The land is there, if you know what to look for. We're surrounded by a diffuse fog, and the land appears as an indistinct dark line a couple degrees above the visible horizon. "That's it?" they ask me incredulously. Yup, that's it, after all these days at sea, all we get is a vague portent of land, even though we're only six miles off.

In ten miles we'll pass between Cabo Carvoeiro and Isla Berlenga, which is a protected natural area. I doubt we'll see much of either, and we probably won't stop at the town of Peniche, even though it's listed in the yachtsman's guide as having impressive churches, imposing fortifications, and many bars. What more could a sailor want?

Instead we'll continue on toward Cabo de Roca, which is the headland that you round to enter into the mouth of the Rio Tejo, which will be Amistad's home for the next few weeks, first in the town of Cascais, then in Lisbon itself.

Last night we changed our course to East and ran in across the shipping lanes to our present position right off the coastline. In doing so we gave away all the "westing," or distance off from the shoreline. This was an essential safety factor of searoom in case the wind decided to blow hard out of the west, which it's known to do. We paid for that westing with hard pounding, and now we give it away in hopes of finding a seabreeze setting up along the shore, giving us one last day of sailing before going into port.

My guess is that the cloud cover will keep the land cool, so probably no seabreeze. There are forecasts of southerly winds blowing fairly strong, dead on the nose, so for now we'll continue under power.
 

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