Our arrival in Porto (#5)

After an exhausting night, the last one of our sailing trip in the Bay of Biscay, we were very happy to arrive at Porto. Only a few more stressful moments and we were ready to relax for a few days.

The arrival at the marina …

This was the first time we arrived at a marina with our boat. A marina we hadn’t been at before, so we didn’t know where to go and on which side we would have to dock the boat. I had practised all the necessary knots to attach the fenders and mooring lines but it’s always a little trickier when you have to do it fast and under a little stress. I dropped one fender… oooops. It was later recovered by the helpful Marina staff. They also assisted us with tying up the boat so all in all the docking went smoothly. Another first we could cross of our list.

While Sven went to check-in at the harbormaster’s office, the kids and I started with the cleanup and when Sven was back we scrubbed the deck together. The rest of the day we just relaxed on the boat, took a nap, made some food, enjoyed the sunset and watched a movie.

The neighbourhood ...

We woke up early the next morning and went out to explore the neighbourhood. The nearest little town was São Pedro de Afurada which we could easily go to on foot. We were told there was a superb little bakery (Padaria 1° Maio) so that’s where we had breakfast. We strolled around this little Portuguese town with its typical houses with tiled facades and later had lunch at one of the local grill restaurants, called Taberna São Pedro.

There wasn’t really a supermarket in this neighbourhood, only a daily fruit and vegetable market where they obviously didn’t charge the same prices for tourists as for the locals. So we went to the nearest supermarket on foot, which turned out to be a little more difficult than we thought. If you have ever been to Porto you know how steep the streets can be. And if there is a sidewalk along the road, it is made of cobblestones, which our little pull wagon does not like. So we went on foot the first three times but later we decided to make things a little easier by taking an Uber.

The visit to Porto and port tasting ...

We had travelled to Portugal many times before with our camper but we never stayed this far north so this was our first time visiting Porto and I knew we were gonna love it since we are big fans of the port wine. Instead of taking a taxi to the city centre, we tried going with our own taxi boat, we took our dinghy to go upriver and see if we could leave it somewhere near the centre. We got permission to tie up our dinghy at the taxi dock, which was right where we needed to be. What a perfect, private parking spot in the centre of Portugal. By the way, the view over the city and the famous Ponte Luis I seen from the water is magnificent, especially by night. The first thing we did in Porto was strolling along the boulevard along the river Douro and look for a nice terrace to taste some port. It was a wonderful, sunny afternoon.

A few days later we got to enjoy another port tasting and tour at Churchill’s wine company, this was offered to us by Douro Marina. On the tour, we were given an introduction to port and the Douro Valley, and we were taken through the port aging process – from large vat Reserve and LBV tanks to the private vintage cellar. The tour ended with a port tasting overlooking the Douro River.

The first maintenance ...

It was time for the first maintenance on our boat, already… The Yanmar engines needed an oil change after their first 50 hours. During this maintenance a first defect became visible. There was a problem with the sail drive of our starboard engine, the engine oil was milky which means water and oil got mixed up. We heard a lot of different theories from a lot of different people about the cause of this problem. We hoped for the best but we assumed we’d caught a fishing line along the way, which damaged the rubber seal. Sven ordered spare parts online and our plan was to beach the boat and do the repairing ourselves. Beaching the boat… a common thing to do with a catamaran but not something I was looking forward too. Unfortunately, the tide did not allow us to beach at that time. So we made an appointment at the port of Portimão (the South of Portugal) to haul out our boat later. First we would have to wait for the spare parts to arrive and a favourable weather window to sail south.

The fellow sailors ...

While staying at Douro Marina we met many fellow sailors, we had some entertaining evenings together with some drinks and great stories. It is very useful for us as inexperienced sailors to share experiences with colleagues and especially to learn from the seasoned navigators. And we got to practise our french ;-)

It is amazing how open and helpful everyone is, I love the sailing community!

Due to the trouble with the sail drive and a storm that would pass over Porto later we had to stay a lot longer than we anticipated. A few days of relaxing in Porto became almost 3 weeks. But we had a great time there.

Read all about the rest of our stay in Porto next week. Stay tuned for our first anchoring experience and my unintended jump of the boat.

If you want to receive a notification when a new post is online or want to leave a comment, please log in on the top of the page (bottom of the page for mobile users).

Follow the adventures of some of our new friends:

s/v OaOaTimka: https://www.instagram.com/lamissaurore_autourdumonde/

s/v Zebulon: https://www.instagram.com/zebulonaventure/

s/v Ystafell: https://ystafell.wordpress.com/