Stuck on the hard.

I set off from overcast Edinburgh full of anticipation, about to start my gap year and realising I would not be back 3 months. We landed in sunny Lisbon eager to set sail but only to find that the tyre on the hoist to lift the boat into the water was broken. At first we thought the delay would only be one day but turns out to be five! Hence, I have spent the past 5 days living 10 foot off the ground with the boat on stilts. This has proved more challenging than it may seem especially doing dishes with no sink! There has also been booming music until five in the morning as part of Lisbon fresher’s week right next to the boat- not the best start to my gap year! I guess there are worse places to be stuck though.

Despite this frustration it has given me the time to explore Lisbon and enjoying the old city, beaches and sunsets. We wandered around the narrow steep streets of the Alfama district with beautiful and colourful tiled buildings and orange/red roofs. We also went to a museum exhibition on the similarities of Edinburgh and Lisbon, which was actually quite interesting although I learned more about Edinburgh than Lisbon! In the evening we got the famous No28 tram up to the castle to see a picturesque sunset over the city. It reminded me of San Francisco with the tram and suspension bridge.

Eating out was highly entertaining for all the wrong reasons. As we walked down the hill we found what looked like a nice restaurant for dinner with tables outside looking down the cobbled streets. We soon realised that this was not the case with the waiters shouting at each other and the kitchen filling with smoke. After around an hour our food finally arrived but they had forgotten about my dad’s order, which did not seem uncommon. In the mean time we watched all the other tables make various complaints whether it was the terrible food or a wrong order. It also seemed that every table’s bills were all wrong. Although it was a fairly disastrous meal it was very entertaining.

Lisbon very much celebrates its place in history for being the centre of discoveries. Here I am 600 years later setting off to follow in their footsteps towards the coast of Africa. In order to make up for lost time we are planning an overnight passage to Lagos. This will hopefully enable us to still make it across to Morocco providing the wind is stable. The sun is still shining and the sky’s are blue so I am excited to finally set off on Teko Too.