Porto!!!! ❤️

We depart at first daylight from Viana do Castelo. There is almost no wind, so we are motoring… but we both love the hearty sound of the Marvelous Mighty Mitsu engine as she powers us along.

Then, coffee time with a fresh Pastel de Nata! This is sailing in Portugal, folks!

When we get close to Porto, the swell increases and we decide to do full safety preparations for entering the harbor in case it gets tricky. We put on our foul-weather jackets, deck vests (personal flotation devices) with life lines hooked in. We close and batten down the companionway. Like this, we can handle any sea. 👊🏻🌊 But all is calm and we have arrived!!!!

We anchor in a shallow bay by the marina and admire the first bridge over the Douro river. An hour later, the boat “Bird Song” arrives.

“Bird Song” sends us this gorgeous photo: Dione IV at sunset.

There’s the famous steel Luis I bridge connecting the old city of Porto to Gaia, where the port cellars are… simply iconic!

After that, it’s time to taste Port! We tasted a 10-year old white and 10 year tawny, then a 20-year old white and tawny.

We knew this already… his 10-year old white is our favorite there. We buy 3 bottles and “Bird Song” bought one as well.

We have a moon eclipse tonight! Just after the moon rises over the hills at 2015h. Not a full moon eclipse in this area but still, beautiful.

Time for our next tour (10am!) and tasting. We go to Ferreira, one of the few port houses that have been entirely owned by Portuguese families. It was a bit touristic, but we expected that, and we enjoyed the tasting afterwards! We had 2 white, two ruby, and two tawny. A lot of port before lunch. We were a bit tipsy. 🙂

And then, it comes to tasting!

There’s a beautiful tasting room.

Of course we have to buy a number of bottles. Who cares about Dione IV’s waterline? 😂 We spend a fortune, but this is liquid gold and we will enjoy every drop!

We take the little ferry to the opposite side of the river and plan to take the little tram from there, into the city. We wait at the tram stop and after a while the tram shows up. But, bummer! It doesn’t stop! Hm. Well, let’s take a taxi then…

After we have our delicious Pastel de Nata we walk over the bridge to the the other side of the river, to Dos Corvos. The Swiss couple take the tour and after that, it’s time taste some Port! The 20 year white is still our favorite!

Downhill on the way back, we drive to the Douro, then stop for lunch at our favorite, the Pregar cafe.

Another day, we visit Kopke and Vasconcellos with Annet & Rainier. They enjoy Port wine almost as much as we do!

We buy a bottle of Colheta White 2011 at Kopke and 4 bottles of our favorite 10-year old from Vasconcellos. The port wine cellar on board is filling up!

As the sun rises behind us, we sail out of the Douro with a big current on our stern. The Douro spits us out with a speed of 7-8 knots as if to say: you have been here long enough, onward you two! 😄

We depart at first daylight from Viana do Castelo. We want to be in Porto around 1400h, just before high tide because the entrance is a river with a strong current (4 knots). There’s a forecast for 2m swell and we don’t want this current against the swell, that could cause dangerously breaking waves. It’s 36 sea miles, so about 7 hours at an average speed of 5 knots.

At 0645h we exit the port. There is a bigger swell than forecasted, about 3-4 meters. But it’s a long swell, making Dione IV roll slowly but heavily. We lower the center board to stabilize her.

At 0715h, the sun rises. There’s almost no wind so Mighty Mitsu pushes us forward, easy thumping (good rhythmic, healthy engine sound).

Wim: “I love the sound of this engine. From the very first moment of the very first starting after I installed him. I love the steady and balanced sound of 6-cylinders. And especially this Mitsubishi with his long stroke. He always sounds easy and quiet but powerful. As if he has nothing to do. While he’s pushing our 24 tons through the water with a speed of 5 knots…”. Sher heartily agrees!

We hoist the mizzen to stabilize Dione IV a bit more in the swell.

Coffee time with a fresh Pastel de Nata! This is sailing in Portugal, folks!

We are testing our new PY-Pilot again. It performs well. We are surprised about it’s efficiency: 3-4 watts of energy consumption only!

We are pleasantly surprised by our clean hull and prop: at 1200 revs, we have a speed of 5.7 knots (was 5) and a diesel consumption of 2.6L/h (was 3.0) 😊

We pass the port of Leixeos. The swell increases here to about 4 meters. Hm. Porto is only 4 sea miles and rounding the wave breaker (we will have the swell on our side beam), it might get pretty wild in these waves…

We decide to do full safety preparations. We put on our foul-weather jackets, deck vests (personal floatation devices) with life lines hooked in. We close and batten down the companionway. Like this, we can handle any sea. 👊🏻🌊

But when we approach the Douro entrance, the swell decreases a lot and it looks pretty calm!

We round the northern wave breaker.

We see the swell break on the breakwaters but the entrance itself stays pretty calm. We surf slightly on the swell but Dione IV holds her course smooth… like baby.

At 1340h, we drop our anchor in the shallow bay. It holds perfect.

Yay! We are in Porto! 🥳

An hour later, “Bird Song” arrives. They left a little later from Viana.

In the late afternoon, Sher has an anchor-Port and Wim an anchor-beer and at dinner a Douro wine, of course! 🥂

We are so happy to be here!

We are treated to a wonderful sunset!

We have a relaxed day, enjoying the beautiful surroundings.

In the afternoon, we take a dinghy ride to see where we can leave the dinghy when we go into the city. In the marina they charge 16 euro’s for leaving your dinghy at their dinghy dock for half a day! So, we find a cheaper solution: at a dock near the fishing harbor.

After lunch, we dinghy to the dock, together with Tom & Marcia from “Bird Song”.

We lock our dinghy, motor and battery pack with a chain to the dock.

Then, it’s a 4km walk to the city. A beautiful walkway along the river.

There’s the famous steel Luis I bridge.

We pass by the Port wine houses and stop at Vasconcellos. Sher has been here multiple times and knows Jorge from past visits (and purchases). We visited him last year when we were here in February. We ask when it would suit to do a tour and a tasting, somewhere in the next days perhaps? Jorge says: today! Now!

After that, it’s time to taste Port!

Cheers!

We taste a 10-year old white, a 20-year old white and a 20-year old red (tawny).

We knew this already: his 10-year old white is our favorite. We buy 3 bottles and Bird Songs bought one.

After a stroll around the very crowded quay it’s time to walk back to the dinghies and back to Dione IV. She’s in good order, after we left her alone for half a day.

Wim has been worried a bit. The Spanish SIM-card in our router stopped working yesterday. So there’s no internet connection on board and thus, the cameras are not working. Leaving Dione IV without being able to monitor her doesn’t feel comfortable… Even though we know the anchor holds well. There’s a strong current that reverses with the tide. So the anchor has to turn 180º every time. It hasn’t been a problem up until now, but you just never know… Of course we realize we can’t do anything from here, a 4 km walk away, but it’s just peace of mind to see on the cameras that the boat is all right.

We have a moon eclipse tonight! Just after the moon rises over the hills at 2015h. Not a full moon eclipse in this area but still, beautiful.

At 2100h, the moon eclipse is over.

At 0900h we leave the dinghy’s on the beach near our anchorage and walk the 4km to the city. Tom & Marcia from “Bird Song” join us.

For comparison, we buy a taste of their 10-year old white. It’s okay, but Vaconcellos is much more to our taste.

But we enjoy the tasting a lot!

We cross the bridge and have lunch at a wonderful little cafe called Pregars.

Castro is next door, for dessert…

Yummiiii!

But the road consists of very rough cobblestones. We decide not to challenge the poor lady in her Tesla any further and walk the rest of the way! Besides that, her car’s battery is almost empty 😱

And then, it comes to tasting!

There’s a beautiful tasting room.

First, we have to taste one of his white table wines.

Delicious!

But we can’t wait to taste the Port wines!

Of course we have to buy a number of bottles. Who cares about Dione IV’s waterline? 😂 We spend a fortune but this is liquid gold!

Then, we take the train back to Porto. A 2 hour train ride along the river with gorgeous views!

An easy day. Sher does some sewing on her Pfaff and Wim is still occupied with the ship registration guys in the Netherlands to get our tonnage certificate changed.

We decide to stay in the marina. We have a reservation for next week because we’ll fly to the Netherlands for the wedding of Wim’s daughter Dione (Dione II, actually). So, we ask at the marina about the possibility to stay until then. No problem.

There’s a lovely open fresh market here. Sher buys some delicious Aubergines and very fresh Cilantro. We make our favorite Ottolenghi Parmigiano 😋

While Sher visits a fabric store in the city with Marcia, Wim relocates the WiFi antennas from the router. They were in the lazarette, next to the router. But we had a lousy WiFi reception in the cockpit because the 5GHz signal was shielded too much by the steel. So we had to switch to 2GHz, which suffers less from shielding. But that was a much slower connection. Now, the antennas are next to the window and we have good 5GHz reception everywhere: 300-500 Mbps.

Still discussing with the ships registry. On the certificate, the length of the boat appears to be wrong, too: it says 13,25m, which is the length overall (including the bowsprit) but it should be the length of the hull. Which is 12,29m. The clerk at the registry emails: the ship has to be re-measured to change that. Please come to Rotterdam with the boat. No, we are not going to do that! So, Wim has to convince them it should be done in another way: They physically measured the boat in 2010 and by that time, the bowsprit wasn’t there yet (that came in 2013, with the rigging). So, for sure, the hull was measured: 12,29m. Wim has photo’s of that visit to prove it! Here’s the officer chiseling the registration mark in the cockpit edge on June 5, 2010 at 11 o’clock in Spaarndam, The Netherlands. They should have that in their archives! It is a mystery how the 13,25m got into the certificate.

Also, Dick Koopmans will be able to declare that the boat was built exactly according his drawings. Dick made the 1:1 plots for the steel plates himself and he visited the boat multiple times during construction of the hull.

Let’s wait their answer…

Another issue is changing the engine data. On the certificate, there’s the previous engine and that has to be changed to the new engine (which was installed in 2022). Luckily, this can be done by the form, without sailing to Rotterdam and back 😅. The engine number is on a sticker on the cylinder head cover. But that’s not good enough, they say. It should be on the engine block somewhere… Well, it takes Wim half a day to find it but there it is: in tiny characters on the bottom of the crank case…

Tonnage certificate story to be continued…

A scooter ride along the coast south of Porto.

We drive a long way (12km) along a nice bicycle path along the coast. The view doesn’t change: a boulevard. On the left, expensive houses with sea view, on the right, beach clubs, restaurants and bars and the beach and the ocean of course.

We decide to try an inland route back but every time, we get back to the sea again 😄. It seems to be the only way for scooters.

Well, finally we cross through the big suburbs of Porto, back to the marina. Not really beautiful but nice to see.

Sher has made an appointment to meet an old cruising friend. They are from Switzerland and they visit Porto. We’ll meet at Castro for a Pastel de Nata and then go to taste port.

We take the little ferry to the opposite side of the river and plan to take the little tram from there, into the city. We wait at the tram stop and after a while the tram shows up. But, bummer! It doesn’t stop! Hm. Well, let’s take a taxi then…

After we have our delicious Pastel de Nata we walk over the bridge to the the other side of the river, to Dos Corvos. The Swiss couple take the tour and after that, it’s time taste some Port!

We taste a number of different Port wines but it’s clear that our favorite one is still the 20-year old White!

Enjoying 😊

We buy 10 bottles to fill up our stock 🙂 and we walk the 4km back to the marina with a heavy back pack.

We dream about when we will open the last one of these… Where will we be by then? Maybe somewhere in the Pacific?? (Sher says, “no way! these will be long gone by then! We may need to restock before we cross the Atlantic even!)

Every now and then we stop to enjoy the view.

We have coffee and a not-so-good Pastel de Nata in a little restaurant near the marina do Freixo.

This is where the bicycle path starts. Regretfully, it’s cobblestones 😕.

We decide to take another route. A foot/bicycle path along a little river called Rio Tinto, upstream, from the Douro.

We drive through lovely parks, small villages and valleys.

Sometimes we drive along wooden bridges. We keep following the little river.

Then we arrive at the origin of the river, in a village. Here, the path ends.

We return along the same path.

Sher crosses to the opposite side to pick some figs.

Downhill, we drive back to the Douro.

Then, back to the old town of Porto for a lunch in our favorite cafe, Pregar. It’s hot in the city!

And for dessert, of course, a fresh Pastel de Nata!

Today, we visit Kopke and Vasconcellos with Annet & Rainier. They enjoy Port wine almost as much as we do!

We buy a bottle of Colheta White 2011 at Kopke and 4 bottles of our favorite 10-year old Vasconcellos.

Annet & Rainier buy some great bottles for themselves.

After that, we have some tapas and another tasting of Port at a little bar.

What a lovely afternoon!

Almost back home! At our descent to Porto airport, we fly over the marina. Dione IV is still there! When you zoom in on this picture, you can see the rear part of her stern in the circle!

2 Orca interactions today, just north of us. The Orca’s are waiting for us to come out of Porto!

After lunch, we depart from the marina. We’ve decided to stay our last night in Porto at anchor.

Bye-bye Douro marina!

We anchor at the same spot where we were before.

After a quiet night at the anchorage, we depart early (0730h). There’s a 15kn breeze from the east. That will be a beam reach for us so, top speed. If we can maintain a speed of at least 6 knots we could reach Figueira de Foz before it gets dark (64 sea miles). Let’s try. Else, we will stop at Aveiro.

As the sun rises behind us, we sail out of the Douro with a big current on our stern. The Douro spits us out with a speed of 7-8 knots as if to say: you have been here long enough, onwards! 😄

Ha, you think Sher and Wim and their friends were the only ones tasting port wine in Porto? Noooo…. There’s always a little drop or two left in the bottom of the bottle, and an industrious little badger can get the last of it!