Part IV POREXIT - To leave or remain, that was the question

I love the peace and tranquility of evening & night watches - best thinking time

'Never start a speech or a report with an excuse' my mentor John Arthur taught me. So I won't. I'll put it at the end instead

I sailed from Lymington with just the skipper Chris and Alastair, a very experienced deck-hand who was acclimatising himself to the relative creature comforts of cruising, after many years of serious ocean racing. Our trip took 5 days and eleven hours, 33 minutes and 12 seconds to travel from Lymington to Cascais; we motored for all but three of those hours, burning more than £1,000 of diesel. For the first 36 hours we had 25kt winds on the nose ( boats can't sail with wind on the nose) with choppy seas, then the wind shifted around to behind us, but not enough to push Salamander's bulky 33 tonnes at more than 4kts. She's definetely built for comfort not speed, a total contrast from the Discovery 55. The last three days across Biscay and all the way to Cascais were mainly sunny with very well-behaved seas.  

It was around 3pm on Wednesday afternoon that the wind suddenly picked up to 20kts and finally, finally we unfurled the genny and sailed. After about half an hour I asked the skipper if I could take the helm. Within a few minutes I had the feel of the hydraulic wheel drive and proceeded to sail right on the limit for about 45 minutes, only losing the wind from the genny once. My late friend Dennis once told me that I was a natural helmsman; the other two were watching my every move, they were silenced by my almost faultless stint. Nice to know that somethings you don't lose with age. 👌 Best 45 minutes of the trip by far - just loved it...

I cast out a spinner behind the boat and sat back against the pushpit soaking up the sun with the line stretched across my finger. After an hour or so of nothing, I wound in the 80 metres of line only to find that I'd forgotten to put a swivel in front of the spinner. Any fish unfortunate enough to have been hooked would have had been completely disey by the the time it was landed. There must have been 10,000 twists in the line - what a plonker.

Porky enjoying some R&R with a fruitless attempt at fishing

So cooking was generally easy and very enjoyable with just one exception. Preparing a Thai green chicken curry on Sunday evening with the boat rolling +/-25 degrees from side to side was tricky. But when the pan handle swung around to face backwards, it caught under the cupboard behind the cooker and when the gimbled cooker swung back up, the entire contents were thrown against the cupboard sliding down behind the cooker.

The air in the galley was now blue aswell as hot. It took me two hours to clear up the mess and my shipmates had to dine on cheese and crackers for supper 😂😂😂 what a shame...

So why am I still in Cascais on Saturday evening you may be asking yourselves? 

It would be completely wrong for me to make any critiscm of our skipper on this public forum, so I will not. But to quote Popeye "I can't stands no more."

Once I knew that there was an additional crew member joining the boat in Cascais, I made up my mind that none of my criteria for sailing had been met so I was leaving (adventure, fun and achievement).

Any guesses what my left hand is pointing at?  Yep, right first time - more bereshit

I packed my bag early on Friday morning and said Bon Voyage... I was free to find a more compatible boat and crew. Having checked-in to a lovely hotel on the waterfront, I've been placing my pre-prepared posters around the marina and it's bars and restaurants. I'm going to give it a few days here before deciding what I'll do next. One thing I won't be doing, is jumping on the first opportunity that pops up without doing even more homework.

I've been enjoying the charms of Cascais, soaking up some sun AND watching the rugby - wicked!

I'll post my progress on finding another boat on Tuesday, meanwhile wallow in that magnificent performance today by our boys in white!

And finally, I've spent 2 hours trying to transfer video clips from my phone to my laptop without success. I've tried to edit my draft post from my phone to upload the clips but all to no avail I'm afraid. Actually, I look rougher than a badger's underpants in the clips so no worries... but sorry no video clips until I've grown a few more brain cells.