Today we were going to sail south again. Direction Figueira da Foz. The plan was to go on anchor somewhere near Figueira. We left early with a burst of beautiful sunshine but no wind. Mainsail up, motor on and …. Captain decided to go fishing. Fishing rods out. Never caught a fish up till now so this time he took the biggest lure he could find and he gave it go.  There were lots of birds behind the boat and we were wondering why. Of course, because of the fish, we would catch … but there were really many birds! Anyway, breakfast and coffee and ready for a beautiful day! About 2 hours down the road it happened! The rod started to roll! Robbert came down very quickly and we were looking behind the boat to see what was happening. And I thought to myself what the heck id that on the line???? It looks like a bird instead of fish?? So Robbert started to rail the rod and we were really astonished. A BIRD! A SEAGULL on the hook instead of a fish. WAAAAAAAA!! What to do? The hook stuck right through the beak of the bird. But besides that, the bird was flapping away to get rid of the hook. OMG …. Robbert was already wearing his gloves. There was only one option. Try to free the bird of the hook. Robbert looked at me like why ME?? He concentrated to fix this in one go and then he caught the bird at his throat.  The bird could not even flapper anymore and Robbert took out the hook! What a hero! He freed the seagull and the bird was flapping away. Pieuw … what an adventure. And only at the start of the day! Catching seagulls instead of eatable tuna’s! When sailing you never know what happens in the future! Maybe this is why sailing is so attractive. The unknown. Every day again.

After all this excitement we continued our (motor) sail. Robbert was doing a sewing job with the Sailrite and probably some other small jobs as we were still on motor. Despite no wind the weather was great so we sat upstairs, trying to upscale the body color a bit and just chilling. Nice! But ….. I think it was at about 5 pm that I looked behind us and saw that there was a mist coming towards us … and within 5 minutes we ended up in this so called ‘zeevlam’ or ‘seamist’ or ‘seaflame’. You don’t see anything around you and it feels like you are looking around in your own space ….!

I stood on the starboard side of the boat looking around and Robbert was steering. In this area the small fishing boats do not have AIS or anything you can see them. Very happy with the radar where you sometimes can detect these small boats. The severe mist lasted for about an hour. It feels scary I find. Especially as you do not know the area your sailing. Anyway, everything went well and we found the marina. When you enter the marina there is a waiting pontoon. The harbour master was waiting already and he gave as un easy box to stay the night. It was still quite misty, very damp, greyish. What an inspiring day! No wind, catching a bird, ending up in seamist. Time for a well deserved glass of white wine and get out of my own space again! We stayed on board, candles on heater on to get the damp out of the boat. Preparing a nice dinner. Love sailing. Always something happening!