Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
On Monday 10th November, I flew into Bilbao, Spain to meet Ged Hart, who had been traveling Portugal, waiting to meet up with me.
We hired a 7 seat Mercedes van and drove to Biarritz, France to pick up my surfboard and golf sticks. There we met Phil Grace who found us great accommodation near St Jean de Luc.
The weather had turned foul, cold, lots of rain and bad news about Black Pearl. It had broken down on its way to Gibraltar and had retreated to Cartagena on the south east Spanish coast.
The issue was a cutlass bearing had melted on the port prop shaft. Capt. Paul wasn't sure how long it would take to fix so we had to change our plans until we had further information. We decided to drive to Portugal to surf and play golf.
As the swell at Biarritz was so big, we were hoping to get a more manageable wave at San Sebastion.
On our way there we passed a great spot in the harbour of St Jean de Luc. We thought we could do better further on.
On the rugged coastal road we came to a spot where a surfer was getting towed into 3 metre waves right on the side of the road.
We could not find the surf we were after, so we headed straight to Aveiro on the Portuguese coast, stopping the night on the border at an old Spanish town called, Ciudad Rodrigo.
Next morning we crossed the border and on to Aveiro. We then headed further north along the coast to Espinito as there was a golf course near the ocean. The golf course as it it turned out, was a shocker. We were lucky to find some manageable fun waves.
Our only concern was in this small town it was so run down and poor we might have everything stolen from the car.We took our backpacks to the beach so we could see them.
After our surf, we headed Figuera de Foz, with a beautiful beach, good hotel and a good chance for waves the next morning.
Next morning we woke to a sunny day with offshore wind, however the surf was big fast and unmanageable.
We headed south to Peniche which is recognized as one of the top spots. We found, albeit big swells, the place we surfed was very good with manageable fun waves.
After the surf, we had a very pleasant lunch then headed south.
Ged wanted to buy a Rip Curl Pro Peniche t-shirt so we stopped at the shop, parking directly in front. We were only there for some 15 minutes and on return to the van we discovered we had been robbed of both our back packs which contained passports, computers, ipad, iphone, cash etc.. We were devastated.
We drove into Peniche to report the incident to the National Police, the GNR.
We were so upset. Our plan was to head to Lisbon to obtain new passports, not knowing how long the process would take with the Australian Embassy.
Ged had previously stayed at the Tivoli Hotel on Avenue de Liberada. It was a good choice.
Lisbon is a good looking city, however given the circumstance, we did not like being there although we had a very good and very expensive dinner at a restaurant called Belcanto.
We walked back to the hotel through the old city.
We get to our embassy early next day to find the staff very helpful who had agreed to provide us with Emergency Passports which would be ready later the same day, as we preferred to leave Lisbon asap.
While we wait, we shop for new ipad and cameras etc.
By 5pm, we are able to leave and head south, 250 klm to The Algarve region.
We had managed to secure a good deal at the Tivoli's Golf Resort at Villamoura, which is situated on the south coast.
Mick
- comments