Fast pace in Sines

We had no time to loose in Sines. There was still Sagres and Portimão to do, time was running short, and the weather we could now be quite sure it wouldn't cooperate. It was also Tom's first day out. Ironically, we saw dolphins just outside Sines port entrance. When when I say this, I mean 50 m out of the entrance!!! I couldn't believe it. However, and as I have learned so many times in this project, having dolphins and sampling them is a different matter. They were extremely fast and it was obivous they had somewhere to be urgently. This together with increasing wind, made it really dificult. Eventually it became to strong to continue, and we headed back to port. This weather pattern would follow us all the way to Sagres. Fair weather in the morning, with the wind increasing so much during the afternoon, that it was impossible to continue. We still got two samples. Next day I took Neftalí to Pessegueiro Island and he stayed there the whole morning sampling reptiles. And then, again, the wind picked up and it was back in port for us.

Tom wearing his sofisticated system developed during the trip to avoid scalp sunburn!!!

Next day Laura and Heather arrived. Laura did her PhD in the same lab as I'm doing mine, and then proceeded to work as a pos-doc there. Heather is working as a techincian in the lab as well, in the same project as Tom, woth genetics of deep-sea fish. They came in the best time! In one day we saw a nice group of Bottlenose. Unfortunately, the rifle decided to stop working again! I was furious. Even more so that, when we arrived in port and I prepared to disassemble the rifle (yet again) it was fine! I have no idea what went wrong! Luckily, the next day we found a nice group of commons and got 8 samples, and we passed the 30 for Sines before the wind picked up. It was a brilliant day!

The next day Tom left and the rest of us went to Sagres. We had a quite day motorsailing, until we crossed the cape S.Vincent. There the wind picked up consistently until it reached 35 knots. Has we approached our destination with the wind wistling in the mast and the waves splashing over the bow straight in our faces, I turned to Heather and Laura and said: "Welcome to Sagres"!!!

Lightning visit to Peniche.

Our last days in Figueira were very frustrating. After everyone left, me and Karis and two difficult days. Bad weather stoped us from doing much on one of them, and on the second I realized the rifle problem wasn't still quite sorted. I was told the manufacturer that the problem lied in on of the seals, and they sent some spares. Unfortunately, these didn't seem to be working that much. In addition to that, I got seasick. It was the first time this year it happened, and in relatively calm conditions. This meant I had to take some time to recover from it before I could try and fix the rifle. I eventually did, but the dolphins were gone. In the end, no samples was the out come. The next day, Pedro Neves came on board with his girlfriend, Cátia, and Neftalí joined us later on. Margarida also came for a few days, but stayed in Port more than out in the sea and saw few dolphins. I our last attempt at getting more samples from Figueira, we saw some porpoises but no dolphins. It was unfortunate, as the weather was perfect for sampling.

Porpoises off Figueira. Yes, that's how close we were able to get!

The last crew of Figueira all wearing a funny hat. Margarida's idea (who else?!)!

Karis and Margarida left, and the rest of us went down to Peniche, but not before staying in port with very rough weather and pouring rain. I started wondering if it was really summer we were in and not winter. This meant that when we went down to Peniche the sea was still a bit rough, and seasickness was the norm on board. Fortunately not me!!! Pedro and Cátia left the same day. So the plan for Peniche was simple. Given we alreadyhad 30 samples from there, me and Neftali would go out the same day and get what we could, Zé would join is in that same day, and then it was down to Sines taking advantage of the Nortada that was forecast. It all went according to plan, excpet the fact that we couldn't sample any dolphins in Peniche. We did see them, but uncooperative behaviour and a dodgy rifle set the pace. Yeta nother disapointment. The sailing however, was brilliant. Down to Oeiras we had a brilliant sailing day. We hoisted sail outside of Peniche, and dropped them in front of Oeiras. Everything went smoothly. To Sines it was only motoring until Espichel, but after that the wind picked up and off we go. Spinnaker up, course set to Sines, and at 1800 we were mooring in Sines. Tom arrived that day, and we all went for the famous Sines lasagna. We all agreed that it keeps its reputation for yet another year!!!!

Figueira and the North wind

Nortada had come to stay, and although me and Mário did get out, we had little hope of getting anything. We were forced to stay in port longer than we would have hoped. One day, the same couple that had changed impressions about the sailing conditions early on, gave me a book about the Golde Globe race, the first round the world race, and the first time someone sailed around the world single-handed, nonstop (the book is called "A Voyage for Madmen") and I read it in two afternoons that we were forced to stay in port! We did find dolphins, but the difficult weather conditions and a leaking rifle meant no samples. I contacted the manufacter of the rifle, and was told the problem lied in one of the seals. They were sending some, but until then I tried to make a few from some pieces of rubber I had available. At some point I thought I fixed it, only to find out I hadn't in front of a pod of dolphins. It was frustrating, but at least the dolphins were where we expected them to be. Not so bad. Mário left, and was replaced by Eva and Cristina, two biology students whe heard about the project from Margarida. They arrived just in time for the good weather.

Eva

Cristina

On the first day we did see some dolphins, but they never allowed us to approach. This was typical behaviour of dolphins in Figueira, and I was expecting it. The next day though, we found a nice group. However, using the pole is far more difficult than using the rifle, and we got only 2 samples. It was clear that stocking up on gas canisters was the way to go! Cristina was replaced by Diana (another student from Aveiro), and Karis and Ben joined us again this year. After two days with no dolphins, and one forced to stay in port due to the big waves (we faced two that were well in their 5 meters!) we finnally had a great day. We got 10 samples, and again reached the magic 30. The pressure was off as for now. Unfortunately, Nortada came back and we were forced to stop. Yesterday, the wind inside the marina reached 30 knots, meaning outside it was building up to gale force!

Diana

Karis

Ben

Dolphins

Eva and Diana eventually left (they were reluctant to do so, but I explained they needed to get a life of their own!) and so did Ben. We are staying here for a few more days after which we move to Peniche. We won't stay there for long, and will then move to Sines, the last difficult location. After that is Sagres and Portimão, where we expect much easier conditions, both weatherwise and dolphinwise. Let's hope this remains true!

"Mário, the rifle is leaking!"

Next day, after the front passed, came the associated stronger winds, but the sea was comfortable and we were motivated. Unfortunately, the whole day went by and we didn't see any dolphins, until the right end of the day when we were already coming back. They aproached and started bowriding. However, a large cargo ship was coming our way and we had to change course. This proved fatal to our efforts. Not the changing of course, but the fact that a large cargo ship doing over 10 knots it's a much better ride than Clavadel. We found the dolphins again bowriding the cargo ship, and jumping several meters high in the air. After 5 minutes, they were already too far away. Our dolphins were gone, and Mário turned to me and said "You can curse loudly now!". In my mind I already was!

Fortunately, later on we found another group (or maybe the same decided to come back). We got to our battle positions, and I aim. When I get my chance I shoot, but no air came from the rifle. The gas canister was empty I thought. I changed to a new one and get another shot but miss. At the second opportunity, the same thing happened, and no air comes out. "What the hell?!" I heard Mário saying. I was puzzled too, it was a new canister. I change for yet another and when I finally get a shot I figured what was hapenning. "Mário, the rifle is leaking! Our day is over!". I still tried to get some samples on a one shot one canister basis, but by this time, the dolphins had changed their behaviour and were constantly avoiding the boat, so we just head back. On the way I disassembled the rifle and realized the problem was in the piece that controls the intake of air (quite predictably!). It was either the piece itself or the rubber seals that were wearing off, but I couldn't know exactly what it was. Until I did I would be forced to return to the pole, or stock up gas canisters!

Nortada settled in the next day, and it was pointless for us to try and stay. We sailed the next day with strong winds and waves over 3 meters, and I finally tried Clavadel new saling abilities in a real crossing. We were obviously pleased. The boat was incredibly stable, and the waves were hardly noticeable. We averaged over 7 knots the entire day, taking 9 hours to do a crossing that would usually take well over 10. There was a sailing boat visible just above the horizon when we left Porto, and we arrived at Figueira 10 minutes behind her. Once in Figueira, a british couple who moored by Clavadel turned to me and said "What a great sail today hey?!". I couldn't agree more!

Reaching the magic 30.

Mário finally arrived soon after Mikolaj and 1st Mate left. He soon realized it would be only the both of us for around 10 days. We had a tough week ahead of us. Unfortunately, things didn't get much better. The weather did gave us some nice days, but we saw no dolphins. Time was running short, and we still had the rest of the coast to do. Soon, Nortada would be settling in strong, and we would take use it to sail down to Figueira. One Friday I decided to take one last chance. This would be it. If we didn't see dolphins we would be moving South with the Nortada. It would prove a tough but successfull day. On board with us was Gisela, whom we'd met in a port wine shop and got interested enough to come for one day. We started by seeing a dead floating minke whale, but dolphins were again hard to come by.

At around lunch time, the menacing sight of a cold front coming our way could be seen in the distance to the West. Soon it was on top of us dropping all it's rain. It rained for over 45 minutes, and I was cursing my luck (or lack of it)!!! After it stopped, another patch of rain was coming right in front of us, and I decided to turn back to avoid it. It proved a wise decision! 10 minutes later a group of dolphins on the portside bow. I woke everybody up, and Gisela (who had never seen dolphins) couldn't believe it. We were back in business. It was a small group, and it was quite shy, but we eventually got a few samples. 5 to be exact. This meant we had reached the magical number 30 for Porto. Our perseverence paid up in the end!

We came back to port late, but in a good mood, making jokes and goofing around. By the looks of it, I figured Nortada would be settling a bit later than expected, and we might still have a couple of extra days to try and find more dolphins, who should stay in the area for a while longer as well. We would be staying a while longer after all.

Me and Mário scared with an oncoming rogue wave!
Seriously, it was 1.5 m, almost as tall as Gisela!!!

First samples.

Some of you have complained about how long it took me to update the blog. Well, let's just say this past days haven't been easy! As you can see by the pictures on the alst post, the weather was not exactly pleasant in Porto, and it stayed like that for a while. We did go out, but mostly only to realize we couldn't do any work on those conditions. A few days after we arrived in Porto, Beata left and was replaced by 1st Mate. With a heavyweigth crew we could go out and sample in worst weather, but the dolphins were nowhere to be found. We eventually saw a small group, but the difficult conditions meant we got only 1 sample. Things weren't looking very good. Until finally...

Photo credit: Mikolaj Golachowski

Photo credit: Mikolaj Golachowski

We found a very big group of dolphins, and followed them almost until sunset. We got 9 samples, asn for at least one day we were excited about the outcome. We arrived at Porto during the night, which was quite busy trying to get everything ready for the next day. However, the excitemente was short lived, as the weather was definitely not favourable. The wind was creating small and short waves, the kind that make life on board very uncomfortable. We found dolphins, but getting a sample was extremely hard. We still managed to get one though!

We did had days of good weather, but dolphins failed to show up. In fact, we saw nothing until the day 1st Mate left, were we did see a small group at the end of the day, but it just aproached the boat, circled it once, and left. In the end, we did get as many samples as last year, but this concerns only one good day of sampling. As for now, we are staying here for a bit longer, but as soon as the weather is favourable, we will sail South to Figueira. Mário will be coming back to serve as crew, and we hope to get a few sample more from Porto before the end of the week.If not, we hope Figueira will be better!

Porto... finally!!!