Christmas New Year 2007/08

We had xmas day in Baionna Spain with the English pipe smoking guy Geoff.  It poured and was really windy, and we all huddled in his 26ft boat and enjoyed a bottle of bubbly and a few reds. It was one of the best Xmas days we have had in years despite the close quarters.

Christmas lights in Baionna

He had left the pontoon for the anchorage, and we were supposed to drive over to him in our dinghy, and practiced getting in and driving on Christmas Eve, but to our disappointment, he moved back to the pontoon Christmas morning because of the weather.  Lucky as it would have been a very wet and choppy drive.

We got the sailing instructor (Luis) to help us get to Cascais on the coast near Lisbon. He hoisted the sails as we left the harbour, even though there was very little wind.  We motored until 11pm and then sailed for about 14 hours and lost the wind again, but it gave us our first real go at the sailing thing for real.  We left Boxing Day morning and arrived midnight the 27th.  Luis was a really nice guy and loved cooking and taught me how to make a Spanish tortilla as well as do a bowline, which I still completely forget after 60 seconds.

Matt’s new  $4,000 laptop decided to join the boat and stop working, so we spent a week on the boat calling and waiting for HP to collect it.  By then the Lagoon dealer had re-opened and we spent another 2+ weeks waiting for them to co-ordinate all the repairs.  Being boat bound really starts to get on your nerves, but we did get out a few days and saw the sights of Lisbon and Sintra and the biggest Casino in Europe at Estoril.  We had a fairly quiet New Years Eve watching the fireworks over Cascais and the Marina, and then hit a bar until 4am. 
We had an interesting New Years Day.  The marina said a big wind and swell would come in over the breakwater and asked us to move to a more sheltered spot.  We asked for assistance at 20 knots, and 4 nervous hours later when the wind had got to 30+knots they arrived to help us move.  We were both shaking, but with a dinghy pushing us off the pontoon, we made it around, to be greeted by a very rich Portuguese man who owned a 60” motor yacht (it uses 150 litres of diesel an hour compared to our 5 litres).  He even had ducted vacuuming and a cleaning lady on Fridays!  The wind and rain howled for 3 days, then we moved back to our private (only boat on the pontoon) spot.