to be left high and dry, to be left hanging
Ele ficou esperando pelo emprego prometido, que nunca veio, e ficou a ver navios.
He waited for the promised job that never materialized. He was left high and dry.
The Portuguese saying ficar a ver navios (literally "to be left watching ships") evokes someone scanning the horizon for a vessel that never brings what was hoped for. The philologist Antenor Nascentes traced it to the shipowners who, in the age of conquest, waited atop Lisbon's Alto de Santa Catarina for the caravels returning from India, Africa and Brazil — and sometimes watched in vain.
Source: Ciberdúvidas da Língua Portuguesa.
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