To Portimão

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 are on our way! Bye bye, Lisbon and hello Algarve… well, not yet, but in a few days. We reach Setubal (prounouced “St-U-bal”) At the narrowest point, there’s a fortress. We have the tide against us: 2 knots of current. So, we throttle up Mighty Mitsu to 1400 revs to maintain speed and course.

We finally reach the anchorage where “Antares” and “Bird Song” are already anchored. Nice and protected. We watch while lots of big ships come into the busy part of the port further upstream.

The next day is a beautiful sunrise. Antares is heading for the next port, but we want to spend the day here and visit the winery famous for Moscatel. Dione IV seen from “Bird Song” 🤩

Today, we’ll visit the city of Setúbal and go to wine tasting.

“Bird Song” crew is so kind to pick us up with their dinghy. At the beach, we lock the dinghy to a tree.

At the beach, there’s an old fridge. It’s a library 😂

First, we take a Bolt taxi to the castle on the hill above our anchorage. Gorgeous views! There’s a little chapel in the castle. The walls are completely covered with tiles with all kinds of religious images.

Then, we walk down to the city and walk along the coast through a large park. Everywhere we see art of fish, symbolizing Setúbal’s connection to the sea.

We visit the food market and buy a lot of wonderful fresh stuff.

We wander through the narrow streets of Setúbal and have a delicious lunch in a little Lebanese restaurant.

The main city square with the town hall and main church.

See the cat on the roof? 🐈‍⬛ 🙂

After lunch, we take a Bolt taxi to the winery. It’s an half an hour drive through beautiful landscape.

Arriving at Bacalhoa winery.

This is probably the oldest thing Sher has ever touched. This olive tree is from 300 BC!

Here, they make a Moscatel wine. We thought Moscatel was cheap white sweet stuff… But this is something different! These are very fine aged fortified wines! We are pleasantly surprised by it and buy 3 bottles 😍

After another lovely taxi ride through this beautiful landscape we get back on board at 6 o’clock. What a nice day! What a nice town and a beautiful area! Actually, we love to stay here longer but we have such a nice weather window to sail to the Algarve, we have to move on tomorrow.

The next day, we depart early. At 7 o’clock, before sunrise. We’ll sail to Sines, a 40 nm leg. We don’t want to arrive in the dark (which is after 1700h).

In the “Orca news” we read about an attack yesterday, right behind us. So, they are here… As said before, we don’t worry too much about orca’s, with our sturdy rudder. But we’re not going to challenge them. We avoid the deep canyon where the hunt for tuna but for the rest, we just sail the rumb line, not staying within the 20m contour, dangerously close to the coast like others do.

It’s a fantastic sailing day. We keep having 15-20 knots of wind, broad reach.

At sunset, the town of Sines colors red.

Today, we have a long leg. We go around the south-west corner of Portugal to Sagres. A leg of 65 nm. Again, we don’t want to arrive in the dark. So, we’ll have to leave really early: 6 o’clock. In the dark, we hoist our anchor.

The coastline is really impressive: high and steep cliffs:

We approach Cabo de San Vicente. The wind increases to 20 knots and the waves increase. We do about 7 knots so, good progress!

There’s the cape!

We get a message from Ingo, from the boat “Antares”. They are already in Sagres and Ingo is on the cape. He says: wave! You’re on camera!

Here we go! 🤩

Thank you so much, Ingo, for this great footage! We’ve never seen Dione IV from this perspective. Beautiful!! 😍

Here we go around the cape, rolling in big waves:

We turn around the cape and we are against the wind now. We furl-in the Yankee ans start the engine. Oh no! This anchorage looks horrible! The sea is still completely crazy. We see one yacht anchored but she rolls very bad! We have to continue to the bay of Sagres, which has a breakwater and should be more sheltered (according to “Antares”, they are moored there).

Fighting against the strong wind, current, waves and the last daylight with Mighty Mitsu at 1600 revs we reach the bay. The sea is still too heavy to lower the mizzen and we wait until we’re behind the breakwater. There, it calms down.

Oops, it’s a mooring buoy field of small fishing boats. Impossible to anchor. We pass around “Antares” and they shout: just take an available mooring buoy! It’s Saturday and the fishermen have weekend off! Okay. We pick up a mooring buoy. Now, its almost dark. We’re just in time. This wouldn’t be possible in the dark…

Bloody! There are some fishing traps like plastic crates attached to this mooring buoy and they bump against our hull. Oh…😔 actually, we’re too tired to take care of that…😔 But Sher grabs her last bit of energy and finds a solution. In the pitch black with her head torch on: “Wim, come and help me, I can’t do this alone!” Well, Wim grabs his last bit of energy and together we tie the traps to another line on the mooring, so that they drift away from Dione IV. 🫡🫡

We cook a simple dinner and get into the nest very early!

After breakfast, we decide to move on to Portimão. The buoy we’re using clearly belong to a fishing boat so, we can’t stay here. We wave goodbye to “Antares” and sail out of the little port. There’s no wind and the sea has calmed down completely.

The Captain’s Log [T512, 513,… 516] – the complete story

November 19.

Around 9 o’clock we leave marina Oeiras and turn into the Tagus. One last view at the Lisbon bridge. We feel a bit melancholic, leaving this lovely place after such a long and good time…

There’s almost no wind so Mighty Mitsu is going to push us south.

Around noon, we get a little breeze. We hoist the mainsail but we keep the engine on.

Cabo Espichel comes in sight!

Rounding the cape. Of course, we see lots of gannets! Le Fou du Cape!

The lighthouse on impressive layered rocks.

When we’ve rounded the cape, the cliffs have many caves.

We have an easterly course now and the wind is north. The wind accelerates from the steep coast so we unfurl the Yankee and shut down the engine.

But the wind behind these steep cliffs is completely crazy. The wind changes 240º! And from zero to 25 knots!

We take down the sails and start the engine again when we approach the narrow channel to Setúbal.

At the narrowest point, there’s a fortress. We have the tide against us: 2 knots of current. So, we throttle up Mighty Mitsu to 1400 revs to maintain speed and course.

Setúbal is a big commercial port. Big boys go in and out. Here come another 70,000 cars for Portugal…

Then, we reach the anchorage where “Antares” and “Bird Song” are already anchored.

It’s a lovely and tranquil bay!

And it’s a long time ago that we had such a nice view at the sunset 🤩

November 20.

Let’s start the day with a gorgeous sunrise at 0730h!

Dione IV seen from “Bird Song” 🤩

And seen from “Antares”, before sunrise.

The cliffs color beautifully pink in the early sunshine.

Today, we’ll visit the city of Setúbal and go to wine tasting.

“Bird Song” crew is so kind to pick us up with their dinghy. At the beach, we lock the dinghy to a tree.

See you later, Dione IV!

At the beach, there’s an old fridge. It’s a library 😂

First, we take a Bolt taxi to the castle on the hill above our anchorage.

Gorgeous views!

There’s a little chapel in the castle. The walls are completely covered with tiles with all kinds of religious images.

Then, we walk down to the city and walk along the coast through a large park. Everywhere we see art of fish, symbolizing Setúbal’s connection to the sea.

We visit the food market and buy a lot of wonderful fresh stuff.

We wander through the narrow streets of Setúbal and have a delicious lunch in a little Lebanese restaurant.

The main city square with the town hall and main church.

See the cat on the roof? 🐈‍⬛ 🙂

After lunch, we take a Bolt taxi to the winery. It’s an half an hour drive through beautiful landscape.

Arriving at Bacalhoa winery.

This is probably the oldest thing she ever touched. This olive tree is from 300 BC!

November 21.

Today, we depart early. At 7 o’clock, before sunrise. We’ll sail to Sines, a 40 nm leg. We don’t want to arrive in the dark (which is after 1700h).

When we leave the lovely anchorage there’s 15 knots of wind so we hoist the mizzen sail. There are strong gusts funneling off the cliffs so we decide to wait unfurling the Yankee until we’re off the coast and the wind stabilizes.

We have the ebb current with us so we speed at 7-8 knots through the channel.

After we have left the channel we turn south and while the sun rises we put the spinnaker pole in Yankee because we’ll have a downwind course to Sines.

The weather forecast is great: a bright sunny day and 15-20 knots from the NNE.

There we go! At full speed with 20 knots of wind at our stern. We exceed our hull speed of 8 knots so we reef the Yankee a bit.

In the “Orca news” we read about an attack yesterday, right behind us. So, they are here…

As said before, we don’t worry too much about orca’s, with our sturdy rudder. But we’re not going to challenge them. We avoid the deep canyon where the hunt for tuna but for the rest, we just sail the rumb line, not staying within the 20m contour, dangerously close to the coast like others do.

It’s a fantastic sailing day. We keep having 15-20 knots of wind, broad reach.

When we approach Sines, the wind increases to 25-30 knots. The waves get bigger and bigger (3-4m). We roll heavily.

But once we’ve turned around the breakwater everything calms down.

The anchorage is tranquil!

We’ve done it way faster than expected: it’s only 1400h when we drop anchor 😄

At sunset, the town of Sines colors red.

A layer of salt on the windows 😅

November 22.

Today, we have a long leg. We go around the south-west corner of Portugal to Sagres. A leg of 65 nm. Again, we don’t want to arrive in the dark. So, we’ll have to leave really early: 6 o’clock.

In the dark, we hoist our anchor.

We have 15 knots of wind from the east. That’s a beam reach. We set full sail and head south!

Sunrise at 0730h.

We cross an anchorage for cargo vessels.

During the morning, the wind decreases to only 5 knots. We have to keep speed to arrive before dark so we start the engine and motorsail a couple of hours. Then, the wind shifts to the north and gradually increases again. We put the spinakerpole in Yankee and lower the main. Once we have 15 knots of wind we can maintain 5 knots and turn the engine off. At 1500h, Cabo de San Vicente comes in sight!

The coastline is really impressive: high and steep cliffs:

We approach Cabo de San Vicente. The wind increases to 20 knots and the waves increase. We do about 7 knots so, good progress!

There’s the cape!

We get a message from Ingo, from the boat “Antares”. They are already in Sagres and Ingo is on the cape. He says: wave! You’re on camera!

Here we go! 🤩

Thank you so much, Ingo, for this great footage! We’ve never seen Dione IV from this perspective. Beautiful!! 😍

Here we go around the cape, rolling in big waves:

Then, we head to the next cape. We thought, after Cabo de San Vicente, everything will calm down. But NO! The wind funnels down from the high cliffs and we get gusts up to 32 knots and the sea get completely crazy! Cross swell from 3 directions! We get really shaken up. Sometimes the bowsprit under water. 🫡

Behind us, the sun goes down.

After we have rounded the next cape (Ponta de Sagres), there should be an anchorage.

Oops, it’s a mooring buoy field of small fishing boats. Impossible to anchor. We pass around “Antares” and they shout: just take an available mooring buoy! It’s Saturday and the fishermen have weekend! Okay. We pick up a mooring buoy. Now, its almost dark. We’re just in time. This wouldn’t be possible in the dark…

We cook a simple dinner and get into the nest very early!

We are at the Algarve!! 🥳

November 23.

After a good night’s sleep, we wake up in a sunny bay. Now, we can see where we are…

These are the crates that were bumping against us. There’s a number of them, hanging down in a string. They are very heavy, probably full of crabs or such.

Anyway, we didn’t hear noise last night. Probably we slept very deep…😴😴

After breakfast, we decide to move on to Portimão. The buoy we’re using clearly belong to a fishing boat so, we can’t stay here.

We wave goodbye to “Antares” and sail out of the little port. There’s no wind and the sea has calmed down completely.

We motor over a flat sea along a beautiful coast. High, steep cliffs. Sometimes 200m high, we estimate.

After a very relaxed trip we arrive at Portimão at 1400h.

We anchor in the wide port entrance behind the breakwaters in a large area. There are about 10 other boats anchored and there’s plenty of space. Because we’re in front of a large beach, the sea floor is sand and the anchor holds very well.