Blog 29: Back on board at last! Portugal after Covid!

Well, this has been such a strange summer with the Coronavirus pandemic changing everyone’s plans!  Astraia has been languishing at the Tagus Yacht Center, a boatyard just south of Lisbon, near Seixal for almost a year.  We were finally able to get back to her in mid-August, taking the ferry from Portsmouth to Santander and driving through Spain, face-masks at the ready!


Leaving Portsmouth past the two new aircraft carriers


The Bay of Biscay was like a millpond – the view from our cabin


Lovely sunset while we strolled round the upper deck


We took a break for a stroll round the ancient city of Salamanca, known for its ornate sandstone architecture and the university which was founded in the 1100s …


… and stopped for a coffee in this fine square – Plaza Mayor.  It was used for bull-fighting until the mid 19th century and the balconies afforded a highly-prized view of the spectacle.


The entire front wall of the Public Library in Salamanca is decorated with shell carvings in the sandstone


Some of the elaborate towers and steeples of the massive Santa Basilica Cathedral


A more modest, but still highly decorated, building in Salamanca – it looks like the sandstone is sort-of inlaid with the pattern in white stone 


Attractive tiled pavements


Going incognito behind our masks!


Back on the open road again – driving in this part of Spain is so quiet and uncrowded – very relaxing compared with UK


This is our first sight of Astraia after she’s been out of the water in the boatyard for 11 months – she seems to have survived quite well, but is covered in a fine layer of orangey-coloured dust!

We spent the next week getting her ready to go to sea – cleaning, painting, repairing, refitting, testing equipment etc, etc …


Painting the propeller with anti-foul paint …


… and refitting the sacrificial anode which protects the metal parts of the boat which are underwater such as the propeller

We unfortunately ‘lost’ a window last season when a rope got wrapped round it!


Here I’m teetering on a ladder to clean off the temporary covering we had fitted over the hole …


… and here’s the brand new window neatly fitted which required Charles inside the cabin and me still teetering on the ladder!


We noticed a few wisps of straw poking out of the end of the boom …


… which turned out to be quite a large birds nest!  Thankfully all the chicks had long since flown away so we could happily remove it.

Occasionally we took a break for a cuppa or a sandwich …


… and this was the lovely view from the cockpit – Tagus Yacht Center is certainly in an idyllic spot

Sometime Botas, the boatyard dog, came to see us.  He is such a cute, friendly little dog.  Apparently he just walked into the yard as a stray about 6 years ago and has remained ever since.  He has a bed and food in the office, and spends his days roaming free around the boatyard, apparently supervising operations!  They named him Botas (Portuguese for Boots) as he likes to go paddling along the muddy shore and comes out looking as if he’s wearing boots!


Here’s Botas sitting outside ‘his’ office!

It’s not easy to live on board while the boat is out of the water, so we treated ourselves to a hotel for a week in the countryside near Sesimbra and Cabo Espichel.  Every morning we left early to work on the boat while it was still cool …


Often it was very misty at that hour, but the sun soon broke through.

Hot and dusty after a day’s work on the boat in the scorching Portuguese sunshine, we retreated to our hotel …


The Hotel dos Zimbros


… and enjoyed cooling off and relaxing by the pool


The view from our room at dusk


One evening we went to the beach resort of Sesimbra …


… and were tempted by this fish restaurant’s display, complete with face mask!  We had delicious barbecued monkfish and prawn kebabs.

Eventually Astraia was ready to be re-launched …


The large boat crane lifts Astraia from her supports and she hangs from strong fabric strops as the driver slowly and careful moves her to the dock 


Astraia is lowered into the water …


We step aboard and drive out of the dock


There is even a farewell party to wave us off – including Botas the boatyard dog, of course!


We motored off past the village of Seixal looking very pretty in the sunshine and went to anchor off nearby Mouse Island for the first night.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t quite the end of the story – we soon found our bilges steadily filling with water!!  Not good!  After a night of pumping the bilges every 2 hours we found a small screwhole in the bow thruster tunnel which was letting in a tiny but steady trickle of water.

So the following day we were back at Tagus Yacht Center …


We tied up alongside the pontoon and waited for the tide to go out, and once dry we could repair the hole with Epoxi filler.  

Finally the next day we left on the high tide with the bilges as dry as a bone!  What a relief! 


Here we are setting off from Tagus Yacht Center for the second time!  It may be 4 months later than planned due to the Covid pandemic, but Astraia is on the water in 2020 at last.  

Next stop – Oeiras Marina to get ready to head back out into the Atlantic!

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