Saturday 6th September 2008, day 49. 41° 19’.90 N, 008° 49’.72 W. On passage to Leixões.
The storm came through, all right, but apart from ripping the end off our Spanish courtesy flag, did no damage, though we all three were up several times, woken by a change in the note of the wind, or the grating sound as Tomia was swept to the end of her anchor scope, before bouncing back into the teeth of another gust. Today the storm is tearing up the English Channel, causing floods and rain storms. So to anybody in England who thinks we’ve escaped the terrible summer – we’ve had it just like you, just a couple of days earlier.
Richard has asked that I stop singing his praises as chief tidier, washer-up and polisher, as he is modest, self-effacing sort of a chap. Here is a criticism to balance things out – he has read this blog thoroughly, and as a result, we cannot tell him about our adventures, because he knows everything already!
During the course of yesterday we passed from Spanish to Portuguese waters. In Viana do Castelo, last night’s stop, we found we had become more Spanish than we realised over the past month; setting out for supper at 10.30, a time that would find restaurants a scant 20 miles to the north in full swing, we found ourselves the last guests, with waiters sweeping up around us as we ate pudding. Now I have to shake all the Spanish vocabulary out, and start replacing it agora mesmo with Portuguese.
