Anchoring in the heart of Porto (#6)

During our first days in Porto, the weather was great, not always hot but mostly sunny. We spent a lot of time outside, visiting the city and tasting Portwine as you read in our previous blog post.

One day the weather even allowed us to go to the beach and swim, we enjoyed it a lot. We took the dinghy to the small beach at the beginning of the Douro river, and we had the place all to ourselves. We enjoyed a small picnic and the kids had fun playing in the sand and water. It was a lovely day.

The big splash …

Whenever we were on the boat we were doing chores like cleaning, tidying up, taking out the garbage, doing laundry,…

It was on a Tuesday morning that I was hanging the laundry outside and the kids were going to take out the trash. Due to the wind, the boat was moving sideways which made it hard for Sky to step onto the pontoon, so when he called for me I hurried over there to take over the garbage bag from him and help him across the gap.

And that’s when it happened… I don’t know exactely how… but all of a sudden I was in the water.

I managed to keep my head above water while falling and quickly swim to the back so I wouldn’t get squeezed between the boat and the pontoon. While I was trying to climb out Sky was crying in panic, causing Sven to come and see what all the commotion was about. He quickly helped me out of the water, pulling my arms and legs until I was flat on my belly on the pontoon, all wet and covered in green algae. I couldn’t stop laughing thinking of how this must have looked. Turns out it’s even funnier to fall in the water yourself than to watch funny videos of other people fall. Too bad for you guys there isn’t any footage of me in the water, but you will be able to see me all wet after the fall in one of our future YouTube videos.

I figured someone would fall in the water sooner or later, but I never thought I would be the first one. Anyway, I didn’t get hurt so except for me bursting into laughter all day everything was forgotten after a hot shower.

But, I am a lot more careful when stepping off the boat ever since.

The first time anchoring ...

By the end of the week, the weather deteriorated and a storm was heading our way.

We didn’t want to take any risk and didn’t want our trip to the South of Portugal to be too unpleasant so we stayed until we were sure the weather was favourable for us. About half of the other sailboats heading south took their chances and left but we stayed in Porto along with some of the others. During the heavy weather, it was very unpleasant to stay in the marina, the boat rocked against the pontoon the entire time, which caused a lot of unpleasant noises and movement on the boat. Sleeping became almost impossible, so we decided to anchor next to the Marina. It was the first time we were going to anchor our boat. The anchoring itself isn't very hard but choosing the right spot is, not to close to neighbouring boats and considering the wind direction, the tide and the swing of the boat. We put on an anchor alarm to be sure and although we woke up a few times to check if we weren’t dragging, we slept a lot better than the previous nights at the Marina. And the view in the evening was magnificent.

The anchorage in the heart of Porto ...

It was a lot quieter out of the marina but there was still a lot of movement on the boat due to the incoming waves from the sea. That’s why we decided to follow our friends on s/v Ystafell to an anchorage upriver in the centre of Porto. What an experience! We had to sail up the Douro river and under the famous Maria Pia bridge (designed by Théophile Seyrig and built by G. Eiffel & Cie.) It was exciting and also a bit thrilling to sail under the bridge, of course we knew the bridge was high enough, but from underneath it looked like we didn’t have much space left.

And then anchoring on the river, with a high wall on one side and the fairway on the other we had to anchor at the exact right spot, not easy with the current at that moment so we had to try several times. Thankfully Francois (from Ystafell) came on board to give us some advice. I was especially worried about hitting the wall, so I slept with one eye open and was very surprised when our boat turned during the night because of the changing tide. We did not think it would have an influence up the river. But we anchored well so all was safe. The next days were amazing. The view from our boat was wonderful and we were so close to the city that we were at our private dinghy parking in just a few minutes.

As the weather cleared we had a few fun days in the historical centre of Porto. We strolled through the steep streets of Porto and walked all the way up to the Cathedral, the views are beautiful up there. We visited the market and had a hot chocolate (with Portwine for us grownups) at the best Chocolateria (das Flores) in Porto. We also tried a new drink, Porto tonic, together with our friends.

And we visited Liam’s favourite place ‘Livraria Lello’ one of the most emblematic bookshops in the world.

We had only planned for a quick stop in Porto, which turned out to be 17 unforgettable days. But as soon as the weather was favourable we left for the South, another storm would follow and we needed to be in Portimão to get our saildrives repaired.

Two days before our departure we went to Foz do Douro to watch the giant waves at sea, slamming into the lighthouse.

And while we waited for the final part of the storm to pass we stocked up on some delicious Portwine and the typical Portuguese sardines before leaving on our 3 day trip to Portimão in the South of Portugal.

Read all about our trip to Portimão next week.

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