Wind and Waves

That morning we awoke to rain pattering on the roof tiles. It was very windy, with forecasts (in Cascais and further up the coast) of up to 80 kts of wind and a wave height average of 9 meters. That's average. The waves could get bigger. The apartment we are staying in has Ticket to Ride, so we set that up and played a game of that. By then, it was lunchtime, so we went out into the storm to eat at Saudade, a café in Sintra. We ate lunch, blah blah blah, and then, after lunch, we went out and grabbed a taxi. The driver was cleaning his taxi when we found him but he let us in anyway. We wanted to go to the beach, which, if you recall, had a forecast with 80 kt winds and 9 meter waves. That was the whole reason why we wanted to go to the beach. Anyway, when we got to the first beach, which was called Praia Grande, we got out of the taxi into the high winds. However, they weren't such high winds that we started losing control of vital parts of our body, such as our legs. After a few moments of standing on the beach watching the waves while sand and seafoam blew everywhere, we got back in the taxi and headed off to the next beach to watch the waves while wind pummeled us. The next beach was called Praia Adraga and we all got out. Dad and I got out the windward side of the car while Mom and Aaron got out the leeward side of the car. Dad and I had an extremely hard time getting out of the car, while Mom and Aaron a mysteriously easy time of it. Strange. Anyhow, once we were out of the car it got chaotic. Sand and seafoam were going by as fast as a speeding car on the autobahn. Mom and Aaron were huddled behind the leeward side of the car to get away from all the sand, Dad had taken refuge behind a building, and I was getting sandblasted. I saw Dad behind the building and hurried over to join him; as I left, I heard Mom and Aaron jump back in the car. In the safety of the building's leeward side, I decided the sandblasting wasn't so bad after all. I peered around the corner, and a piece of seafoam got me in the eye. I wiped it out and peered around the corner again. I shouldn't have left my mouth open. After spitting all the seafoam and sand out, I stepped out into the wind. It was almost hurricane force. The wind was being channeled down the narrow beach, making it stronger than in Praia Grande. It was hard to move into it, but real easy to move away from it. Such is the nature of strong wind. I hid behind the building again. At that point, Dad decided to video me in the wind, so he urged me out into it again. This was the moment that I lost control of vital parts of my body, and I got flung into a fence. I hid again. Dad and I then decided that it was a good idea to go back to the taxi. We left the shelter of the building and started getting blown towards the car. At this point the wind knocked me down. I got up and we got into the taxi. We felt pretty bad about the cars side. It was covered in sand and seafoam. We drove back to the apartment and spent the rest of the day relaxing there.

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Isaac