Leixoes and Porto

It's now been a while since we arrived in Leixoes coming from the Azores. Several days with Southwesterly currents had slowed us down enough to void our chances of arriving at daylight. Given this the natural choice was the industrial harbor of Porto where entry is feasible at any time and weather. 

To our surprise, we ended up liking the large and busy harbor. We found ample space to anchor in the northern section, with good holding and only a short dinghy ride to the friendly marina nearby. In the morning we could watch a friendly coexistence between, fishermen, yachts, a fleet of opties and frequent freighter traffic.

Nevertheless, the next day we moved into the marina, as we had business in Porto that would require leaving the boat alone for several hours and we also had trouble with our batteries, that had suffered accidental deep discharge during the winter storage in Madeira. With the help of the marina staff we found a car accessory shop nearby where we could get 2 cheap truck batteries to replace the two worst of our 6 AGM batteries. This way we can get along for the rest of the season running the generator twice a day when not plugged into shore power.

We found Porto and its suburbs very attractive with many parks and lots of green. Tourists just frequent the beautiful old center, but Porto is a nice place well beyond that. In addition we found friendly and helpful local people everywhere. 

We made extensive use of the excellent local traffic system of buses and metro for which one day tickets are available at low cost. One bus line (500) goes along a rather scenic route, following the coastline from Leixoes south and then along the Duro river into the center of Porto.

From there we saw the new marina, that we had heard of, on the southern shore of the river. Also the river entrance had been match improved by two now breakwaters that should prevent the sanding and provide for a relatively safe approach in reasonable weather. We think we will try this on the way back south, when we return from Galicia.

After a few days in Porto, we moved on north in thick fog. We thought about checking out Viana do Castello, the next port to the north, but gave up on the idea in fog with a visibility of about 100m. That, combined with an ebb tide at the time and no guarantee that we would find space in the tiny marina, made us move on north to Povoa to Varzim, a place we already knew from two years ago.

Povoa has a well run marina, with probably the lowest prices along this shore and many cruisers leave their boats there for extended periods. The hard-standing area is wast and popular. The down side with Povoa is its dangerous entrance when there is a bigger swell running. Waves may then break in the entrance and in the seas get very steep and scary. This time it was all calm and so we entered for a night, before moving on to Galicia.