Transatlantic Passage - The Movie(s)

Captain Jim has been busy compiling pictures from our transatlantic passage into short slide shows. There are too many pics for one slide show, so he broke it up into four flicks. IMHO - they're all good, but get better as we get closer to Portugal. 

The complete series with his comments and links to his blog:

Morpheus Transatlantic Passage - Chapter 1 - Preparation

"Almost five weeks have past, since we first arrived in Europe.  They have been five busy weeks, but that's no excuse for having not put together an overall summary of the journey....Well, the good news is that I am finally working on getting that massive post written and published..."

Morpheus Transatlantic Passage - Chapter 2 - Saint Martin to Azores:

"...a slideshow covering our journey from St. Martin to to the island of Horta in the Azores.  As previously mentioned, and documented in detail if you followed our daily blog posts, we had a very good trip...."

Morpheus Transatlantic Passage - Chapter 3 - The Azores

"We enjoyed our short stays on both Horta and San Miquel.  If we all had more time, we would have happily stayed in the Azores for another couple of weeks.  But, we didn't have that time and there was a passage across the Atlantic Ocean for the four of us to complete... Our initial arrival came with a bit of "land sickness" as the earth felt as though it was moving under our feet.  14 days at sea gets your inner ears used to constant movement..."

Morpheus Transatlantic Passage - Chapter 4 - Azores to Portugal

 "Other than Mike's injury, the last leg was flawless and we roared into Cascais, Portugal on a broad reach in 20+ knots of wind on a warm sunny day! The perfect finish to a nearly perfect trip across the Atlantic Ocean!"

Morpheus - Atlantic Crossing - Azores to Portugal from Jim Gregory on Vimeo.
Thanks Jim. Great job. Great passage. Great experience.

Departures

Sunrise Cascais

 The crew take separate paths as the journey comes to a close.

Jim and Deb work on some boat repairs while transitioning Morpheus back to their home away from home.  Which is actually their real home.

My last couple of days on Morpheus include relaxing, updating the blog, shopping and continuing to indulge in Caiscas cuisine.

We stumble on an eclectic little place with a rooftop lounge and decided it was my favorite find  in Cascais. The House of Wonders.

Art on display at House of Wonders

"I'll make a tapas plate for you."

Sunset from the rooftop of the House of Wonders

A great finish to an extraordinary adventure. It's an early start tomorrow - back to Lisbon and flying home.

Moonrise Cascais

Lisbon

Exploring the sights on the streets of Lisbon

 Deb and Kim go horseback riding while Jim, Bob and I take the train into Lisbon for a day of touring.

 When two heads are not better than one. Or none.

We take a cab from the train station to the Castle at the top of the hill.   Rather than tour the castle, we start with refreshments at a little cafe just outside of the castle wall...

  ...and raise our glasses in solidarity with the oppressed worker repairing the cobbled street one brick at a time.

 Slowly. Carefully. Ever so slowly.

 Then spent the day exploring cafes, bars, and stores on the walk back down.

Perhaps the most interesting stop was at the Napoleao wine shop:

Where we sampled some ports and received a tutorial on port vintages and nomenclature. Then on to another sidewalk cafe. This one called Moma:

Where we enjoy more beer, wine, foie gras, wild boar pastry, caprese salad and fries. After meeting the girls at a downtown beer garden, we visit the Institute of Port, but not without a bit of navigation difficulties. Bob's guidebook and map could only get us to the neighborhood. After wandering in circles, we were about to give up when I accosted some locals on a street corner:

MW: "Pardon me. Do you speak English?"
Locals shake head:  "No. Very little." 
MW pressing on: "Do you know where the Institute of Port is located?"
Locals: Blank stare.
MW applying his intuitive linguistic skills: "Institut-OH Port-OH?"
Locals break into big smiles and point: "Two blocks. turn right."

That actually happened. We found it. True.

It was fun and interesting, but a bit stuffy for this crew. So off to find a suitable eatery.

Cocheira Alentejana fit the bill. Fine food. Good service. A great finish to a fine day in Lisbon.

We even managed to avoid missing the last train back to Cascais.

Cascais

On our arrival in Cascais Deb and Ita greeted us at the dock.

Official Greeter to Cascais

Once Morpheus was secure in her slip, it was time to explore our arrival port and celebrate.

Here, in no particular order, a selection of pics from our daily excursions to Cascais. With an emphasis on - you know - food and drink.

First - a  regular stop - Oneill's Irish Pub:

 Cascais graffiti is quite artistic:

 There is always another cafe to try...

... and interesting things to see.

Or another cafe to try:

Local amused by dog in purse.

Our big dinner at Furnas do Guincho:

House specialty appeared to be the salt baked fish. 

We picked the big red mullet for the treatment.

Started with something I've neve had before - barnacles.

We needed instruction on how to eat them.

Deb could not decide between the garlic cream mussels, tomoto onion mussels or Mussels Rockefeller. So... we got all three.

The salt roasted fish was quite a production.

Pricey but very good.