1984 (11) – Where Are We??

Vilamoura to Gibraltar (lower left, on the map)

To go to the beginning of this book, Tropic Moon: Memories, click HERE.

I was saying goodbye to someone at Vilamoura, when she wished me a safe trip.  I replied, "No big deal!  It’s only 150 miles to Gibraltar.  We'll leave at 6 o'clock tomorrow morning, and reach Gibraltar sometime the following day."  With those foolhardy, remarkably overconfident words, we began what was to be one of our stranger passages.  We did get off at 6:30 a.m. after a stop to clear Customs to leave Portugal.  From the chart, we could see that the Portuguese and Spanish coasts curved inward, so we decided on the shortcut of going "offshore" and crossing the open water in a direct line to the Strait of Gibraltar. 

There was no wind to speak of; we motored all day and into the night.  We had decided on three-hour watches for the night.  I came on at 10:00 p.m. to stand watch until 1:00 a.m.  We had been motoring southeast, but now we turned more eastward.  Ed told me I should pick up the lighthouse at Trafalgar on my watch.  About an hour later I felt I was in a bit of trouble, with a lighthouse on my left, and a ship bearing down on me from the right.  I called Ed, as I tended to panic when a ship was coming at me.  Together we took evasive action to avoid being hit by what turned out to be a large fishing boat heading north along the coast.

I told Ed, "Well, I found the lighthouse."  We looked over the chart to see what would be coming along next.  Ed said I'd be seeing lights along the coast (houses), and to just keep on picking up the lighthouses, and to keep all land on my left.  Then he went back to bed.  Shore lights gradually appeared.  It seemed that I was veering off more to the south than I had expected.  The depth sounder was on, so I knew I was still in deep water.  I passed another lighthouse, then picked up yet another off to my right.  Looking ahead, I could see shore lights connecting out to this new lighthouse.  And, not only was I getting readings on the depth sounder, but I was down to only 45 feet.  I veered way to the right to put this new lighthouse on my left.  I looked at the compass and saw that I was heading due south, instead of southeast.

When Ed came on watch at 1:00 a.m., I told him we were going due south, and pointed out the lighthouse.  He responded with, "That must be the light on Tangiers (in Africa, guys!), and those white lights are fishing boats."  I was distressed, and swung the wheel hard over to put us heading north.  Then Ed got out the radio to pick up the signal from the radio beacon on the lighthouse at Tarifa.  He found it was indeed in the direction in which I'd been heading.  So I swung the wheel again back to due south.  Then Ed decided that since Tarifa was "just ahead," and Gibraltar only 15 miles past that, we'd arrive too early (before daylight).  We would anchor in the bay, and wait till morning to finish the trip.  Tropic Moon must have started wondering about us as I swung the wheel yet again, and we headed north toward the shore lights in the bay.  When the depth decreased to 35 feet, Ed dropped the anchor.

Without radar, it's hard (read impossible), to judge how far away a light is at night.  The next morning we found the lighthouse to be far off in the distance.  Up came the anchor.  We motored along the shore for three hours before we reached the light at what we believed to be Tarifa, the western entrance to the Strait of Gibraltar.  The wind had started to increase.  When it’s blowing hard from the east, you don't have a prayer of getting through the Straits.  We put our nose around the point, but came back and anchored.  The wind continued to increase - up to about 50 miles per hour - and we had a full-scale levanter on our hands that blew for three days.  At that point, with the wind howling, and the boat rolling from side to side, there was nothing to do but set a second anchor, and pick out a new paperback from the bookshelf. 

Tarifa, at the southern tip of Spain, is at the entrance of the Strait of Gibraltar.
The Strait of Gibraltar connects the Atlantic Ocean with the Mediterranean Sea.

On the fifth morning of our “overnight" trip, the wind had abated considerably.  We decided to cover the last 15 miles to Gibraltar.  We picked out a tower on the shore, and matched it with a tower on the chart.  We peered ahead into the haze, hoping each point of land would mean the start of the large Bay of Gibraltar.  The wind (dead ahead) increased throughout the morning.  We found ourselves motoring into steep seas.  Our bow would hit a wave, and the speed on the knot meter would drop to zero, then slowly climb to three knots before we'd get knocked to a standstill again.  Every wave we hit with our bow sent water flying back over the whole length of the boat, to land on my head where I was standing at the wheel.  I was quite angry about our progress, but when Ed said conditions were getting too difficult, I said I wasn't turning back.  We had been motoring for four hours, and would have had to retrace all our morning's effort to reach an anchorage.  Ed named me "old-press-on-regardless."  I started weaving the boat back and forth across the waves, rather than directly into them, and we were able to make better progress.

At long last, we had a bay on our left, and through the haze up ahead we could make out some buildings.  I was ecstatic!  Finally, Gibraltar!  As we crossed the bay, Ed got out the binoculars.  He said the place didn't look like Gibraltar.  "Why not?  Here's the bay.  There's a hill, a city, and a lighthouse on the point!  What more do you want?"  Ed got out our book on lighthouses and read that the Gibraltar light was supposed to be white with a red stripe - and this light didn't have a red stripe. 

I was having none of his pessimism.  "So maybe they're painting it?  There's absolutely nothing else on this part of the chart that could possibly be what we're looking at!"  Some doubts were creeping in though, and we decided to get close enough to the point to look things over better.  I was still saying that it had to be Gibraltar, when we approached some beautiful beaches that were sadly lacking in the breakwaters that distinguish Gibraltar.  And though there was a fortification on the point, it was most definitely not "The Rock."

Confused, we decided to motor around the lighthouse point to see if we'd find the Bay of Gibraltar on the far side.  I was still at the wheel, and as we rounded the point, something clicked in the back of my brain.  Something had just happened that I'd been subconsciously waiting for the whole trip.  For the first time, Tropic Moon was pointing northeast (the lay of the Straits) rather than southeast.  Also, it was like coming out of a back-country lane and finding ourselves at the highway.  Several freighters and tankers were crossing in the hazy distance ahead of us.  I realized we had only just reached the entrance to the Strait of Gibraltar. 

Being a bit overwrought by this time, I started yelling, "Do you know where we are? Do you know where we are?"  No, Ed didn't know where we were, and he didn't for one minute believe I had a clue either. 

"This is Tarifa!  This is where we thought we were when we sat through that levanter for the last three days."  Ed doubted my conclusion, but one thing we did agree on was that we would retreat back around the point, and anchor in the protection of the land.

We studied the chart.  Ed checked out the radio beacon.  He took two sun sights with his sextant.  Though the first sight, thanks to the hazy horizon, placed us eight miles south on the continent of Africa (yes, on land…), we did determine that we were anchored at Tarifa, on the Spanish coast, at the entrance to the Strait of Gibraltar. 

We settled down for a post mortem.  I asked Ed if it hadn't bothered him that we had never gone northeast.  He said "no," and mentioned our compass deviation, which was up to 20 degrees at some points.  Once, when a lighthouse hadn't shown up where we had expected it, we dismissed it as "not working."  When we couldn't pick up a radio signal from Gibraltar, I had come up with the bright idea that since Spain was trying to get Gibraltar back from the British (at that time the frontier between Spain and Gibraltar had been closed for 17 years), they were probably jamming the Gibraltar radio frequencies. 

I was appalled by our performance, but Ed just put it down to overconfidence, because he knew all we had to do was follow the coast, and we would eventually reach Gibraltar.  In case you wonder where we originally went wrong:  When we left Vilamoura to cross the open bay, we were out of sight of land for twelve hours.  When we closed with the Spanish coast that first night, the lighthouse I saw wasn't Trafalgar, but further north at the city of Cadiz.  We’d probably been pushed north by a current.  From there on, we just counted and judged everything incorrectly. 

The following morning, in very light westerly winds, we motored the last, and final, 15 miles to Gibraltar.  I said, as I had the day before, "Wow, here we are in the Strait of Gibraltar!"  We saw a tower on the shore, and matched it with a tower on the chart.  We waited for the Bay of Gibraltar to open up on our left.  I spoke of a sense of deja vu, like we'd done it all before.  Like maybe even yesterday.... (Ed was having none of my humor.)  At noon, October 17th, on the sixth day out from Vilamoura, we finally arrived at the majestic Rock of Gibraltar.

Though overconfidence and carelessness had been a major part of our poor navigation, another contributing factor of considerable importance was that we had made the mistake of leaving Vilamoura on a Friday.  An old sailor's superstition states that one never begins a voyage on a Friday - dire consequences are almost sure to follow.  Up until that time, we had made a point of never starting a trip on a Friday, but I'd been anxious to get going, since we'd been having trouble getting ourselves on the move again.  I'd pointed out to Ed that we weren't really leaving on a voyage, since you could hardly count an overnight sail as a voyage.  Needless to say, we never started another trip on a Friday.

1984 (10) – Lisbon, Portugal

View of Lisbon, and the Tagus River

To go to the beginning of this book, Tropic Moon: Memories, click HERE.

It sometimes seemed a pity to see nothing more than the coasts of the islands and countries we visited.  So while we were at Vilamoura we decided to sign up for a bus tour to Lisbon, the capital of Portugal.  We always felt like we were cutting the umbilical cord when we left Tropic Moon.  This trip suited us very well as it was only two days in length.  We were picked up at 7:40 a.m. on a Sunday morning.  The modern, air-conditioned bus traveled westward along the coast, collecting customers.  It was 9:00 a.m. by the time we had a full busload of about 50 passengers. 

Me, at the monastery in Lisbon

The tour guide, Jorge, introduced himself, and also our driver, Neto.  About half the passengers were British, half German, one French couple, and us.  When I had asked at the travel agency if our guide would speak English, I had been told that he would speak all languages that were necessary.  She hadn't been joking, because Jorge gave every spiel in English, then German, and then, for the benefit of the lone French pair, would repeat everything a third time.  When I later spoke with Jorge, I learned that he was also fluent in Portuguese, Spanish and Italian.

Monument of the Discoveries

Neto, though he seemed to speak only Portuguese, was something of a wonder in his own right; the ride north to Lisbon was at times quite exciting.  We had heard that, when driving, the Portuguese only pass cars on curves, but that wasn't true - we occasionally passed cars on the straightaways as well.  There were several times when the car we were passing was most of the way off onto the right shoulder of the road, and the car approaching, off on the left shoulder, while - with horn tooting gently - Neto would drive through the center, down the middle white line.

Hotel Avenida Palace

We reached Lisbon just after noon, and checked into our five-star hotel, the Avenida Palace.  It was quite plush, and very comfortable.  We had time for a quick lunch, and then it was back on the bus for an afternoon of sightseeing.  Lisbon was a beautiful, clean city and we managed to see a fair portion of it that afternoon.  We toured monuments, churches, and a "carriage museum" with a collection of gilded and brocaded coaches from the days of royalty.  We saw the tomb of Vasco da Gama.  Jorge, knowing that Ed and I were from the marina at Vilamoura, pointed out da Gama to us as a "fellow sailor." 

Lisbon rooftops

Neto drove the bus up through the narrowest of streets to the Castle of St. George.  From there we had a beautiful view overlooking the red rooftops of the city, and the Tagus River, leading out to the Atlantic.  And all through the afternoon, as we looked at what to us was rather ancient history, Jorge continually stressed what a "new" city Lisbon was.  The older Lisbon had been destroyed in an earthquake in the 1750's and the city had been rebuilt since that time, making it young by European standards.

Belem Tower

We arrived back at the hotel at 6:30 p.m.  An optional "typical" dinner with fado and folklore was available that evening, bus departing at 9:00 p.m., for an additional 2000 escudos.  We decided we'd had enough of the group, didn't want to go to dinner that late, and didn't want to spend the 2000 escudos.  Instead, we went to the movies!  The theater was really sumptuous - gold curtain over the screen, balconies, ushers to tip, and cushy seats to sink into.  We saw an American movie, "Romancing the Stone," with Michael Douglas (in English, with Portuguese subtitles). 

Restaurant window, with live shellfish

After the movie ended at 9:00 p.m., we wandered the crowded streets and picked out a restaurant for dinner.  Many of the restaurant windows had fascinating displays of the foods available within.  Picturesque tableaus were formed with hanging crabs, lobsters, and pineapples, with platters of prawns and other delicacies arranged below.  I was admiring the display, when Ed's sharp eye caught the fact that the string-hung crabs and lobsters were still alive.  Then the whole thing seemed rather macabre to me.  I made a point of not ordering seafood that night. As it turned out, we didn't eat dinner till after 9:00 p.m., and didn't get back to the hotel till after 11:00 p.m.  Between the movie and dinner, we spent the 2000 escudos ($13.30) anyway, but we had done what we wanted with our evening and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Mountain Village

Monday morning we ate our continental breakfast in the plush hotel dining room, beneath crystal chandeliers.  We admired the brocaded, silk-covered walls, while waiters served us sweet rolls, toast, jams, tea and juice.  The rest of the morning was free time for shopping.  At 11:30 a.m., we were once again loaded into the bus, and heading southward.  The bus traveled by a different route, climbing steep, winding roads through verdant hills, with precipitous views down to Portugal’s western coastline.  We returned to sea level for lunch at the seaside resort of Sesimbra, then made our weary way back to Vilamoura.  The bus ride, sightseeing tour of Lisbon, including museum tickets, an overnight stay in our 5-star hotel, and continental breakfast had come to $80 for the two of us.  When we had toured Colonial Williamsburg for a day before we left the States, it had cost us $40 just to rent a car!

Sesimbra

1984 (9) – Vilamoura, Portugal

The marina at Vilamoura, Portugal

To go to the beginning of this book, Tropic Moon: Memories, click HERE.

We were anchored in Sagres for three days while a levanter coated our boat with gritty red sand from the beach.  A levanter is strong Mediterranean winds, with wind speeds of 40-50 knots.  A levanter generally comes up with little warning, rapidly increases in strength, and usually blows from the east for three days.  Unless you were heading west, you just sit tight and wait it out.

The Algarve - the southern Portuguese coast

There was an additional 40 miles of coastline to travel along to reach our destination of Vilamoura, on the southern coast of Portugal.  We saw countryside new to us - sandy beaches, backed by steep red sandstone cliffs, and white houses with red tile roofs.  Desolate stretches of rustic beauty would suddenly give way to areas of high-rise condominiums and hotels - very "Miami Beach" in appearance.

Vilamoura

We reached Vilamoura on August 29th.  Vilamoura had a large marina with over 1000 berths.  There was a shopping center with bars, restaurants, boutiques, and more practical businesses like a supermarket, laundry, bank and pharmacy.  The whole package was surrounded by high-rise condominiums and hotels, complete with beaches, tennis clubs, pool clubs, golf courses, horseback riding, a cinema and a casino. 

Entrance to the harbor in the background. 
Portuguese fishing boats moored to the shore.

We had a comfortable berth at the marina - no trouble getting on or off the boat, because the docks floated.  They rose and fell with the tide, along with the boat.  Water and electricity came with the berth.  We'd use our hose for fresh-water showers on the dock.  Those showers were especially welcome after walking back, salty and sandy, from a swim at the nearby beach.

The beach at Vilamoura

Early one evening, Ed announced he was going for a walk.  I decided to tag along, and we headed for the beach.  It was the night of the full moon.  When we reached the water, we looked eastward and saw the biggest, fattest, yellowest moon rising among the condominiums of Vilamoura.  In the other direction, the beach stretched away for miles of sand, red cliffs, and no buildings, so we turned our backs on the moon and headed west. 

Red, sandstone cliffs

The sun was just setting; the sky was a brilliant orange, contrasting with the gunmetal gray of the sea, but coloring the wave-washed sands a burning orange to match the sky.  The crowds of the day were gone; only a few couples strolled the beach.  We walked westward, the orange always glimmering ahead of us, but disappearing behind us with each step we took, as if we were erasing the color from the surf with our progress. 

Beach at Vilamoura.  A lighthouse at the harbor entrance
is visible in the background.

I had thought to save the moon for the return trip, but it was impossible not to occasionally glance over our shoulders as the moon rose higher in the sky, shrinking a bit in size with its ascent.  We passed the popular beach area, and continued along the red sandstone cliffs, which stood tall, like dark sentinels.  Still the sky and the wet sand held their color, darkening slowly from orange to red. 

A beach that went on forever.

I'm usually the one who says we've walked far enough, but I felt I could walk on forever in that beauty.  It was Ed who finally remarked he was hungry for supper, and we turned back.  On the return walk, the moon was so bright that the thought of sunglasses (moonglasses?) crossed our minds.  As we walked, we were trailed by our long-legged shadows, stretching out on the beach behind us.  Up ahead were the winking red and green beacons of the two lighthouses on the breakwaters, marking the entrance to the harbor.  On our right out to sea were the scattered white lights of the many small Portuguese fishing boats plying their trade.

Another view of the marina at Vilamoura.

1984 (8) – Leaving the Azores

Coeur de Lion, Krystal's home.  Getting ready to participate in the regatta.

To go to the beginning of this book, Tropic Moon: Memories, click HERE.

We loved the Azores, and had considered wintering there, but learned from other boat people that the Azores had a long, damp, dreary winter, with the possibility of severe storms.  Toward the end of the season, as the excitement of the summer came to an end, Othon would have liked to see us stay on, and have me continue as his student.  Since Ed wasn’t interested in scrimshaw, Othon had come up with something for Ed to do - building dinghies for Othon and a few other people.  But the thought of the long winter, in an unsafe harbor, discouraged us from staying.

The end of Horta's tourist season was celebrated with an annual festival called "Sea Week."  The climax of the week was a regatta.  All yachts were not only invited, but also encouraged, to participate.  If a yacht completed the course of twenty miles in five hours, the crew received a free case of Pico wine.  Despite that dubious incentive, Tropic Moon (with her lazy crew), sat at her mooring, while over 30 yachts - 80-90% of those there - were out earning their wine, and maybe a trophy or two.

The island of Pico, in the background.  Source of really cheap wine.

Sea Week in Horta ended with a bang - a beautiful display of fireworks over the harbor.  Our preparations for departure began in earnest.  We sailed out of Horta on August 16th.  On August 25th we made our landfall at Cape St. Vincent, Portugal (the southwesternmost tip of Europe).  Rounding the point, we dropped the anchor in the bay at Sagres.  A few days later I was trying to write home about the passage, and I couldn't think of a thing to say. 

Turning to Ed, I asked, "What happened on the trip here from the Azores?"

Ed:  "Nothing."

Me:  "That's what I thought."

An uneventful passage, favorable winds, gently rolling seas, sailing all the way, but with the engine running a couple hours each night to keep the batteries charged.  As a result of the miserable trip from Bermuda to the Azores, feeling a certain amount of tension waiting for the feathers to hit the fan, but they never did.  Nine days and 944 miles.  No dolphins, but three turtles seen on different days, dog-paddling westward across the ocean. Seeing them made me feel like we were doing it the easy way!  Crossing the north-south shipping lane off the western coast of Europe, just where the chart said it would be; tracking the lights of several tankers and freighters during our night watches.  And, once in Portugal, a sense of accomplishment, as well as a huge feeling of relief that the Atlantic was finally behind us.

Seven Words

It's been a while since I participated in Photo Art Friday, but this week's theme interested me:

 

This week you can use the prompt to compose a seven word sentence that describes your life or experience or process as an artist (be it a photographer, painter, mixed media artist, digital artists, whatever ...) and marry your sentence to a piece of photo art that somehow illustrates your sentence.

 

This must be my favorite picture of myself - it keeps showing up in my art!  I didn't think long before "Art opens my eyes to the world" popped into my head.  Below are the two photos I used to build my image:

 

Lighthouse along the Portuguese coast, taken from Tropic Moon's deck

Me, on the island of St. Maarten in the Caribbean, circa 1980

 

The Quilt that Went to New Zealand

This was one of my quilts that was for sale at the AAQI fundraiser in Houston this past fall.  It happened that when it sold, someone took a photo of the buyer, labeled the picture "Pat from New Zealand," and posted it on their website.  It was a thrill for me to see what had happened to one of my quilts!

Here's a better look at "Old Sailor."  This quilt was inspired by a photograph I'd taken off the Portuguese coast.  I had written about it here, if you want to see the photo. 

I think I'd mentioned that I'd recently sent in three other mini-quilts to the Alzheimer's Art Quilt Initiative.  This one is "Rice Moon" and is a mini-version of the original quilt, also called "Rice Moon."  Honestly - try and come up with new names all the time!

This second one is "Two Toucans."  Ditto for the name of the original, larger art quilt.

This third mini-quilt is called "Fairies" and the original art quilt was called "Dance of the Fairies."  A shorter name for a smaller quilt....  The three quilts arrived at their destination, and are now waiting for their photos to be taken before they're listed for sale on the AAQI site.  In case you wonder how I "shrunk" my quilts - I printed images of the original quilts onto fabric, using my inkjet printer.  Then I made these smaller quilts - 8-1/2" x 11" - using the printed fabrics.

Mountain Village

A mountain village in Portugal.  (1984)

Sunset

Somewhere along the Portuguese coast - taken from the deck of Tropic Moon.

Photo du Jour - Arches

This image is from one of my recently scanned slides from our boat travels.  It was taken at a monastery in Lisbon, Portugal (1984).  Photoshop filters account for the wild colors.  I did some major cropping too.  I've used this image, named "Arches," for both an ACEO and a notecard in my Etsy shops.  Below is the original slide.

Photo du Jour - Tagus River

The original slide for this digital image was taken in Lisbon, Portugal.  I did some serious cropping and manipulating with it in Photoshop.  It's difficult to get a decent image out of a lot of our old slides, so I turn some of them "artsy" rather than trying to use the original picture.  It's hard to believe that we used to wait weeks, sometimes months, before we'd even see the pictures we'd taken!  (I do love my digital camera.  Yes, I know I've mentioned that before.)  Here's a link to the ACEO I've listed in my Etsy shop.

This is my scan of the original slide.  Basically, I used the middle section of the slide for my digital image.  The Tagus River has its origins in Spain.  It flows west through Spain and Portugal, eventually reaching Lisbon where the river flows into the Atlantic Ocean.

Photo du Jour - Old Sailor

Old Sailor
My husband and I lived on a sailboat for many years (not this boat!!).  I've started editing the newsletters I wrote during that time, and also playing with our many slides in Photoshop.  This image was taken off the Portuguese coast, probably in 1984.  My "plan" is to put a book together.  I'll also be using some of these images in my Etsy shops in the form of notecards and ACEO's.  (Links to shops are on the right side of my blog.)  Lots more to come!