Back to the Boat, relaunch in the Algarve

After a two month stay back in Ireland it was time to come a thousand miles South back to the boat. I came out a week before Shirley as I was going to finish some work and get the boat launched. In fact this was a flawed plan as had I been at anchor a half mile from shore when Shirley arrived we would have had to use the wee punt to motor through shallows with mudbanks and moored boat galore to come a cropper on. It would have been very dark too, and there was quite an evening wind for the first few days. So I delayed launch until Shirley arrived and the tide suited an evening launch.

Gorgeously clean and well run yard, note every boat has 4 straps as well as superb cradles, At under ten euro a day I would come again. Nave Pegos - aka "Bruce's yard" Faro.


The tide goes out quite far!
Navigating this in the dark would have been interesting

The view from the lifting dock, loads of poles but actually you get escorted by a wee boat that shows you the way in, and the way back to buoy 23 so it is stress free,

The delay in launching gave us a day to explore Faro - nice old city past the train station and the "Marina" - we took in a show about the Portuguese guitar,the Fado, we got the history and some lovely tunes. The guitar is only plucked with two fingers. (In Seville a week later we hear the Spanish guitar used to play Flamenco - sounded like it was played with eleven fingers) but both shows were superb.
This is the "marina", the open sea lies under the railway bridge. No, it doesn't open... there are not many yachts in the marina" Even "limboing" my punt under the bridge would have been a challenge.

There is even time for "Fika" as they say in Sweden (Elevinses in Belfast-speak)


Portuguese custard tarts are worth going to war over, the puff pastry, the custard, Ahhh.

 Note the black circle at the top, there are two types of Portuguese guitar, one has a very classical top and the other this "peacock eye" depends whether it is a Lisbon or Coimbra type.



 The hat (and the playing) is very cool. This was in the local tourist office - I was lucky to spot it, very worthwhile hour.

Anyway, onwards to Sea... in the end the weather was lovely, sunsets superb, heat, no wind..



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We get anchored just off the island of Culatra just as the sun sets. No time for a swim - the sea is over 20 degrees according to the new echo sounder.

Next morning we arise before Dawn - 7am and are away through the gap into the open sea - an unpleasant force 4-5 headwind with a 2 metre swell < sigh> but is declines as the day progresses.



The sun in my life...
We have various options at this point - This is Thursday just off Faro, Eileen and Reg are arriving in Seville on Friday.  Seveille is 50 miles upriver from Chipiona, Chipiona is 70 miles from Faro. There are a couple of places to stop between Faro and Chipiona and we decide to avoid nighttime port entrances, there are a lot of pots about and picking one up would spoil my day. In the end we go 50 miles to Mazagon in spain, leaving a 30 mile run to Chipiona. 


Down with the old and up with the new

Bye the way, I have just read that the Spanish national flag has a crown but the Spanish maritime flag has no crown and the proper courtesy flag should be the maritime one. Only Spanish registered boats should carry the national flag. Oops sorry.

The next blog will describe how we get delayed a bit, how Shirley loses a lot of weight by projectile D&V and gets very sick - in the marina, not seasick. Poor Shirley. Also we decide to go to Seville at 120 km/hour rather than 6 knots...