After one day in Viana do Castelo we decided to sail for Porto. When you are out on a trip like ours you get a lot of advices about where to go and where to stay from other sailors, and that's great, but they are often conflicting and that was the case with Porto. Porto is situated 3 NM upstream Rio Douro and some people said we should go in there and stay at a cay in the city center, free of charge and close to the port wine houses. In the pilot book on the other hand they said it was a bad idea, no good spot to moor and quite strong currents. In the end we decided to go to Leixoes, a harbour just north of the Rio Douro, and then take the metro to Porto and check out whether we would like to take Cantare there the day after or not.

Before I tell you more about Porto I have to start with the story of our new sails. Before we left Viana do Castelo we hoisted our second head sail on the Furlex. That is how we will cross the Atlantic, two head sails on the same furler. Our sailmaker Lasse Lind, Lind Segel in Helsingborg, advised us to do this as an easy manageable way of sailing downwind. One week before we left Sweden our two new head sails and our new main was ready, we never got the chance to test the second smaller head sail before we left, and since there was no downwind sailing until Spain and Portugal it was still untested up til yesterday. With stable northerly winds for the next couple of days we thought now was the time to try it out. We are carrying two spinnaker poles for the purpose of spreading one head sail on each side of the boat. We had it all set up before we left Viana do Castelo and when it was time to shut down the engine and start sailing all we had to do was pull the sheets. It was marvelous! It was so easy, and we were doing good speed. Best of all, there's no risk of an accidental gybe. For those of you who don't sail, that means there is no risk of the boom swinging from side to side very fast and possibly beheading us or at least causing the need to call our insurance company Europeiska for advice on how to get the best medical assistance. Anyway we had a lovely day with nice easy sailing and so far we are very happy with our new sails and the decision to use double head sails.

Now we are in the marina in Leixoes. Yesterday evening we went into Porto together with the crew of Escape and TimeOut. Johanna has left our big sailing family for the moment and are heading south on their own. We were all rather tired yesterday and after a stroll through the city center we had dinner at a nice small Portuguese restaurant, Sofia and I had mussels, they were great. Before we shared a cab back to the marina we found a very cosy water pipe place where we almost fell a sleep. Today it's time to explore the city and the port wine cellars, but we will leave Cantare here in Leixoes, to save time and because the mooring possibilities in the city didn't look that good. / The Captain