On the 15 th September, Tomana, Zombi and Cephee leave Peniche together to go to Cascais : Lisbon´s suburb.

The wind is with us and we rapidly reach our cruising speed : 6 to 7 knots on an agitated sea. We butterfly the sails and Thomas keeps tilling. In less than 11 hours, we travel the 70 miles between Peniche and Cascais. Just before arriving, we pass the Roca Cape, the most eastern point of Europa.

In the Cascais bay, a lot of boats are anchored, which is not really surprising knowing the prices of the marina (over 35 euros/night). The bay is rather beautiful and it is quite pleasant to anchor there. We learn that the majority of these boats foresee to cross the Atlantic this season, like us.
We check e-mails and learn that Florence, a friend, will come to visit us a few days, what a surprise ! She managed to find a flight and she booked for the 18th September.

Cascais is a city which is entirely designed for tourism. Everything is translated in many languages, luxurious shops succeed each other and we rarely hear portuguese in the streets.

The sight upon the bay is really pleasant at this anchorage, with rapid train connections to Lisbon has a lot of advantages.

On the 18th, we manage to rent a car to pick up Florence at the airport at midnight. On the highway, we´re really surpised by the speed we reach : 80km/h appears to be crazy, we loose habit so fast! At the fastest Cephee reaches 15km/h...

Florence arrived, we take her back to Cephee. She´s fine and brought us kilograms of chocolate !

The day after, we still have the car and take the opportunity to visit Sintra and the surrounding hills, and to go to the Roca´s cape. Pleasure to meet, to talk about our lives, walk over the hills, sail and visit Lisbon,

Lisbon is an interesting and attractive city. Lanes labyrinth, discrete, unexpected small parks, panoramic sight seeings on the Tage or the city center, Azulejos, the portuguese, allways garrulous and helpful, the superb Estrela´s cathedra, the pretty yellow tram ignoring streets inclination and crosses and the grill odors when lunch time approaches. Lisbon, we´ll come back to know you better!

Time flies, the 22nd September, Florence´s return date arrives, while we have the feeling she just joined us. She seems delighted of her stay and we really enjoyed her visit.

Florence goes back to the North, while we prepare Cephee to go further to the south. Before we leave, we visit the maritim museum which retraces the Portuguese maritim power history.

We leave Serge (Zombi left few days ago) and set sail towards the Sagres cape. An enormous cargo surprises us in the fog, a few meters away from Cephee´s back. What a fear !!!

Once we passed Sagres and St Vincente capes, we anchor in front of Sagres fort, just before night falls. The sky is torn and offers us fantastic lights on the surrounding cliffs.

In the early morning, we go further to Lagos as the swell prevented us from landing.

The cost is wonderful, riddled with caves and sprinkled with small white houses. Lagos is a high standing city, not really authentic and equipped with a luxuous marina (we can´t afford such prices), so we anchor in the next bay and land to visit the city. Quite nice, but tourism is still at its high season... We feel the arabian influence in the architecture. Lanes are paved and the city is enclosed in a rempart.

The weather forecast is good and we decide not to stay longer in theAlgarve, a bit too touristic, but to leave the day after for the Canarian islands. We victual, fill in water tanks, have a good sleep and wake up at 7 a.m, ready to cross the cargo rail and sail over 550 miles.