Heading to Seville

We arrive at Mazagon Marina - 50 miles from Faro and 30 miles from Chipiona at the mouth of the guadalquiver river that runs inland to Seville and moor to the reception pontoon - the office is shut for lunch. Shirley feels ill with stomach cramps and suddenly is losing weight from both directions at once (D&V). She has a thoroughly miserable time over the next couple of hours and I help her as best I can and also get Shadowmere moved to a overnight berth. Off to bed with a hot water bottle seems to help her and next morning I move the boat to Chipiona - very light winds and no swell thank goodness.

 I cheated here - the shots below was taken a few days later after we had visited Seville

 Palm trees and beaches, sun and sea, what's not to like

After arriving in Chipiona we realise that going 50 mile up a river in very hot windless motoring conditions will take all day and be boring - and a waste of Shirley's precious time, we only have Saturday and Sunday, maybe Monday as she flies home on the Tuesday. Also messages are mixed over the hassle of berthing in Seville. People have done it and the Cruising Association I belong to has reports online for its members. It goes like this; there are three marinas, two near the city centre but these are through a lock and an opening bridge. The lock opens half a dozen times a day and the bridge twice a day. The third marina is Puerto Gelvis about 5km from the town - a simple bus ride on the 140 bus which runs every 10 minutes. But.... both my charts (Garmin and Navionics) show an electric cable half a mile before the marina that has 16.5 metres of clearance. I need 18 (16.85 plus length of VHF antenna...). Now, I have a cruising report from two people who say tosh they got under ok and one boat had a 19m mast. If I was ultra keen I would telephone the marina. You can also anchor in the river and could use motor up in a rib (Simon and Paula!)

So, we hire a car in Chipiona and base the boat there (nice marina - a municipal one identical to Mazagon and just over 20 Euros a night - November is not high season. The car hire is painless as it gets delivered to the marina and you leave the keys behind the bar there when finished. It is nearly a 2 hour drive to Seville but we get to see the countryside and it gives us the flexibility to see roman ruins some way out of the city and also visit the sherry capital of the world on the Monday - we visit uncle joes (Tio Pepe) the biggest Bodega in town (Jerez)

The road is long... and straight mostly, the country side is enormous "fields" the scale is really incredible. This area of Spain has the highest amount of sunshine - I think the hire car guy said in Europe! Along the way there are amusing roadsigns on the top of hills, we meet Tio pepe a few days after seeing him by the roadside...

 This is uncle Joe... in Spanish the PePe comes from PP as Joseph was the parent of Jesus and PP is an abbreviation for a religious phrase. Now you know.

The bull is scores of feet high!

We arrive in Seville and rendezvous with Eileen and Reg. I will add photos here later when I get them emailed to me but we have a lovely time, we book in to see a Flamenco and Spanish guitar presentation and visit roman ruins which have the third largest Roman gladiator pit, of particular interest to Shirley as Game of thrones used it for a Dragon Pit in the last series.

The roman ruins are amazing - what stories can the rocks tell us.

The Flamenco performance in the evening is also amazing - the Spanish singing is bit like high pitched gurning but the dancer had passion and the guitar playing was incredible.

I will try and get more pictures from Shirley and Eileen's phone in due course...

We also loved just walking about Seville - the buildings are superb.

 Shirley and Ian - I am the one with the knees

The next day we visit the Sherry bodega in Jerex - there are a number who do tours but we opt for the biggest Bodega Tio Pepe (think Harvey's Bristol Cream) This proves to be a very entertaining way to spend an afternoon - as was my visit of the Port Warehouses in Oporto. We are now fond of a wee dry sherry before, during or after meals  - as long as it is cold. I like the sweeter sherries too - again best very cold. Boy am I glad my solar cells allow running the fridge 24/7!

Ole

 All aboard for the first part of the tour. Castleward - you need one of these!

 Each barrel is labelled with a country that Tio Pepe (Gonzalez Byass) export to - a lot of countries!

 A part of the warehouse is set aside for the special sherry named after the uncle of the owner - uncle Joe who helped the young 24 year old entrepreneur when he started up. Forever honoured as Tio Pepe

 A small but happy mouse lives in the cellar - and the workers put out a glass with a wee ladder just for the mouse. I hope it can swim, or drink lots..

 And there was flowers!

A well dressed bottle

Speaking as a man who built a light back home, out of copper pipe making up three anchors I applaud these light designs

and well dressed thirsty girls

 Dammit, they are all good, do we have to choose?

A good looking nose methinks

Finally a wee walk through Chipiona - a funny wee town with no real heart, pleasant narrow streets and good seafront walks though. A good marina with a couple of good restaurants attached. 

And all too soon Shirley has to return home, I take her to the airport early next morning, initially through peasoup fog, but it clears a few miles inland and she gets her flight ok. Then to prepare for the voyage South. Ken is flying to Faro a few days hence but it is hard to pick people up there, so he gets a bus to Ayomonte on the Spanish/Portuguese border. Eileen and I have to get there before him! 

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...

The Algarve, the end of phase 1

The 45 mile passage from Lagos to Faro passes without much drama - temperature in the high twenties, low thirties and a lot of sun. Faro is a natural inland sea, through a narrow gap with the flood tide with me - travelling at 10 knots may seem fast, but not as fast as entering Strangford at the right time. I swing a right and anchor in 4m of  heavy solid gloopy mud off the island of Culatra, there are over a hundred boats at anchor, the holding is superb, I sleep well.

The weather is superb for the next couple of days - I struggle to get jobs done as it is really hot - I run the fans below decks and drink 3L of cool water every day. On the third day Simon arrives on Sylvana and we have a beer ashore and then a bb'q onboard Sylvana - thanks Simon! I row the inflatable back to Shadowmere after dark thankful that I have good night vision - I had forgotten to set the anchor light before going ashore (in daylight) Darkness falls quickly here, as it will in the Carribean.

Not much wind then...

I have arranged to get lifted out at "Bruce's boatyard" in Faro - now properly known as Nave Pegos. This is cheaper than staying afloat in an expensive marina and I will go home for two months before returning in the third week in October - to sail to Seville for a weeks holiday with Shirley and then departing from Seville to the Canaries or Madeira after November 1st with Ken Walsh from Donaghadee and Eileen.

The arrangement for Bruce's yard is interesting - I am to navigate to buoy 23 about 6 miles away near Faro and then radio to get guided by boat over the shallows! it is tide dependent so I must be in position by 10:30.

The lower red arrow is pointing at buoy 23 and I find a couple of boats at anchor and a few mooring buoys there. I arrive 30 minutes early and "borrow" a mooring buoy. The upper arrow is the boatyard. (the marina on the right is full of local boats and takes no visitors). The extreme left of the photo is showing the end of the runway at Faro airport and there is a blue symbol near the yard showing Faro train station so it is really all very "handy" - the train station has taxis queued outside it so I take a taxi at 7:30 am on the day I leave and get to the airport for 8 Euro.

The yard is really really clean and tidy, after getting led to the dock, 6 people lift out Shadowmere in short notice - the secretary from the office is down tending one of the lines, one line and one person at each corner. Really good setup. Then I get placed into my spot. No painting or wet work is allowed unless at the marina dock which is a nusiance, but I think all marinas will be adopting this rule soon - to control toxic antifouling runoff. There are a number of people living aboard and the showers have a book swop area. Good security too - I get a card to allow me to exit the gates. There is a "Jumbo" supermarket/shopping centre nearby and a Lidl and Decathalon too. I also walk for 45 minutes to a bicycle repair shop to get a puncture mended. All mod cons!

I get a little work done cleaning the hull, it will need polished/waxed before going back in the water and I have left a few jobs that I had hoped to finish.

I have an uneventful flight home, and it is good to be home - it seems as if I am only now coming to terms with being truly retired, when I left work a year ago I went straight to hospital and got a new knee - which focused my mind to a single minded mission of doing lots of exercises to get it sorted - (thanks Christine for being my physio-terrorist) it seemed like I was spending 6 hours a day on exercise or rest and recovery was all consuming so I didn't have time to think about retirement. The knee ended up superbly - I have climbed the mast half a dozen times and sometimes I forget which knee was replaced. Full movement and no pain whatsoever. 100% success.

Post-Knee, the next phase of my life was getting Shadowmere sorted and again this became a bit all-consuming, and totally frantic in the last month or so before departure so again I had little time to reflect on retirement. Once I left, the execution of "The Shadowmere Adventure" has also stopped me from reflecting on retirement and how I will live. I will be back in 2 years and will probably sell Shadowmere - maybe get a wee small boat, or a barge, or a camper van, or nothing when I do return. Or maybe move her into the Med, we shall see. Important not to overplan I suppose.

The last couple of months have been strange - the boat is now a thousand miles from Belfast and I have been through many stages to get her there. At times it has seemed like a delivery trip, going back over places I had been before, parts were holidays, parts were just getting from one place to another. France was nice but rushed - sorry John. The scenery of North Spain was an eyeopener - superb Donegal at its best, but much warmer! Again a bit of a rush.  Northwest Spain was good too - everything was big and I can see how people just cruise this area and stay a while.  I also liked the Portuguese places were I stopped and apart from lobster pots and not enough wind often, or too much wind occasionally the sailing was ok. Coping with the singlehanded sailing was an adventure and I was pleased to survive and succeed.

I think the next phase will be much different from previous experiences, I must learn to slow down and enjoy the moment more. You save diesel if you wait for the wind to carry you along. You save mooring costs by finding anchorages too.

I return to the boat on October 17th 2017. More then.
Ian

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