Yacht Cara Mara 2015: 17th to 23rd Sept, Figueira da Foz to Lisbon

Our enforced stay in Figueira da Foz meant we had time to take the train to Coimbra, home of Portugal's oldest university, in fact until the 20th century, the only university in the Portuguese speaking world.
The storm and resultant biggish seas had all cleared away by the 18th, so we set off 35 miles south down the coast to Nazare, in sunshine and with a perfect sailing wind. we were joined by 8-10 dolphins, who circled Cara Mara for nearly half an hour giving us the best show of synchronised swimming and jumping we have ever seen, it was absolutely magical.
Nazare is in a unique location, where the Atlantic trench almost touches the coast in a narrow canyon. As a result the depth of water is 20M on one side of a headland and over 1000M on the other. In the winter, with strong westerly wind this gives rise to waves of up to 30M. We walked out to the old fortress on the headland, where you can watch a film of an American surfer out on these monster waves. The man is obviously completely mad.
On the 20th we set off for Peniche, via a short stop on a mooring off the Illa Berlinga, unfortunately is was a bit too windy and exposed to stay the night.
The weather has at last settled into clear sky's sunshine, so on the 22nd we enjoyed our last long sail of the summer, 45 miles from Cascais, only 15 miles from Lisbon, the end of our trip. It was a brilliant sail, made more enjoyable by a close fought and very unofficial "race" with another yacht who set off from Peniche ahead of us. They did narrowly win, but only because they went much closer to 2 headlands than Dave was prepared to go.
Today we sailed up river through Lisbon, to a marina where we will stay until next week, when we take Cara Mara to the boatyard where she will spend the winter,