Luis gunned the Mercedes taxi and lit up a cigarette on which he puffed feverishly, dodging between the traffic with just millimetres of latitude on each side. He evidently belonged to the school of thought that required following as close as possible to the vehicle ahead. With an expressionless face he braved various lane-changers and queue-jumpers with ruthless aversion and never gave an inch. Courtesy was displaced by expedience.

Never the less we reached Avis in what must have been a new Lisbon record and picked up our rental car. Michael at the wheel, Birgit as rear-guard and myself as map-shuffler we made our way east through the auto-chaos toward the World Expo Park.

The Oceanaria de Lisboa is home to more than 10 000 animals and a feature of the 1998 World Expo. The concept was to express the globalism of the world’s four main oceans as just one ocean. In the centre of the building is a massive tank for open ocean pelagic fish. Caribbean Reef sharks swim with Shovelnose rays and Jacks. A juvenile hammerhead cruises past the expansive curved acrylic window; he’ll be trouble when he grows up! Lying on the sandy bottom, pressing against the plexiglass is a group of cow-nose rays and on the opposite side of the divide; children lay on the carpet, eye to eye with the most perplexing fish they have ever seen. It is a pity that there is not more information available to those interested in identifying what they see, but that cannot distract from the wonder of these children. Eyes wide, they point with excitement as a fearsome looking (but actually totally harmless) Ragged Tooth shark slides by.

Inca tern.

Surrounding the main tank are individual tanks representing four ocean habitats; Antarctic, Indian, Atlantic and Pacific. In the Antarctic habitat are the most beautiful birds I have ever seen. With bright orange beaks, white wattles below the eyes, the dark brown Inca terns flutter above the water, splashing down to retrieve fish amongst the Magellan penguins. The habitats total 7000 cubic metres of water, packed with fish and marine birds.

Pasteis de Belém

We jumped back in the VW and headed south along the harbour side highway toward Belém to meet friends of Michael. We rendezvous at Pasteis de Belém, a tile-lined patisserie, established in 1837 and famed throughout Portugal. Coffee-sipping clientele hunch over small tables with fine flakes of pastry attached to their smiling faces. Joáo nodded gracefully as we did our best to pronounce the Portugese. Soon enough we found ourselves enjoying warm custard tarts with liberally applied cinnamon and grinning with the very same pastry-laced smiles as those that surrounded us.

Odetta and Birgit retoring STARSHIP's shine.
[ photo - James Frankham ]

We came back to a positively glistening STARSHIP. Birgit and Odetta had spent the morning buffing the hull with cutting compound until it shined like new. While I stand watch this evening, the rest of crew head out to take in the sights of Lisbon at night. Cities like this come alive under the cover of darkness and I anticipate a myriad of stories from those that walk in the door this evening.

This will be STARSHIP standing by on 16 and 73,

James