[Dewey Benson]

As my poor memory might recall twas the late 80's when I had the pleasure to spend a week and a half in Portugal. A delightful country that actually seemed to like Americans! I hope it has retained that feature.

Upon arrival in Lisbon it became obvious why such a small country became one of the great early seafaring powers. The Harbor is magnificent and huge, with plenty of good acessable spots for vessels of any size. Her seafaring heritage is omnipresent every where I went. Didn't catch the Algarve but managed to get about most of the country with ease while staying at Le Meridian in Lisbon ( decent place.even tho it was a frog hotel!).

Had linked up with a few americans who were there, as I was, with intermitent business moments interspersed with some days of personal time. Night one found us at a Lisbon Fado bar, day two a massive hangover! Night two returning to the Fado Bar to find it closed, a sidewalk hawker urged us to enter the establishment nearby as it was midnight The disco "Skylab" was just opening. It didnt get cooking for about an hour , but when it did it was pretty wild. Lovely women in that country! Day three, Massive hangover!

Highlights:

Procuitto (or rather the Portugees version of it, my wife is Sicillian so the Italian names stick in my head) and pinapple or melon is the national
appetizer...Delightful

Visit to a bullfighter training farm where I was promised a "barbeque". The demonstrations were fasinating. After the picadors and the toreadors had finished, the audience was asked if they would like to participate...uhhhh.You may not believe this but quite a few locals hopped into the bullring. In street shoes..slacks.. dress shirts and proceded to taunt the bull, upon gaining this unwelcome attention racing to the side of the ring and vaulting over a five foot wooden wall! Uuhhh.. none for me thanks! I'd like to practice that wall vault a bit before trying that! Ah yes! the "barbecue" turned out to be a grill rather than the low and slow version. The entre was.....Sardines! Turns out these grilled Sardines are availble in cafe's everywhere in the country. Unbelievably excellent! I lust after them even now. Marinated in lemon juice salt and what I believe was oregano, then lightly grilled, positivly gourmet, delish, addictive!

Estoril! an exquisite coastal town of rare beauty! Sticks in my memory even more as I more doubled my disposable pocket money in the local casino. At that time the casino was only available to forieners and not for locals. Wifey and I had tickets to a show in the casino complex and I brought a little extra cash to play a little blackjack (my fav) before the show. As luck would have it every blackjack table was packed. Undaunted I headed for the craps section...the game was different....REALLY DIFFERENT (found out later it was a rather simple game but didn't know that at the time). Saddened by this turn of fortune I headed for the one armed bandits (to me better odds than baccaratt) handed wifey half of my escudos (after converting them to tokens, hell I already was having trouble figuring out what I was spending now I have to convert twice!) The machine I'm feeding is kicking me back a coin or two every so often and wifey whose machine is not cooperating at all demands mine. So I let her have it (descretion IS the better part of valor especially with a Sicillian chick!) and move to the next machine. She pormptly begins to lose what coin she has left, while my new mechanical demon is bent on returning large quantities of coin at every other stroke. Pretty soon I have my basket overflowing, both pants pockets full of tokens and wifey is tugging at my sleeve. "We are going to be late for the show!! Descresion is the better part of.... the hell with that! "beat it kid! ya botherin me!" In due time she managed to convince me to desert my mechanical friend. And for once I left a casino a man richer in spirit AND in pocket!

More stuff, but I'm bound to be boring you readers. The ramblings of an aged yacht club barfly and bon-vivant.

My ancient life raft was just condemmed so it's off to figure out the replacement!

Dewey