waters less than 20 meters and in documentaries we’ve seen orca’s beaching, even. But, it might make sense for another reason: orca’s hunt Tuna and Tuna’s don’t like shallow waters.

Anyway, we stay well away from the smoke and follow a straight line to our destination, Viana do Castelo in Portugal. We have depths from 30-50m. Regretfully, we don’t see any Orca’s.

So, we’re sailing out of Galicia now. So, it’s time to remove our Galician courtesy flag. Yes, even the flag agrees it has been fluttering long enough, since Viveiro 😏

When we pass the Rio Miño, which is the border between Spain and Portugal, we have to hoist the Portuguese courtesy flag.

There it is!

Meanwhile, we have to keep motoring. There’s only a few knots of wind.

Around 3 o’clock, we turn into the port of Viana do Castelo. It’s the perfect time because this is a river and entering just before high tide is perfect: the current is still going in (so, on our stern) but not too much.

There is max 4 knots of current here but we enter with 1 knot on our stern.

We call the harbor master on VHF9 and he tells us to moor on the waiting pontoon just outside the marina. We thought we had to wait there for further instructions to go into the marina but it appears the marina is full and we have to stay there.

When we report in the office they tell us there’s a possibility to go into the town port but we decide to stay at the pontoon and have a look at the town port tomorrow to see what we prefer.

Our first day in Portugal starts with a beautiful sunrise over the Ponte Eiffel over the river Rio Limia. The Eiffel bridge. Yes, the same guy who designed the Eiffel tower.

In the morning, we take walk in town and have a look at the inner port. Hm, we like our place at the pontoon better: a nice view over the river and less noise from town. So, we decide to stays there.

We pass the town square and see real Portuguese people! 😂

Yes, you can recognize them by their clothing 😂

It’s a traditional open market. For the tourists. 😁

The harbor master pointed out the best place to buy Pastel de Nata. Of course, we buy some and taste ‘m with a cup of coffee.

Indeed, they are delicious! But our “Pastel de Nata standard” is extremely high since we know Castro in Porto and Lisbon.

Well, these come close…

It has been almost a month ago that we we filled our water tanks (when we left marina de Moaña) and we are on our last tank (of 3). The last 2 weeks we’ve been postponing the laundry to save water for more important things such as drinking, washing and showering. Here at the pontoon, we have unlimited fresh water to we catch up with some laundry: 5 loads.

At the end of the day our battery bank says: how many loads of laundry?? 5??

At the end of the day, it’s at the same level as this morning (we keep 50-70% SOC, the cells feel more happy than at maintaining 100% ) without plugging-in shore power. Solar laundry machine! ☀️

We’ve booked for a week in this port because rough seas are to be expected: 4-7 meters of swell coming from the Atlantic. Caused by a deep depression system. At our latitude we won’t have a significant change in weather but the swell will reach the Portuguese coast. Most ports will be closed due to dangerously breaking waves at the entrance.

In the late afternoon, a firefighters plane flies over multiple times. It appears that he lands on the water between the two bridges, scoops water, pulls up and returns to the mainland. 10 minutes later he’s back for another load of water.

These pilots are really skilled! Imagine, land an empty plane on the river, scoop 8 tons of water in only 100 meters of river, take off full throttle with a full load, just clearing the bridge, fly back to the forest fire and drop the water. The dropping itself must be challenging: they have to dive down to the fire, having a huge uplift from the heat of the fire, than drop their 8 tons of load and get launched into the sky by the loss of weight and the uplift from the heat! Hero’s. We give them a big hand when they fly over our heads!

The first part of the ride leads us through lovely narrow streets all the way through the vast town along the ocean side. So far, so good… Then, it turns uphill. Hm. Unpaved road. Not much fun for our scooters but we try. Then the road turns into rocky path (the blue part in the map). No, impossible. We turn around and request an alternative route. Then, we get the green route in the upper part of this map. A huge detour. But, let’s try.

There are some steep climbs. Too steep for the scooters so we walk and let the scooter drive 5m/h on cruise-control so that we don’t have to push the scooter uphill.

After a long uphill track it goes downhill towards the church!

We made it! Thelma & Louise park at the church on the hill.

The path over the stairway to this church was perhaps a 20 minute walk from the marina. We drove half a day, about 20km’s 😅. But we had a beautiful ride!

This is the bakery Manuel Natario where we bought the delicious Pastel de Nata yesterday. A very long line of people waiting!

Back on board, Portuguese beer 🍻

Inside the marina, there’s a place to dry out for hull cleaning. Sail in at high tide, wait for low tide and clean while the boat is on the platform. They even offer a high pressure cleaner.

There are wooden bars for the keel to rest on. This might be an idea… The tides are right for it, at the moment. There’s maximum tidal difference because we’re close to spring tide, high tide is the early morning, low tide around noon and the next high tide in the late afternoon.

We cleaned and scrubbed the upper part of the underwater hull regularly while swimming but the rest of the hull (deeper down) might require some cleaning and scrubbing. Plus, we need to clean the prop a bit better, clean the speed meter paddle wheel and check the seawater inlet.

Next, Wim scooters to the coast to have a look at the swell that was forecasted. Yes, the waves are really high. At a distance, you can see some waves breaking over the wave breaker. That’s about 8 meters.

Most ports along the coast are closed in these circumstances. Only ours and Leixoes are open. But here, in Viana do Castelo, there’s a huge sea at the entrance. And there’s a strong wind from the NW, we see gusts of 36 knots. In the afternoon, a Swedish boat and a Swiss boat come in. They spend an hour in front of the entrance at sea, waiting for a right moment to surf inside… What an idiots. They seem exhausted because they make mistake after mistake while mooring. It is totally irresponsible to sail in these circumstances. Far out at sea, 5m of swell is no problem but sailing so close to the coast (these idiots follow the 20m contour because they’re afraid of orca’s) and trying to enter a port is extremely dangerous because of the breaking waves.

In the afternoon, Sher is sewing sun screens with Marcia, for the boat “Song Bird”. (they are on the pontoon, too).

Wim picks up another job from the list: modifying the preheat system of the engine. Since we have burned the preheat relay twice for unknown reasons, we disconnected it and put an LED on the connections so that we can notice when it stays on for a long time. But we have never seen the LED lit. So, it stays a mystery… 🤔

Anyway, we don’t need to preheat the engine, it always starts immediately. But, you never know. When the temperatures drop, when the engine get older, we might need to preheat. So, the system should be functional.

We have the following idea: put an automatic fuse / circuit breaker in between:

• We can have it switched off normally. Only when we need preheating we can switch it on.
• Have a tight value automatic fuse: the relay draws 3.3A. The fuse will be 2.5A (it takes some time to heat up and trip). So, if the relay stays on for whatever reason, this fuse will trip after a while. Especially when the relay stays on so long that it burns (short circuiting) and blows the engine’s main fuse (which is 15A).

There was an unused circuit breaker in the panel near the engine. We replace it by a 2.5A version.

We have to print a new label when we get our printer working again…

Our next port, Douro (The river, Porto) is still closed due to high swell so we stay in Viana do Castelo. No problem! We like it very much here and there’s plenty more to do and to see.

Another issue is, we should be nicely balanced sideways. We want Dione IV to stay upright and not fall over to one side. She does that sometimes, for instance last time in France (september 3, 2024, Brignogan Plage).

Meanwhile, Sher continues with the Phifertex sun shades for the front windows.

They fit great!

All ready. This blocks 70% of the sunlight.

But we won’t need ‘m now. The coming days will be cooler: 20-25ºC with some clouds and a little rain. This is the tail of a big depression over the Atlantic that sweeps over us.

And there’s a reasonable good view from the inside out.

We didn’t sleep so very well… It’s an exiting day with an exiting project 😅

We are awake before the alarm goes off. 0630h.

At 0645h we leave the pontoon and head to the dry dock that’s in the marina right around the corner. At 0700h we moor at the dry dock and shortly after that the sun rises.

We tie up on the wall and wait for the water to fall while we have breakfast and coffee.

Every now and then we have to release our docking lines as the water level goes down. We make sure to stay tight to the wall, with our stern a bit closer to the wall then our bow. We want to make absolutely sure that our keel is above the wooden bars.

After 2 hours our depth sounder displays 1.5m and shortly after that we touch the ground. Dione IV isn’t moving any more.

The harbor master brings the high pressure cleaner and we connect water and electricity to the pontoon.

After Dione IV has touched the floor we bring out our heavy 20mm dock lines and put them on our Port bollards. Although we are leaning pretty good against the wall with our Starboard side we want to make absolutely sure that she doesn’t roll over to Port, even when there should be gusts of wind (which are not to be expected. But you never know… the weather can change quickly here. So do the forecasts…).

A 20mm line at the Port bollards at the bow.

We lead the Port line over both bollards to have full force.

Then, we pull it at high tension on the winch.

While we wait for the water to fall trains and traffic roll over the steel bridge with a lot of noise.

Half a meter of water has gone down…

At 11 o’clock the water level has gone down so far that we can walk around the boat and start high pressure cleaning the prop and the dry area of the hull.

At 12 o’clock we’re completely dried out. Sher concentrates on cleaning the propeller and rudder while Wim does the high pressure cleaning. On the lower parts of the hull there is a solid layer of dirt that takes some effort to remove it. But the Coppercoat is in great shape. No damages, no scratches. A solid layer. On the stern we see some little pocks from barnacles. We will have to re-activate the copper there, to prevent this.

Tom & Marcia from “Bird Song” come to help.

Thanks guys!

The hollow area in front of the rudder is full of mussels! Although the area is painted with Coppercoat, they seem to have a nice quiet area to attach themselves. We remove them and sand the Coppercoat to reactivate the copper.

The seawater inlet is full of mussels, too! We already feared something like that. While cleaning it, some paint gets released from the stainless steel little rod. This will be an opportunity for barnacles to attach… We’ll have to inspect this more frequently…

This is the place where Dione IV was on the cradle when we painted the Coppercoat in Harlingen last year. So, there’s no Coppercoat here. The result is an underwater zoo!

And this the second spot of the cradle. No Coppercoat. Lots of barnacles.

We clean the paddle wheel of the speed meter. That has been stuck for months. There are barnacles inside of it.

We also clean the depth sounder which is on the Port side.

This is another spot to take care of. The paint has released from the bronze bearing. The surface is too smooth. We’ll have to sandblast it when we are on the shore next winter.

After everything has been cleaned we have some time left before the water returns. We decide to do some sanding to reactivate the Coppercoat.

After sanding, the Coppercoat looks great!

The anodes are in good shape. They have corroded some, that means they are doing their job. But not corroded so much that they have to be replaced.

At 1330h, the water returns.

We’ve finished right on time! 🙂

We’re very happy with all the work done and with the result! Dione IV is in perfect shape!

While we wait to be afloat again, we rinse the deck and ourselves. There was a lot of mud and dirt on the platform.

At 1645h, we’re a float and we return to the pontoon.

Improvement on our battery packs.

When we’re driving on unequal roads or cobblestones, our battery cases tend to rattle and sometimes move. We need a better fixation.

First, Wim mounts 2 heavy duty eye-bolts in the cases.

We’ll need a strap. So, our on-board sewing studio quickly makes a loop on a left-over piece of strap. 😀

A carabiner fits that.

The strap goes from the eye-bolt under the scooter’s foot board.

Then, to a stainless steel ratchet. That tensions the case firmly to the foot board.

That looks a lot better!

It hardly needs any other method of strapping but to make really sure, we’ll strap it to seat pedestal (like we did before).

Wim makes a test drive over the cobblestone roads in town and it looks good!

Sher takes out the Sailrite sewing machine and starts her first Sailrite project: make a rain cover for the scooters. She uses the big canvas bag from our old dinghy. It doesn’t fit our new dinghy any more.

First, a little tear has to be repaired.

Patched!

The supermarket Pingo Doce here has lots of fresh herbs!

Cilantro, 2 bunches of Basil, 2 bunches op Parsly and Chives.

That means: one of our very favorite dishes: Ottolenghi’s Iranian herb beignets! With his famous green sauce 😋😋

The Douro wine goes superb with it 🍷🍷

In the morning, Sher is working on the cover for the scooters. Heavy canvas. This monster machine has no problem with that! 👊🏻🙂

In the afternoon, we go for a scooter ride to the other side of the river. We pass the Eiffel bridge and drive over the narrow pedestrian area on the bridge. We have to stop multiple times to let pedestrians pass. This photo is taken on the middle of the bridge.

And a view at Dione IV from the other end of the bridge.

In the Bikemap app, we have set a destination at a beach at the opposite side of the river. This time, we select “smooth ride”. It promises: no cobblestones roads, no unpaved roads. It shows a long detour to the destination but that’s no problem for us as long as it’s scenic and comfortable.

But… after we pass a small village it points to a rocky forest path… We turn back and take another route. We drive though the nice village along nice small roads. But… here they are again: cobblestones! No fun, with our scooters without suspension and shock absorbers. So, we turn around and take another route again.

Oh no! Now the road turns into an sandy track 😩. Again, we turn around and take another route.

Hm. Our next scooters will surely have to be off road models…

But, every time we change the route, we get back on the original route. You can see our ‘dead ends’ on this map of our ride.

Finally, we reach the beach. Regretfully, the last mile is cobblestones again 😩.

Thelma & Louise at the parking near the beach.

A beautiful quiet beach.

There is a nice surf. The swell is still around 2 meters.

Side story:

When you zoom in at this picture, you can vaguely see 3 wind turbines. They are 10 sea miles offshore of Viana do Castelo. These are floating wind turbines. It’s a pilot project that has its base here in Viana: Windfloat Atlantic. We see offshore supply vessels that work on the turbines busy here in the industrial port. Interesting!

No swimming in this surf! 2 guys in orange/yellow suits guard.

A wooden walkway back to Thelma & Louise.

Over the cobblestones road again.

This time we take the shortest road back to Dione IV. Along a busy main road. We see clouds appearing and there’s a forecast for rain showers in the late afternoon.

18km in 2 hours, uphill/downhill. We used 35% od our battery packs when we return at the pontoon.

Back on board, the showers come. Heavy rain. We could have filled our water tanks. We haven’t seen this much rain since Easter, in Ferrol! But, after half an hour, the sun shines again ☀️

When we are in a marina we use our scooters and keep ‘m on the pontoon or in the cockpit. But we like ‘m to be protected from rain. In the past, we used some plastic for it but that blew away in the wind.

And this is how it is now.

Finished her first Sailrite project successfully 😃

The route leads us over the Eiffel bridge, through nice villages. But a lot of villages have cobblestone roads… We have to walk because driving the scooters rattles like crazy. We’re afraid we’ll damage the scooters if we drive like that.

The bike app leads us over a funny detour along unpaved paths. Hm. We try another route and we discover that we would have to get on the highway to cross the next bridge…

So, let’s go back and try. Carefully avoiding holes, rocks, mud pools we proceed.

After a while, we get to a paved road that leads back to the river and the start of the bicycle path. But it was an unexpected long way to get here: one and half hour…

It’s a swampy area.

Cobblestone road again! But not so bad that we have to walk. We drive slowly at the side of the road.

Finally, we reach the river. it’s a gorgeous area.

This is the start of the bicycle path. It’s a hard sandy path. Let’s try.

Hm. After a short while it gets narrow, more sandy and bumpy. This is more for mountain bikes than for scooters… We decide to go back and take another route back to the marina.

Our next scooters definitely have to be off road models!

Grapes!

They look great.

But they taste a bit sour.

We have to follow the same path back along the highway.

Through some anther nice villages. But, wobbely-cobbely…😅

Juniper berries?

The road goes along the river. This is the little port where the fishing boats sit. These guys fish for clams in the river.

A hard sandy road leads back to the bridge.

The long bridge has no bicycle path and a very narrow sidewalk. We tried to drive at this sidewalk because the road has very busy traffic. But passing pedestrians is difficult and scooter driving a bit tricky. One small steering error and you hit the railing with the handle bar or fall on the road…

We see another scooter driving on the main road, with the cars behind him. Let’s do the same! At full throttle (32km/h) we speed over the bridge, with the cars on our tail! 😄