S/Y Belisama: Peniche and Berlengas, 20

Thursday, 22 September 2022

Peniche and Berlengas, 20 - 22 September

Porto to Peniche is a 116 nautical mile ride along the coast of Portugal. No much shelter along the way, at least practicable at night. This coast is called the "European pipeline" in relation with the best surf breaks that can be found in European waters. Any surfer would know Supertubos and Nazaré, the best world class spots along this coast for surfing.

For the first time in this journey we are able to get the Code 0 out for most part of the night, making a big difference in term of speed in these light winds. But the winds did not allow Belisama to be surfing on super tubes.

Peniche fort.

Peniche is a city not 26,000 inhabitants. It has a long tradition of fishing, and it shows when sailing at night along the coast given the incredible numbers of nets and buoys that one can find even relatively fast from the shore. At this time of September, it is still quite full of tourists enjoying the nice weather, long beaches, and incredible fish food places all around.

Belisama at the lower left side of the external pier. At night, there will be three rows of boats moored along side on the external pier.

We need to be on Saturday 24 in Lisbon to pick Pieter, a new crew. Yet, there is no wind planed on this Friday for the 60 nm ride to Lisbon. We therefore decided to anchor for the day in Berlengas islands located 7 miles off the coast. It took us two attempts to anchor without being absolutely sure if the anchored had gripped on the reef or if we stabilised the boat just because of the weight of the 70 metres of chain that we used in 20 meters of waters. We suddenly realised why most boats in Peniche were using "reef anchors" (see picture below), the only type that will hold in such reefs and could be removed if stuck by pulling hard and strengthening back the legs to extract it. In any case, a quick search makes it clear that such reef anchors are not suitable for larger boats, and then the use of a rope buoy remains the only solution. Yet, there are so many ways to set a rope buoy that I will consider a specific post for this...