Nadine has been on the weather charts for a couple of weeks now. Winds near her are up to 85 knots yet her centre is only moving at about 9 knots, slowly up towards the Azores, as she slowly dissipates. Our plan was to leave here today and get to Madeira on about Saturday but the long term chart doesn't look good:
This is the forecast for 06.00 on Saturday, when we'd be approaching Madeira (the little brown dot just to the north west of the red '1016' triangular pressure contour at the bottom of this picture) - the blue low pressure system would give us strong southerly winds to beat into and then a good blast of rain for good measure!
So we're not going just yet! Plan B looks like a couple of days here in the marina at Nazare to do some boat jobs. It's really a busy and slightly scruffy fishing port with a space for a few yachts in the corner but we quite like its complete lack of pretensions and the fact that it's cheap (about 100 Euros for a week's stay - Cascais marina near Lisbon is about 45 Euros per night!). A mile from the harbour is the town itself - it has a great beach and, once you leave the seaside tat and expensive seafront bars, the old town is quite attractive. There is an amazing funicular railway up the cliffs to the old town with great views to be had (you can see the entrance to the harbour at the end of the beach, sorry this was just taken with my phone so it's not brilliantly clear):
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We'll use the time and the good weather (at the moment) to make some more sun awnings and do lots more little boat maintenance chores. We'll probably then leave Maunie under the care of Captain Mike the splendidly piratical harbourmaster and take an express bus into Lisbon (90 minutes or so) to explore the city for a couple of days before seeing what the weather holds for next week.
Plan B will probably change into Plan C, D or E but never mind. We'll keep you informed!
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