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 up with our friend Phil Grace again, who found us great accommodation near 'St. John de Luc'.
The weather had turned foul, cold, lots of rain and bad news re Blackpearl. The boat had broken down on its way to Gibralter and had retreated to 'Cartegena', on the south east spanish coast.
The problem was a cutlass bearing had melted on the port prop shaft. captain 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 in Biarritz was so big, we were hoping to get a more manageable wave at San Sebastian. On our way there we passed a great spot in the harbour of St. John de Luc, but 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 meter waves right next to the side of the road.
We could not find the the surf we were looking for, so we headed to 'Aveiro', on the Portuguese coast, stopping the next night on the border at an old Spanish town, called 'Ciudad Rodrigo'.
Next morning we crossed the border and onto 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 turns out, was a shocker. We were lucky to find some fun manageable waves.
Our only concern was this small town was so run down and poor we might have everything stolen from the car. So, we took our backpacks to the beach so we could see them. After our surf we headed to '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 then headed to south to 'Peniche', which is recognised 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 minuets and on return to the van we discovered we had been robbed of both our backpacks which contained passports, computers,i-pad, i-phone, 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 circumstances, we did not like being there although we had a very good and very expensive dinner at a restaurant called 'Belcanto'. We walked back through the old city to our hotel. We got to the Embassy early the next day to find the staff very helpful, agreeing to issue us emergency passports, which would be ready later that day, which was great as we were keen to leave Lisbon asap. While we waited we shopped for a new ipad and cameras etc.
By 5 pm we are able to leave and head south, 250 kms to the Algarve region. We had managed to secure a good deal at the the Tivoli's Golf Resort at Villamoura, which is situated on the south coast.
Mick