I am the territory. What they say I am, is their map of me.
And what I call myself to myself is, presumably, my map of me.
What 'o where is the territory ??
- R.D. Laing -



Map: ©Microsoft Encarta World Atlas




More Portugal...

I don't really know why I split the story into part1 and part2, I just sometimes do that. This site will never become a "blog" and for the latest additions, you will sometimes have to scroll down the latest page, to see if I've added something down the bottom...tough, ay? But back to Portugal. Part two.

There has been more Portugal in my life that I ever imagined. Leaving Peniche to head south, the temperature was only 11 C. Annina was wrapped under the covers in the aft cabin. I was - once again - dressed in the gear that had become too familiar in the English Channel. I pushed off at 0700, Annina appeared on the deck at 1100, reassured by the sight of me with no shirt on. Yeah, the day turned out ok, though the northerly breeze (not wind) still had a cool feel to it. The 45 miles to Cascais was a bit longer than normal, hence the early start. We like to get to places early, when we still have energy and time to make a good dinner, fire up the BBQ or hit the town before dark.

We arrived at 4pm. The afternoon was lovely and the town of Cascais provided a good achorage. Above the sandy beach, on the wall of a large building a few blocks back, stood a picture of a green elephant and the word Jumbo. This might be a good place for stocking up...

BBQ

I dropped the dinghy, now keeping its air in the floor and pontoons, but still leaking water in through the self-bailing valve. A quick hello to some previously met single handers: Boo, Bruce, Daniel... Back home to fire up the BBQ. I had promised meat patties on the barbie, with mash potato. I managed the mash just fine but a little "oops" with the bread crumbs made the meat patties like a tightly packed cake of saw dust. I was seriously pissed off. My confidence in the galley - once my very own galley - had sunk more than the Nikkei and Dow Jones put together. I felt that I couldn't offer Annina a decent meal any more than an Icelandic bank could offer decent investment advise. And that's not too much to ask.


The crowd kept increasing until we had seven yachts on the beach. All but Aliisa were single handers. There must still be some cave-man in me. Give me fire and meat, and I'll be the cook, yeah! With three charcoal BBQ's, lots of wine and beer, good company, two guitars and a warm evening, the next morning activities were set to be ruined...


While Annina suddenly felt the urge to stay horizontal onboard for the entire next day, I braved the night-before's physical consequenses and headed to town for the final hunt. I would not return without a guitar. On the night at the beach I had a quick play but mostly I was forced to watch others play without being able to join in. I nurtured my stomach with a hearty meal from a well-known Scottish restaurant, Mc..something? and then jumped on the train for the 30min journey to Portugal's capital Lisboa. (It's Lisbon in English...)

After an hour in the city I had turned down a few offers to buy cocaine and a number of opportunities to donate money to some fella sitting, holding a cup. I'm such a bastard. Yeah, I have a donate page in here too, but at least I make an effort to entertain you with some decent-quality shit-dribbling, ay? People pay for books too, you know...

There was no escape from loading another 5 euros on the local travelcard and take another 20min Metro (underground) trip to one of the northern suburbs. To find a fine Spanish guitar, I had to go to a Spanish shop. I'm not real good at bargaining so the best I could do was to look uninterested in buying anything, but interested in the Alhambra C3. Promptly the young eager sales man - fully trained in upselling - gave me the next model (P4) and screwed the price down by almost 50 euros. Just 30 minutes later I walked out as a proud owner of the fourth cheapest Alhambra in a hard case. The five-hour exercise had me playing the first chord at 6pm, back home. The three-year break from playing had taken its toll on my performance though. The 10-year-struggle to learn the complete "Cavatina" was half-wasted - I could only remember half of it and I've lost the sheet music and notation.

Anyone's got the sheet music (with fingering) for Deer Hunter's "Cavatina"? Send to Lauri at Aliisa dot net.

Another month's budget blown. At least I can go and bask on the street, if things get hard. I've done it before, for 1/2 day in Darwin, 1994. The police chased me off because I didn't have a bloody permit for it. But I made AUD $5,50.

Back to Cascais. We were kinda ready to move on, but now that October had slashed the marina costs, we decided to move into a berth for one or two days. Fill watertanks, wash down deck. Straighten and fiddle with the wind vane. Do all laundry - one machine load and two loads by hand. Hang it up to dry. Clean the boat. Pack up the folding bikes. Check oil. Clean rope lockers. And so on.


I sometimes have a fetish of being the closest to the beach. People tend to want to leave lots of water under their keel. That's fine if you have an electric windlass. I have to pull the 10mm chain up myself, so the shallower, the better. Aliisa is left at the backround (middle). Annina and I go out with the dinghy, looking for a good landing near the fishing jetty, Cascais.



When the beach BBQ goes late and the air gets chilly...
Our senior single hander, 70-year-old Bruce, warms his feet against the final glow.



Thanks to some sneezing Portugese in the street, I got the flu. Or maybe it was the long evening with our Norweigian friends
Vilfred, Bodil, Sivert, Kaisa and Frida. (Yacht Yr.)
Funny, that I've found myself feeling jelous whenever they hang out with others than us! Such lovely people!


We had a joint... no, we didn't have a joint, we had a joint dinner with yacht Yr, a Norweigian family we met in Falmouth. They cooked theirs and we cooked ours. The table was full of Mexican / Italian. During the night I noticed a rough feeling in my throat. Home by 0100 and departure at 1000 next morning. Unfortunately I woke up with a flu. The departure was duly cancelled and Ansku ordered me to stay in bed. Bugger! I love sleeping late, but only to gain the necessary energy to stay up 'til morning. For the next five days, there was no energy, no energy for nothing.

...Never saw the morning, until I stayed up all night...
- Tom Waits - (San Diego Serenade, "The Heart of Saturday Night")

I did my best and managed to stay in the boat, behind the laptop, strumming my new guitar... But enough is enough. On the third morning it was time to continue. We'd been in Cascais for a week and during that time I had spent four hours in Lisbon, Ansku none. I was freaking out about the marina cost and our budget. Since leaving Helsinki, we had casually purchased a pair of folding bikes (abeit second hand and cheap) a new Canon digital camera (a must for journalism, ay!), a 1000W inverter (the old one broke) a hand-held VHF (fear is expensive), a fishing rod and trolling reel plus accessories (that's a great investement??), a Spanish Alhambra guitar (food for the soul), a cheap AIS receiver (it's good to sleep during night watch...), plus lived a fairly care-free time through one of the most expensive areas of the world, paying more marina fees in last three months than in the ten years of Aliisa's travels prior to coming to Europe.


Playing a tune is relaxing. Music is art. Art is food for the soul. Healthy soul, healthy body. Does a falling tree make a sound when it falls alone, no-one in hearing distance? Does Lauri G's guitar sound good when he plays alone, no-one in hearing distance?
First question: NO! Second question: MAYBE...


All this sounds too familiar, doesn't it. When I left Australia, half my budget was gone by the time Aliisa had reached Malaysia. I ran out of money in Cape Town. Now half the budget is gone in Portugal. According to my calculations I'll become a busker in Tahiti. At the same time Annina starts to use nothing but coconut in her cooking. ha ha. Where was I? Where did this shit about money come from? Dunno. From my head. Nevermind. We have a little bit income from writing to a magazine and a commercial blog in Finland. Four of the 13 000 readers of this site have paid for the pleasure of reading it. So, nevermind. Cheers for reading my whinge. The point is that money matters and it is a cause of stress and worry. At the same time we must learn how to use what we have and not always buy everything we want.


What can I say? You can make life complicated, if you want to. If you don't know knots, tie lots.
(Sines Marina, Portugal)



LAGOS

Did I say Sines? I think I skipped that. Where was I? Oh yeah, I was lying in bed in Cascais marina, with a flu. I had ordered myself to have some rest. But I don't like taking orders, even from myself. I have a really bad attitude with authoroties and rules. I made a compromise and stayed up, but just sitting in the saloon, playing guitar, surfing the net or something. The fine feeling and loosening cough in the mornings was encouraging. The hot, exhausted feeling with a dry, horrible cough in the afternoons was disappointing. We took off, anyway, and sailed to Sines. Allright, we didn't sail. We motored in dead-calm. Nice try, anyway!

I felt ok in Sines, but pretty crappy again at nights. The continuation of the trip was put on hold again. Bloody boring, I tell ya! After warming the bed for 24 hours straight, it was relatively easy to drag myself up at 2 AM for a 70-mile trip down to Lagos, our last Portugese port. I was weary, but happy to be here. Straight to the local hospital. Incredible public health care: I was in and out in 30 minutes. The doc spoke good english and didn't blink an eye when I asked for a double prescription of whatever he was going to give me. (The other lot for Aliisa's medical chest for future)

"Just buy them from two different pharmacies, so they don't get confused, ok?" - he said, assining me 8 days worth of Ibuprofen, Amoxycillin, nasal spray and cough medicine. I felt better already. A lazy week in Lagos followed. Very little boat work but a fair bit of swetting over the paid writing for Vene Magazine. When very little has happened, it's difficult to make a big deal out of it. I have also become a slob. My belly is increasing in size and I do less and less each day. I managed a little tidy-up, wipe down the engine room (always want to keep the engine room super-clean) and then hosed down and packed up the dinghy. Other than that, just reading through the news on the net. I've developed a real interest in the US election, hoping for a change. I love change, you know.



There are always options in life.

If you are contemplating suicide

because you feel awful by the way you look,

you better walk into this Portugese clinic in Portimao.

The doctor will be able to offer two solutions:

Psychotherapy or plastic surgery.

Either one will fix your problem,

but which one is cheaper?

Just remember,

there's always options.


We got our one week in Lagos for a special price. There was no way I wanted to pay the normal daily rate. I had popped my last amoxicillin and the flu was gone. We took off and made the long, hard voyage 1/4 mile out to anchor. Our newly installed Simrad log showed the water temp, 18C. Not good enough, so there'll be no swimming. Instead, we found still half a bag of charcoal and invited Pete, Sarah and 8yo Thomas over for a BBQ. Chicken, snags, pork, potatos, salad, wine, good company. Rest Saturday. Leave for Morocco Sunday.

Saturday resting was done mostly by looking at different weather forecasts for the passage. A cold front on Tue...40 knots off the Portugese coast and a predicted 6m swell off the shallow sandy beach of Morocco. I grew a little nervous, and a nervous skipper is no good. The decision was quite hard and I beat myself up for being a wuss, but hey, I'm sure there will be enough misery in stock for us. We don't have volunteer for more. We stayed for a rolly night. I mean, an awful rolly night, as the sea breeze brought turned us ass-to-beach and later left us side-on.

We managed to eat dinner without spilling drinks and moved to Portimao the next day. Am I boring you? As I write this, I wonder how many of you are bored to death with this "we came..", "we went...", "we did..", "we stayed.." etc.? It DOES, after all, make the most boring reading on this planet, to read travel blogs that go: "we came... oh yeah... and so on. Excuse me, but nothing happened.

Maybe something will happen soon. Who knows. We're now in the Portimao marina. We've got bus tickets to Seville. Why? Because Jussi, one of my very best friends, one I grew up with - is flying there for a work assignement. I've seen him (and the few other good friends in Finland) about 5 times in the last 15 years. It's worth a 250 km bus trip. Besides, he's going to bring real - I mean REAL - rye bread for us!

In the meantime I suppose perhaps two cold fronts are going to pass and hopefully as the month turns to November, we will have a good run south. We'd like to stop in Morocco on our way to the Canaries. If you have any mail to send us, send it now and send it to:
Please hold for:
Yacht Aliisa
(In transit)
Puerto Deportivo Marina Rubicón
Urbanización Castillo del Águila, s/n
35570 Playa Blanca
Lanzarote, Spain


In the meantime, I'll see if I can fire myself up for some decent writing again... the time will come.


I've seen a few of these now. A definite sign of long-term cruisers that don't really like cruising...




The first on this trip. I was up fast. I'll try again, further south...



Life can be a bit messy too. One brings the signal in and everyone else wants to plug into it.
But that's ok. As long as the signal gets there undisturbed.
Lagos, Portugal.


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