NAZARE TO PENICHE 3rd August

Leaving NAZARE was perfect. Sea was calm and there was a gentle breeze. We had already talked to the captain of the Belgium yacht that was with us in Nazare to loosely agree that we could 'raft' against each other if the need arose in the port of PENICHE. We had read that mooring space was limitedso people  'raft'.

As we entered PENICHE there was room on the pontoon and we moored successfully. We were greeted by enthusiastic crew from a Norwegiam boat and from a Dutch boat called 'racing turtle'. Great jokes about our flag and I lent the Norwegians my electrical cable so that they could hook up to shore power.

Our visit to this port coincided with a 'fiesta'. We had hoped that these were typical of the Spanish and no one else would be crazy enough. However this was one hell of a fiesta and had been in action for several days already. Festivities included loud live musical at the harbour until 04.00 in the morning interrupted only for extensive and very loud fireworks at 02.00 in the morning.

We had already endured the most awful rough conditions caused by the many fishing and transport boats motoring past the pontoons (within a few meters sometimes). Our yachts were rolling and pitching to a dangerous extent. Apparently this harbour is well know for this.

Then just to completely ruin our visit a Dutch yacht wanted to raft against us without adequate fenders. By the time we convinced him that he couldn't ( too rough for rafting, and we were leaving early next day) he had severely scratched the gelcoat on the side of our hull. No 'sorry' uttered and of course no offer to pay to repair the damage, and their yacht was probably valued in the millions of Euro.