Working - Lisbon (again) - strong winds

I spent all of last night (and I mean until the sun rose) playing Sid Meyer's Civilization V. At that point I decided I should go to bed only to discover that I was still not tired. I had napped in the afternoon. So I got up on the foredeck and added 5 wraps to the jib furling drum. I had noticed when I came in that the last time I had furled it I had used up all the wraps and only got one wrap of the sheets around the drum. The jib is new and I guess that between crossing the Atlantic (which loosened it up) and furling it in a 30 knot wind it got wrapped up pretty tightly.

Encouraged by the highly unlikely burst of ambition I decided to unpack and inflate my new dinghy. It has been strapped to the foredeck in its original packing. Since it had never been inflated it was quite compact. I decided to take advantage of this for the crossing. After pumping up one cell I discovered that I was pumping so quickly that I  was only getting about 1/2 of the air per pump. When I slowed down I got the other two cells inflated in about 60% of the time and with far less effort. I had to revise the tie downs but that was a small price to bad for a true RIB (rigid inflatable dinghy) rather than one with a sectional wood floor.

Encouraged by this ambition I decided to fix the battens in the jiffy reefer for the main sail. They come in four sections and the sections had come apart. After struggling for a bit I did get the starboard sections out of the canvas. It seems that the sleeves that hold the sections together had been taped. When I assembled the sections I did not tape the entire thing together. Then I moved to the port side to discover that I had contributed two of the sections to the Atlantic Ocean. I went to the local sail loft. They told me for 90 euro they would sell me one 6 meter long section and it would be delivered Friday.

I then took the train to Lisbon to the nautical bookstore. For the back story click here. They were open. I saved 40 euro even paying the train fare over purchasing the same books in Cascais. On the way back the train was filled with young people heading for the beach. There are several beautiful sand beaches in Estoril and Cascais that are right at the train stations. This is a popular way to get to the beach,

SkippeR (the restaurant) is closed on Wednesday as all the other restaurants close on Monday. I found out yesterday that it is a small family owned restaurant that has only been in business for about three months. I had an excellent pasta in cream sauce in one of the other marina establishments. It is truely summer in Portugal, it was about 90F inside Reboot.

My lack of sleep caught up with me so I went back to Reboot and took a nap (with XO.) When I woke at about 8 PM the wind had settled in with a vengeance - it was blowing 30 knots (again) in the marina. I walked into downtown Cascais and had dinner at John Bull, a nice if a little expensive restaurant.

Tomorrow my plan is to either go back to Sintra or back to Lisbon and explore.

Fair winds and following seas.