July 8th – 20th July (Portugal)
From Lagos we sailed across the bay and motored into the Rio Alvor, dodging all the numerous sand banks, with the intention of spending a few days there, but unfortunately the anchorage was too busy to allow us sufficient swinging room without ending up aground. We therefore decided it would be more sensible to leave, which was a shame as it’s a beautiful anchorage, even if a bit bug infested! Once out of the river we had a good sail to Portimão, where we anchored in the large harbour bay. Aliza arrived a short while later and they all came over to Mistroma for drinks in the evening, before heading into town for dinner and to watch one of the world cup semi-finals.
The following morning we were sitting on the stern talking to Efraim in his dinghy, when another dinghy approached, owned by Steve and Lynne from Aztec Dream, a Jeanneau 45. They are liveaboards and have only recently sold their 42DS as they wanted something bigger. We spent a long time debating the merits of the boats and were invited over to Aztec Dream that evening. We were looking around their boat just after we arrived, when wash from a speeding tripper boat flipped our dinghy up into the air and turned it upside down. This resulted in a mad scramble by Mike and Steve to right it and rescue the outboard. After some fresh water rinses, liberal amounts of WD40 and checking for water in the cylinder, it fired up first time. Good old Mariner! Excitement over, we settled down for a very enjoyable evening with them.
We motored over to Ferragudo which is a pretty little fishing village on the opposite side of the bay to Portimão and found a nice restaurant where we had lunch a couple of times. One of the times we went over, we motored up to a ladder on the quay where an inflatable had been tied up to the bottom of the ladder at low tide. The bows were submerged when we arrived and the outboard had lifted clear of the water. Mike tried to free the line as the tide still had another 1.75 metres to rise; however, it was too far under water to reach. We looked around for the owners and also asked in the restaurant where we were eating. Nobody knew anything about it, but luckily the owners had rescued it by the time we returned. Looking from Mistroma, Portimão is full of high rise hotels and is very busy and very noisy and not for us! However the other side seems to be reasonably unspoiled and very attractive, so this was the direction we always looked when sitting in the cockpit.
We said goodbye to Aliza for a second time, as they were sailing down to Cadiz to await the arrival of Efraim’s wife and then his daughter, before cruising slowly back to Israel to arrive in October. We may catch up with them again at some stage, but I think it’s unlikely. We really enjoyed our time with them and Efraim has some amazing stories.
From Portimão we motor sailed in very little wind to Ilha da Culatra, near Faro. The river entrance has a very strong current and our speed over the ground got up to 12.5kts. Luckily by the time we had motored a couple of miles upriver the current had lessened considerably. We anchored in a large bay with at least 45 other boats, just off the town. This is a very busy little fishing village with small fishing boats and water taxis speeding across the bay all day and evening, creating quite a bit of wash. Time seems to have seems to have stood still here; there are no cars or roads on the island, only large paving slabs laid into the sand, forming walkways which branch off all over the place. There are a few very old tractors dotted around which seem to be used to collect deliveries from the ferries. There are also a couple of very small supermarkets and several bars and cafes. Ferry loads of tourists appear each day from Olhão and descend on the beaches and depart in the evening. Water and electricity also seem to be fairly new arrivals.
One day we took the ferry over to Olhão to do some shopping as our stock of everything was running very low, and after a wander around the town and some lunch we caught the afternoon ferry back. By this time the wind had increased considerably. The wind strength and big change in direction had not been forecast, (otherwise we wouldn’t have left the boat) and caused Mistroma’s anchor to pull out in our absence. Fortunately the anchor bit after she’d dragged a fair distance and stopped about 30 metres in front of another yacht. Once back on board we decided to stay where we were, as a local fishing boat had laid a net close to us and there was a risk of wrapping it around the boat if we moved. So it was just a case of watching our position closely as the wind increased to more than 30 knots and we were bounced around in the waves developing over a 5 mile stretch of open water. The anchor held and the wind eventually dropped a little after nightfall, allowing us to get a good night’s sleep. The joys of sailing!
