As I write this, it is most likely we will head to the Azores though. The original logic of going there was that it would give us a chance to do a real ocean passage without passing any points of no return. The other options below all involve sailing south and effectively you then have to carry on across the Atlantic. Still, nothing is fixed yet. We will be spending a bit of time round here before going anywhere so can take a good bit of time to decide where to go.
Getting here has been both frustrating and also very enjoyable. We managed to catch the tail end of the winter weather here and spent four days stuck aboard while anchored in the Ria Formosa. We then visited Vilamoura, Albufeira and Portimão before getting here.
As noted previously, when dropping Matthew off we felt it would be unwise to come ashore with him as the wind was getting up. That turned out to a fortuitous decision as the wind blew at nothing less than a force six for five days. At one point, we were riding out a sustained 35 knots of wind off Culatra which is effectively a gale. I would like to stress that it wasn't a gale. A gale is made up of more than a wind of a certain strength. We were in quite a sheltered spot and the seas were not particularly rough even though it was not possible to get off the boat. We were getting a bit bored though and at high water there was a near two mile fetch across the whole of the Ria Formosa which made things a bit bouncy and were what precluded going ashore.
After the second day we were feeling a bit uncomfortable as well as fed up with the scenery so we decided to head up to Faro both to get more shelter but also to possibly grab a chance to go ashore if the wind did show any sign of dropping. We were a lot more sheltered but the wind did not drop for another two nights. Finally, the next morning the wind was lighter in the morning and a phone conversation with my brother confirmed that the depression that had been giving us this unseasonal weather was moving off to the north east so we upped anchor and moved back down to Culatra. The wind continued a bit lighter and we got ashore for long enough to visit the shop and have a coffee in a café. While drinking the coffee though the wind started to get up and sure enough it was back up to 35 knots by the afternoon.
It felt as if we were on the East Coast of the UK with lots of marshy mudflats on either side of us and egrets all round. The Storks though reminded us we were fifteen degrees or so south of the Blackwater!
It all sounds a bit more difficult than it really was and boredom was the real issue. We were low on water which was a bit tedious but that was all.
Here is proof that it really was blowing quite hard though. :-)
Early the next morning of the nineteenth, we upped anchor and had a bit of a long motor to Vilamoura. We had not intended to go to Vilamoura as it is a very touristy and rather fashionable watering hole on the Algarve. However, our water situation and the urgent need to do some laundry forced our hand. The first pleasant surprise was the cheap low season rates and the next was the easy communication by bus to other more interesting places. We quickly decided to extend our stay to three nights and make a day trip to Vila Real de Santo Antonio by train as we had not been able to stop there by boat. We also finally gave Audrey a chance to see Faro, a town she had never seen before.
Vilamoura was a bit of a shock at first as it is in complete contrast to Culatra having a completely different sort of tourism to the sandy islands.
The trip to Vila Real or VRDSA as I have seen it referred to was a lot of fun. We always enjoy train rides after all. The only disappointment was that it was easiest to get the bus to Faro rather than to the station nearest Vilamoura. Still, we bought our ticket and then waited around while the very old train wheezed its way into the station. A load of school kids also got on but we managed to get into the other carriage. The Algarve line has to be one of the slowest trains in the world but you do get a good chance to see the country through which you are travelling and it was interesting to see the network of creeks that run all the way from Faro to Tavira not far short of the Rio Guadiana. Slightly disappointingly the Vila Real station was on the edge of town as the chart we have shows railway lines running right to the rivers edge.
We enjoyed wandering around Vila Real which is chiefly notable for having been completely reconstructed after destruction by the earthquake of 1755 which seems to have levelled most of Portugal. An architect called Pombal redesigned the city on a grid pattern radiating out from a square. This gives the town a very elegant feel and is also easy to navigate around. It doesn't feel like a North American city though as the streets are still relatively narrow and the buildings are clearly Portuguese. We would really like to go back there by boat though. The marina looks quite nice and once moored up, the narrow entrance and strong tides would be no problem.
The next day, we finally left Vilamoura for the resort complex of Albufeira. Just to the east of the main resort area is a very upmarket marina which was excavated from what must have been simply a swamp. An entrance channel was then dug and blasted through to the sea. Someone also built a load of “quirky” condominiums all round the marina. It is the antithesis of a characterful harbour but is still quite a nice place for all that. The enjoyment was, for us, enhanced by the fact that they are still charging low season rates – as at Vilamoura. There was also an excellent service wash there and we caught up on all our laundry. Sunsets were enlivened by a very large dog in one of the villas who enthusiastically barked at everything and everyone who walked past. He was a big dog and the echoes were quite good. For a while he seemed to be barking at his own echo! He didn't do it for too long so it didn't become annoying and it was generally a cheerful bark as well.
After deciding to spend an extra night there on account of the low prices we took our departure for Portimão. The forecast was for light winds but we fully expected the strong sea breeze to get up from the west as we had observed almost every day. To our surprise, this did not happen and we had a nice gentle broad reach for the whole 14 miles to the mouth of the Rio Arade. The expectation of a sea breeze prevented us from getting the cruising chute up till it was too late to be worth it. Finally we rounded off the sail by sailing onto our anchor just under the eastern breakwater.
There were a few boats anchored there including the obligatory Wharram cat and a few steel boats. Near us was a very substantial aluminium Dutch boat called Synergie. Over the course of the four days we spent there we got talking to them and found out of their plans to sail to British Columbia. It was a lot of fun to come aboard and show them where to go around Sidney where I grew up and also to recommend visiting both Barklay sound on the west coast of Vancouver Island and also up Jervis Inlet on the mainland to the north of Vancouver.
We certainly wish them luck with their trip and hope to meet up in the Canaries later on in the year.
After four days at anchor we felt the need of showers and laundry so we have pulled into the Marina de Portimão.
We also need to do some maintenance work. The bolt on the heads has started leaking so that needs replacing. We are also acutely aware of the fact that the bottom needs scrubbing. The boatyard here at Portimão seems to be excellent so we are going to spend a while here. We may even lift out here though I have contacted a diver who offers to clean bottoms and change anodes without the need for a lift out. All in all, we are much more minded to do the essential maintenance here rather than in Lagos as originally planned.
Finally, we have also been doing some thinking about what we do from here. Perhaps unsurprisingly, we have made some changes to our plans. Essentially, the Azores trip is off in favour of longer along this coast, a visit to Morocco, longer in Madeira and the Canaries.
We have been downloading some GRIB files and looking at the routing charts for the passage to the Azores and find it's attractions rapidly waning. You have to make quite a lot of northing from Cabo Sao Vincente to be able to reach Ponta Delgada on Sao Miguel. This is both to make the two degrees of northing but also to counter the southerly current. The prevailing winds are north or often Northwest at this time of year for the first few hundred miles. Then, as you get further out into the Atlantic you are going to get closer to the Azores High which will lead to light winds. Thus we would be faced with two or even three hundred miles of stiff beat followed by possibly hundreds of miles of windless motoring.
By contrast, we can ride the sea breezes east from here and revisit places we rushed past on the way down. This might quite likely include another trip up the Guadiana but also a trip to Sevilla up the Guadalquivir. Then, after a month or so we would strike out south for Rabat in Morocco. After some time exploring some of the most ancient ports in the world, we would strike out for Madeira in August. Finally, we would have two or three months to explore the Canary islands in detail before joining the transatlantic crowd at the normal time of November.
Of course, such long term plans are quite likely to change again but that will at least give us more chance of having mostly downwind sailing till we reach the Leeward Islands after Christmas.
Note. For those who are not into the geeky language of sailing: a GRIB file stands for Gridded Binary file and is a highly compressed file containing meteorological information. They are very useful as they are very small but contain a lot of weather information. They have to be treated with caution as the information is raw data with no interpretation but for getting an idea of overall trends they are very useful.
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