Just went through the Straits of Gibraltar!

Semper gumby as they say...the forecast predicted levanter winds to start tomorrow, which makes the Straits of Gibraltar miserable for sail boats.  So instead of a leisurely sail down the Spanish coast, we spent the last two days making a bee-line down the coast and came through the Straits today.  Wow, wow, and double wow. (Triple wow?).  First came the sail down the coast of Spain when through the haze, off in the distance, we first spotted the peaks of the Atlas mountains of Morocco.  I've wanted to see them ever since I was a 20 year old backpacking around Europe with dreams of going to Marrakesh. Then today, as we were flying through the Straits of Gibraltar with 20+ knots of wind, the Rock of Gibraltar came into view.   After John's years of reading Napoleonic war books, to finally see it was awesome and did not disappoint.  Now securely tied up in a marina with a view of the Rock and Morocco out the boat window, we celebrated with the kids' favorite: pizza, peach cobbler and a movie.  

Going 9.4 knots with 28 knots of wind, heading for the

Rock of Gibraltar (behind the mast)

 



Morocco on the other side of the Straits

 

View of Gibraltar from our boat window

in the marina



Reached the southern coast of Portugal

Spent four nights anchored in various bays and harbors along the coast and now we're heading east along the Algarve, the southern coast of Portugal.  Found some good stops where the kids learned more about the Age of Discoveries including Sines, the town where Vasco de Gama was born, and Sangres, with Henry the Navigator's fort.  Sailing weather has been a mixed bag - some motoring, a long day of pea soup fog (thank goodness for AIS and radar), then 25 knot winds and ocean swells all night at anchor.  We've now joined half of Europe on summer vacation on the beaches of the Algarve, but with our dinghy we found some great little secluded beaches among the cliffs.  Another couple stops and then we'll go through the Straits of Gibralter.

Kids let off a little steam after a morning of castles

churches and museums in Sines





Sailing through the fog

Motoring with our dinghy to a beach in the cliffs

 

 

Photos from Lisbon - now heading south

Loved Lisbon, but time to head south down the coast.  Next stop is Sines, the town where Vasco de Gama was born (and where we've heard there's good spear fishing...Hugo is dying to try out the spear gun from our ditch bag...that's the bag that goes with the life raft).  And I have to admit, castles, churches and museums just don't compare with the lure of spear fishing, and we're all ready for a small town.

The past few days we've covered over 7,000 years of history...and what feels like 7,000 miles of walking.  We visited the Moorish Castle of St. George, where we found the cannon mentioned in one of the books we're reading, churches of the Christian Reconquest, a great maritime museum of the Portuguese Age of Discoveries and a monastery with the tomb of Vasco de Gama. We also rented a car and drove to an area with 5,000 BC Neolithic megaliths (big rocks that look like dinosaur eggs) and learned about dolmen, comlechs and menhirs.  The Oceanarium was also a family favorite.  One of our other quests on our trip has been to see the only two remaining wooden frigate museum ships:  the USS Constitution in Boston Massachusetts and the Dom Fernando II e Gloria in Lisbon Portugal.  Incredibly fortunate to have seen them both!



Castle of St. George





Maritime Museum





Tomb of Vasco de Gama in Hieronymites Monastery

Yes, we all had a hard time

keeping a straight face with this one

5,000 BC Megaliths








Lisbon Oceanarium

Ocean sunfish at the Oceanarium, the same kind

of fish we saw after leaving the Chesapeake

Wooden sailing frigate







Arrived in Lisbon, Portugal

We did it!  Finally reached the other side of the Atlantic.  3,400 miles from Annapolis, Maryland, to Lisbon, Portugal, in about 26 days of sailing (2 months total, including the stops in Bermuda, Azores and a 2-week trip back home).   The last leg from the Azores to Lisbon was a rocket ship ride for the first few days and then a flat calm day of motoring.   Caught and ate delicious skipjack and albacore tuna for dinner, but the highlight was hooking a big marlin and watching it leap and flip through the air.  Too bad it got away...would have been quite an adventure getting that thing on board! 

Most memorable moment was flying along at 9+ knots at night, pitch black overcast and moonless night outside and no way to see where ocean turned into sky...felt like we were hurtling through outer space. And as our burly little space capsule charged over the waves in the middle of nowhere...inside I was snuggled up with my kids, watching 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea on the  computer.  Rather surreal.

Hard to believe they're still smiling after two months on the road

with just the family for company.  Let's hope they remember these

days when they're teenagers!



Dophins racing alongside the boat



Skipjack tuna for dinner

Leaving Azores - last photos from Azores

One more day and then we head off on the final 850 nautical miles of our trip across the Atlantic.  Hard to believe the Azores are only 3/4 of the way across the Atlantic. No additional crew to help on the final crossing.  I know lots of folks do it without help but it will be our first multi-night crossing with just our family.  Next post will be in a week or so from Lisbon!

We've loved our time in the Azores - below are our final photos from the four of nine islands that we have visited.  On San Miguel, it was all about volcanoes: we rented a car and went swimming in the geothermal springs, ate cozida, a meal cooked underground by the heat of the ground, and then hiked around the caldera. I was in near hysterics as the kids leaned on the rickety wood stick fences separated them from wildly boiling water and mud, but naturally I was the only one who ended up with a nasty steam burn.  The lack of danger signs and fences makes me wonder if they have any lawyers at all here.  On Santa Maria, we hiked the island from peak to ocean, visiting the church where Christopher Columbus and his crew attended mass on their return trip from America in 1493.  The highlight for the kids were the "Dr. Seuss trees" (blooming agave plants) and the perfect demonstration of how Portuguese and Spanish explorers helped spread plants around the world.  

mineral spings at Terra Nostra gardens

Boiling water and steam everywhere

little wood fence and boiling mud

food buried underground to cook

hiking the caldera

statue of Christopher Columbus across from church
he visited in 1493

typical Azorean town

Back from our trip to the US - still in Azores

Just spent two weeks in the U.S. seeing our families- couldn't miss the annual Maine Day family "Christmas in July" and my mom's 70th birthday celebration in Wisconsin - and have returned to the Azores with many great memories as well as our lovely old lady cat.  I'm sure she misses her time in Wisconsin with my parents, lying in the grass and dreaming of hunting the baby chickens (good thing she's too old to actually do it), but we love having her back with our family.  Today we sailed to Santa Maria, our last Azores Island, and in a few days we will start the long crossing to mainland Portugal.