The big Adventure

We started our holidays on Monday, the 8^th August 2016. We travelled from Oporto to the hotel near Peniche. Surmounting a big cliff the Hotel Golf Mar detached itself on the landscape. It is a very quiet and nice hotel with many Italian and English guests. In the evening when my wife, my son and me started a little trip, by car, to have diner in a restaurant nearby, we saw three little soft and puffy partridges fleeing, at a run, from us near the road and the hotel. Three partridges!! My wife was astounded! We proceeded and arrived at Santa Cruz Beach where my wife parked our car. There, our choice was the Spaghetti restaurant and we had diner: a very good paste and lasagna of which my son is a great admirer. We returned to the hotel and went to see the billiard and ping-pong saloon and the interior and exterior swimming-pools. We also visited other saloons, the nightclub and, mostly, the bar-room that is big with soft couches and a wonderful sight and panorama. All the hotel has a nice prospect of the ocean and the hills. The day was warm and with a quiet atmosphere, we did a big voyage and when we returned to the bedroom, weary and happy, we slept peacefully.

The holidays were thought for a visit to the Berlenga isles. We already had the tickets for the boat so we got up early, watched the window of our bedroom and saw mist and a cold air. We thought nothing strange of the atmosphere but we, now, know the wheather changed in the night and the sea changed too!! We took breakfast in the hotel and went to Peniche where we would catch the boat to the Berlenga isles. Parked the car, we walked on foot to the wharf and the waiting was with a cold wind but we were cheered up! The boat came, it had two floors and we went to the low floor and sat down. Only the low floor had roof and windows. The top floor had seats too, nice sights of the sea and no roof.  I saw, the top floor had big boxes of iron bars for the holding of luggage and covered with tarpaulin. This was strange why the need of covering the luggage with tarpaulin? And why in the high floor of the boat far from the sea water? In the voyage of the boat to the isles, unhappilly, I would have my questions answered. So, my wife, my son and me, we were in the low floor, cheerful, saying jokes, jest and jeer to each other. When the executive officer began the distribution of plastic bags to the passengers for the sickness we, three, laughed and wondered at. We never guessed the doom waiting for us! I fast went to the top floor because the sights were fine, my wife and son stayed on the low floor. The boat embarked many passengers but mostly on the seats of the top floor. The mist gone, the sun shone intensely, the bright of its rays made the landscape a picture and the picture-frame a big one. The boat started its run along the Peniche coast, within the bay and the first minutes of this voyage were easy, the sea was flat, my sights on the top floor were very interesting and we approached the big lighthouse persistently. When we overtook the lighthouse we began the voyage in open sea without the protection of the bay. On the top floor I was on foot and clinging fast to the bars of protection. The change of the weather in the night, the mist, the cold wind brought a heavy sea and the waves became lofty. Sometimes the waves caught the boat in the sides almost overturning it! When the waves came by the prow the boat rose and sank too fast for the passengers to endure the swinging. I came to the low floor in aid of my wife and she was crying and saying we would overturn, the boat would sink! She was very frightened. My son was able to calm my wife. I looked around me and a big fellow was vomiting into the plastic bag and the voyage was only starting in the open sea! I was in the low floor three minutes and already was starting my sickness, so I fled to the top floor. There the people probably wonted to this voyage were shouting OOOOOOOOO when the boat was sinking in the waves, and shouting AAAAAAAAA when the boat rose in the waves. So, it was a big screaming and shrieking!! The spray got on top of the big boat, damped us, and damped the luggage with the protection of the tarpaulin. The voyage lasted forty five minutes, of a terrible boat plodding, and was frightening. Already on the isle we did not enjoy the wonderful landscape and beach because we were sick and a little shocked. We tried to have lunch in the restaurant of the isle but we had no hunger. The way out of the island was easy because the sea was calmer. But my wife, still in the isle, said sometimes that she was dreaming with a helicopter to exit the isle!! She had fear of the boat!! Already in the hotel, preparing to sleep, and dozing, my wife said she was feeling the waves and she was rising and sinking, rising and sinking!!

The day after we visited the monastery of Batalha, saw the grave of Infante D. Henrique and returned home.