Sailing progress

This is an overdue post that comes in sequence with "the dream" that refers to the so-wanted sailing around the world trip :) So from the title you can guess that I am making some progress towards that dream. I say it is overdue because there has been two weeks since I made such progress. Basically I have now completed the off-shore sailing course that allows me to navigate almost everywhere but only theoretically.. I learnt about tides, streams, wind, maps, navigation, weather, equipments, ropes, bla bla bla, so that I can sit down and plan a safe journey somewhere accouting for almost everything. It was a very useful course although a bit boring, as I cant help finding boring to be sat in a classroom listening to someone for hours. After three weekends of waking up at 7am Saturdays and Sundays and driving to Hull for the classes, then coming back in the evening, it was very exhaustive of course. And Hull is dull, it is really ugly. Overall and most importantly, theory is mastered and I am now waiting to do the practice. There will be courses running from May on, so very soon me and my boyfriend should be enrolled in one of those. Yet, we thought about trying Cornwall this time instead of Hull for the sake of some nice landscapes hehehe

Sailing trip - building the dream

Last time I talked to my best friends we discussed my sailing dream. I am every day more and more excited about it and about making it real. There are few but very important things I need, to realize this dream among finishing my PhD, raising money, buy the boat, learn to sail and go. While I can't do them all I spend some of my procrastinating time doing the small things, like for example, planing the route. I want a route that's doable in less than a year, and I did some research about it. The route I came out with should be done in about 9 to 10 months giving us time for some stops in main planned places. These are the places we aim to spend some time:

Departure: Cascais, Lisbon, Portugal

Second Stop: Azores archipelago.

Second Stop: Caribbean Islands

Leaving Lisbon we would head to Azores, 9 portuguese islands in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. We would do our first stop there, visit the islands, and get ready for the next sailing chunk, the longest without pulling over - 3-4 weeks.









 




Coming from Azores we will arrive in the Caribbean basin (left). There we will visit some of the islands while heading towards the Panama canal.

 

Antigua

Barbados

Dominican Republic

Jamaica

Once we cross the Panama canal we will go to the Galapagos Islands. From the Galapagos we will head to French Polynesia, and cross the Pacific Ocean towards Australia. 

Panama Canal

Galapagos

We will yet stop at Cook Islands, Fiji Islands, New Caledonia cross the coral Sea and arrive at Queensland.

 

French Polynesia - Tahiti

French Polynesia- Bora Bora

By this time, we must have spent over 4 months of our time, crossed two entire oceans and visited some of the most stunning places on earth.

Australia - Queensland

From Australia we haven't yet decided whether we head north towards the Philippines and visit Macau later or we go to Timor-Leste and Indonesia. Either way we will end up in Thailand. Later we will go to Singapore and leave towards the Sri Lanka.

Bali-Indonesia

Philippines

Thailand

Singapore

Sri Lanka

From the Sri Lanka we will be going to Maldives, Seychelles and Mozambique where we plan to spend sometime looking around... 

Maldives

Seychelles

Mozambique

From Mozambique we go around Africa near South Africa coast, heading to the Brazillian Northwest - Recife, Natal, Fortaleza. We will leave brazil towards Fernando de Noronha Island and heading to Cape Verde. By then Our trip is nearly over and we must have spent about 9 months. We will need two or three weeks to arrive back in Portugal, still passing by Canaria archipelago.

Fernando Noronha

Brasil

Cape verde

The return to Lisbon will be the end of the circumnavigation and the achievement of our dream. For now it is only a dream that we are making real. But I am very confident that this dream will become true indeed. I will keep you posted ;)

"better to be fond of beautiful girls than gay" Silvio Berlusconi today

There were a few times today I wanted to post something, and I had something to post about, but as usual my day is so busy that I just kept postponing it until now I finally got home.

I sat in the sofa and checked the news (I hadn't had time for that before either).
It was with suprise that I discovered that the Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi was confronted today during an interview with a question about being allegedly involved with a 17 year old girl in a private party, and to which he replied saying, in a well humoured tone (I think): "better to be fond of beautiful girls than gay" or in Italian  ''Meglio appassionati delle belle ragazze che gay".
I couldn't help but laugh!! How bad is to be gay?? Apparently the gay community was quickly prompted with anger and replied "Better gay than pig!" LOL, And they could continued and see who is worse than who.. but lets see how can a prime minister say something like that? Its quite shocking treating homosexuality as disease.. I found it very irresponsible..


Being portuguese I listened to the original video and obviously I can't believe he really said that.. Check it out:

 

I have no problem with people who say what they think, but that was a little too much, and gay people do not hurt anybody!!

Sailing for life

Hello everyone,
There is always a big gap between my posts and I really dont like it. When I started this blog was because I had the will to write and the pleasure of course. However, with time part of that pleasure vanished mostly due to my routine (crazy as very very busy, focus on my bloody PhD, which is killing me, I just want to see the end of it.. and although I see it, because I have to, as I am almost running out of funding, and I know I have to finish, bla bla bla, it almost seems impossible to do it.. its a truly nightmare, and perhaps I wish I would have never decided to do it.. but the thing is.. I still do not know what I want to do for living.. I really mean it, I dont know what I want to do to support my life financially, there is nothing appealing around me, and I get frequently bored of any task or job, as it seems that as soon as I handle it - what happens very fast - it loses interest - its like a bit of a challenge in the first day, then I learn, specialize, master it and then.. its boring.. and now I may have to finish this parentheses to come to the topic of today.. which is in line with what I just said though :P)

OK so given the situation I think I found a really nice and exciting challenge that will keep me busy and happy, and eventually I may be able to turn it to a profitable business and live from it:

A while ago my boyfriend Pedro came out with this idea of sailing.. mostly (I believe) because we are in England and having a boat just sounds perfect as the sweetest escape out of the country back to our dearest Portugal. I fantasised many times us waving goodbye from the boat in incredible excitement and happiness with our mission accomplished and with our diplomas from our PhDs towards a brand new awesome prosperous life back home (ideally).

However, and although this idea still sounds great to me, I thought that having a boat could give us a lot more, and after us being wondering and dreaming about many possible sailing trips there was A one trip that could JUST really fulfil my adrenaline addiction and challenge hunting dependence - the ultimate challenge that someone possessing a boat could think of: CIRCUMNAVIGATE THE WORLD obviously!

.. And that is the plan.. Step-by-step the plan is becoming true, and since me and Pedro just had idea a relatively short time ago, everything is still in the beginning. We have so much to do.. obviously we need to learn how to sail, and we are starting that in January, already got enrolled for the day-skipper course, next we have to take an open see cruiser course, and eventually a third one, we are looking for a decent affordable sailing boat, and we frequently read and search for information on the topic. Right now one of our major issues is the budget...

Very recently Pedro added some adverts to his blog http://towardsnothing.blogspot.com/
we know it is not going to buy us the boat but any little helps, so if you like the idea (or you're simply nice to us), you could just go there and click in one of the advertising links ;))

As for the record I feel that this challenge will change my life forever and hopefully will make it better, brighter and more exciting :)) So that is why I am going to sail for life.

PS: I am also currently looking for some kind of spounsership.. we have a few plans to generate money and attract investment but if by any chance you would like to embrace this dream - or you know of who would like to -  please help us, donations, suggestions and basically any recommendations are very welcome!  

Where am I going this Friday?

Yes I am going to fly.
Yes I am going out.
Yes I am going to be happy.
Yes I am going to be home.





A to B and B to C followed by :D and yeahh and wiiii and ohhhh (Pedro!!) but wii again ;)

Snow trip part II

The first successful 2 meters standing up skiing:

See how unsure I was about the position of the legs and what to do with the sticks...

Trying to have a little bit of style now that I could safely stand up..



It always looks easy from the bottom but when one gets to the top... it appears like a cliff... you can find Wally on this picture too



On top of the mountain, that means that the only way to go home is to come down the hill rather skiing or randomly rolling down...

Mission accomplished!!

Thank you Pedro, it was really good fun, I loved it, I am addicted now, and I have to wait almost a year now for another time like that :) Skiing rules!

Snow trip part I

Hi everyone,

first of all my apologies for disappearing for such a long time, but first was the troubles with the moving into my new place together with the last days before going on holiday, you know to go on holiday means to leave a lot of work done and things organized such that my absence will not be that much noticed.. and that didnt give me time to post here and say goodbye before leaving on holiday. I didnt even told most of the people I know that I was going on holiday.. Anyway holiday was the main cause of my absence for such a long time. One of the most important things about this holiday was that it was my birthday present, a bit early but very convenient, my awesome great boyfriend offer me this lovely amazing time and I am really deeply thankful!

Picture of us as a tribute (I love you :))

DETAILS: The holiday was spent in France, in the Pyrenees, most precisely in Saint Lary soulain and it was awesome, as you might already be thinking I went skiing and I found it genial!! I am so sorry that just with 24 I found my favourite sportive activity and I am even more sorry that it is very restrictive, since, for obvious reasons it cannot be done in a regular basis.. Never mind, that musT be the reason why I liked it so much, you know, or you must know that I am not a sportive person at all, therefore this is my sport! Thrilling as I like (I love emotions and adrenaline, I am sort of addicted to it), and I love mountains therefore this combination could not be more perfect! It is awesome!

Map of my location:

Map of the trails

Click to enlarge

I called this post the part I because I am still missing the photos and the videos so I will come back to this topic soon, nevertheless I wanted to say hello to the readers and up date to the latest news :)

As I said this was my first time skiing ever so it was the real adventure, since standing up in the skis to come down the hill without falling over or crushing with other people everything was challenging! This sport demands a lot of energy, to be fit helps a lot and whether you did some skating in the past it also helps! I didnt have much problems learning how to ski, but I found myself very exhausted and I have a lot of muscle aches coming for muscles that I didnt even know they existed! In the end it appeared that I am apparently skilled for skiing, I managed to evolved quite fast, but I think that was probably because I was forced to go into the blue slopes before I even tasted the greens! After all I feel I am quite brave!

Unfortunately almost in the end I had a little accident that gave me a little trouble, basically cut my forehead by crushing with a friend (the story is a little bit more complicated, but I will detail it later one day)... I am good now, just a few stitches but its fine ;)

Little tip for skiing: I found that if I was listening to music while coming down the hill my performance was 10 times improved because I was feeling much more confident!

And there you go my favourite. That made part of my skiing soundtrack! It was so much fun!!!




And at last I am settling down in Nottingham, so it means parties are coming!! Get ready, I will announce soon :)))

Friends

I cant believe I left a horrible photo on top of my blog for such a long time.. I have been no time at all and not much inspiration too, but since I have got some photos from the time I was in Portugal with my friends (One of my friends just posted me a cd with very nice moments from my christmas holiday in Portugal, where me and my best friends and very much loved boyfriend went to a place called Vila Nova de Mil Fontes. I went there once before for a lunch with my family but didnt much realized how nice it is. And this holiday there, well, just three short days, with these people were so much fun!!! Cant wait to repeat something like that! And thank you for the photos, Margarida :)).

A tribute to my best friends :)

Ilha do Pessegueiro on the Background, Rui, Pedro, Boavida and Motinha.

Ilha do Pessegueiro and the shore

The girls, framed, Joana, Margarida, Raquel and Me.

Me and Pedro running down the dune to the sea

Me, Joana, Boavida, Raquel and Margarida, "The old friends"

Pedro, Boavida and Mota ("the very new friends.. or the boyfriends and the friend")

Two girls and a boy, a threesome and a friend reading the garfield apparently in french, this was waiting time

Me and you, with love:)

New year's

The chocolate eaters

A sight by the sea, cold winterful sea :)

Monday Whatever post.. includes trip to Liverpool

Ok, I haven't been writing here for a while, I have been missing interesting topics to discuss, but I want to write something today so I can talk about the weekend and the time spent in Liverpool :) Yes, I went to Liverpool last Friday, after work, just for one night and a day, because some friends are getting married then they did an engagement party. That reason took me to Liverpool. Despite of lacking time to properly see the city I saw enough to do a little comparison between Liverpool and Nottingham.

Liverpool(not by me)

I like Nottingham a lot, and I think that might be one of the best places in England to be a student and to do a PhD when combining aspects such as the University, with the town, the life style and the prices it’s a fairly good combination. The city is tiny but that means that it's cheaper to live closer to the centre or in the centre, and still it has everything needed. And the rest is all positive, like the uni is well rated, the campus is awesome and the life style is very student friendly (since there are two universities and the University of Nottingham has over 20000 students/year everything is somehow done in function of the students). Liverpool was quite a surprise for me, as I thought it would look a lot more industrialized and "dark" but it shown up as a modern bright city. The very good point about it is the large presence of water, either the wide river or the sea nearby makes it nice. Nottingham has just one river, the Trent, which is almost inexistent, being just a tiny narrow course of water, there is almost no water around anywhere in Nottingham.
The second nice thing about Liverpool is the shopping area and the huge and nice buildings around, from the begging of the XX century showing that the city used to be exceptionally wealthy thanks to the money coming from wharfs and factories of the region. Another thing is that because Liverpool is more a city than Nottingham there are shops that one can’t find in Nottingham and that I miss a lot sometimes.

Liverpool(not by me)

In conclusion, Liverpool was worth visit. I enjoyed the party very much (got sick in the end.. but was ok, lololol .. ) and AH! And I can’t forget there was something worse in Liverpool than in Nottingham there is the coldness due to the wind coming from the ocean, ice cold blasts of wind made me freeze... brrrrrggg...

I would like to show here some photos of Liverpool but I still haven’t got them (they were not in my camera).

There are some last things to point out about Liverpool such as the people there. Mostly everyone was exceptionally nicer and more sympathetic than any where else in England! That is really strange that liverpudlians were talking to you without any problems they broke the silence on the train, they made jokes while one was waiting for food and even the taxi driver talked during the journey, that just reminded me about Portugal and made me mark Liverpool as a very nice place!
These same people seem to be all football fans, everyone seems to enjoy football and they are fanatic. One negative thing is the accents; a proper Liverpudlians will talk in an incomprehensive way.. Very bizarre accent though .. known as scouse... mostly everyone that talks like that also might think that Liverpool is not part of England but rather something apart, so they say that they are not English but Liverpudlians (from Liverpool) !!!

Liverpool(not by me)

And now I should get back to work on my Monday working mood, never very happy, of course, monday sucks (like Garfield says and I agree)..

Liverpool(not by me)