Leaving Porto we continued on our travels heading South. Being our anniversary Lee had promised me we would eat out that night, so I was very excited and began to hunt for a lipstick and my hairbrush that had somehow been relegated to the same place my trainers live.
Motoring all the way through yet more pea soup fog and no wind we arrived 8 hours later. No one was answering the VHF, phone calls or emails so despite there being lots of empty berths we did as the pilot guide said and parked up outside the office. Which was closed. Lee said we would have to wait for someone to return to the office, as where we were was not meant to be for overnight visits, so we stayed and waited. And waited. And waited. After 3 hours of waiting and with still no signs of life in the office Lee admitted defeat, left a note on the office door and we went off to have a lovely anniversary meal.
From what we could tell in the dark it seemed like it would be a really pretty town but as it was pitch black who knows. It might be like Rowner in Gosport for all I could tell. There were only about 3 restaurants open and 2 of them seemed a little high end, and unlikely to allow a scabby dog in them with us, so we decided it would be Italian. Impressed by how busy it was Lee went and asked for an outside table. “No”. Not even, “In an hour”. Just “No.” Lee came and relayed this information to me. Not put off I asked him to go back in and ask about take away. He had to stand in the really long queue again just to ask this question only to be told “3 hours”. Not “I’m sorry, we are really busy, perhaps an hour and a half”. Just “3 hours”. This would have put it at midnight.
We returned to the boat and watched some Phoenix Nights which cheered me up while I made the best goddamn pizzas this side of Italy, all the while making sure Lee knew what a great wife I was by cooking on our anniversary after having been promised a meal out. After a bottle of fizz to wash it down with we went to bed and discussed with amazement and pride how we had managed to stay married for 17 years. After mutually agreeing that the length of our marriage was probably more to do with not wanting to make the other person happy by giving them a divorce we went to sleep, pleased that we still had things in common.
The next morning at 0700 hrs we woke to the harbour master knocking loudly on the hull asking us why we were moored there. After paying full price for a lousy berth with no water or electric we decided Fig de Foz could shove it up its bum and we carried on South towards Nazaré
There are no photos because 1) it was really foggy and 2) It was really crap.