Although the wind was a little weak the sun was out and we took a slow sail to our next destination, Póvoa de Varzim. On the approach this looks like a proper Spanish holiday resort, with modern pastel coloured apartments, tall high rise blocks and a huge casino that dominates the sea front. Coming from such a colourful town like Viana do Castelo this looked like a real cultural nose dive. Once again, I was proved wrong. Leaving the others on the boat in the very clean marina I took an evening stroll into town and found that behind the glitz of the sea front was a very old town, made up of tight back streets lined with tile-encrusted shop fronts and patterned pavements.
Upon my return I discovered that the local weather forecast was suggesting a southern wind with storm potential (like my shipping terminology?), meaning that we would probably have to spend the next three days in Povoa de Varzim. Fortunately Sam suggested a trip into Porto tomorrow, which both Lorraine and I got very excited about. Conny just plugged himself into the Matrix and downloaded his latest BIOS upgrade.
As we settled down to sleep, sure enough the storm approached. Even in the protected marina the boat rocked and rolled, with the springs (the ropes that are tied from the boat to the pontoon to prevent it from floating backwards and forwards) squeaking inconsistently throughout the night. As the rain started I ran out onto the deck to retrieve some stuff I’d left outside, and banged my head quite sharply on the hatch. With this and Lorraine’s snoring, I had a troubled night’s sleep. Indeed Lorraine’s snoring is really, really bad. As soon as she hits the deck she’s snoring, preventing me from falling asleep, and then when I do eventually fall asleep (head buried between two pillows), I get woken up by her snoring in the middle of the night. I’ve not made an issue with Lorraine about this since she’s hardly doing this maliciously, but it’s getting to be a real problem – I can’t remember the last time I had a decent night’s sleep. It doesn’t help that I have the smallest bunk on the boat either! I could be philosophical about it but I’ll be damned if I’m gonna continue to live like this for the next few months. Am I showing the first signs of cracking? After only four weeks? Surely not…….
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