Finally.................

February 22nd 2013

Seixal, looking towards Ponte Vasco da Gama - the longest suspension bridge in Europe - 17km

Torre Da Marinha, Seixal, Portugal

If there's an upside to falling off my bike onto the kerb, near the flat we have rented for the winter, thereby having  a temporarily sedentary lifestyle,  it is that I  can no longer ignore requests from those who are interested, to start a blog.  You have been patient with my carefully pasted together Word documents with pictures, but I know that this will be far easier to open and I won't miss people off mailing lists or send them emails which they don't have time to read.

Sheep which are brought to graze beside a local supermarket every day - I don't know where they go back to at night, as it's all quite built up round here!

The current state of affairs is that Stravaigin is on the hard at the Tagus Yacht Centre, Seixal, on the South bank of the Tagus near Lisbon.  Mike's attending to various winter jobs, I'm getting physio, stitching various things and doing on-line study for the Long Range Certificate so we can legally use our Single Side Band radio. Hoping to be back on my bike soon.  Happily the boat is an easy environment with one dodgy leg - always something to grab onto.  So we hope to be back in the water by mid-late April and head for the Algarve .

Although we stopped sooner than planned, which was disappointing, we have enjoyed our time here.  Lisbon's a lovely city, the local market here is good and there's a huge supermarket 5 minutes away.  The fruit & veg are marvellous, but we've had a few unpalatable plates of meat & fish when I didn't really understand what I was buying!  [A Brazilian lady in the yard commented that they tend to kill their meat in the morning and eat it the same night.  But since then, kind locals have told me what to look or ask for]  We find Portuguese the most impenetrable language, but people are so kind and helpful, it's not really a problem.  I stutter a few words in the shops and to our neighbours, while Mike relies totally on expecting people to understand his English - and they seem to!  The yard is 10 minutes away by bike or bus, half an hour's walk [with two good legs].  We've loved having  our daughter Nicola, Mike's sister Addy & husband David and friends Meyrick & Jane to visit.  In the depths of winter, there were still a few other liveaboards about in the yard, and now the days are getting longer, they are returning like swallows to get on with fitting out.   When the sun's out it is already really warm, but we've had some pretty rainy patches too.

This is really just an introduction to see how it all works, being new to Blogdom, so I shall insert a picture of the splendid fancy ropework Mike is doing on our 10'6" boathook  ~  the one which  got us out of trouble when anchored to some fishing gear in 70m of water one night last year.  It's beautifully varnished, so was not the easiest thing for two of us to keep a grip on while Mike detached us from the lines which we were lifting high enough for him to reach while harnessed to the boarding ladder.!