Out and About in Portimao

Saturday 25th August…  A lie in this morning. It was a day for chilling out and recovering from our two busy days. No chilling for Dean though as he had his battery head on, floorboards up, hydrometer at the ready. After a frustrating day it appears that the batteries are just flat with just a 15% charge in them. So tonight we’re running the generator to try and revive them. It’s a mystery why they are so low, but we have been anchoring for over a week now. On the other hand we’ve had the engine running most days. Let’s see how they are tomorrow after a good charge. 

Saffy’s beach walks are a bit annoying because she gets prickly ball thingys stuck in her paws. They are so sharp, infact tonight she totally refused to move and we thought she was having a funny turn, then we realised it was the prickly balls. 

Another view from Thesee this afternoon

Sunday 26th August…  Today we tried a new beach for landing and walkies, it was much better suited and in fact, nearer. The only reason we didn’t try this one before was because it’s small and busy, but this morning we beat the sun worshippers to it.

The batteries were annoyingly low again this morning, meaning we had to run the generator for another couple of hours to try and get them charged up. 

Looking down across the anchorage from the cliff-top

Close-up of Thesee and Portimao

Thankful for this breakwater

Someone's enjoying the walk

Yet another beach around the corner

We realised that this side of the river is Ferrugado and Portimao is actually over the other side. We were in need of victualling and after taking Saffy back to the boat we dinghy’d about a mile up river to the fishing port where we landed. From there it was only about a quarter of a mile walk to Lidl. The dinghy-ing was pretty hair-raising at times. There are so many boats of all types coming and going here there is a lot of wash and most of them don’t slow down for you, so it was a rather bumpy ride in both directions. At least we got the shopping back intact. 

This afternoon we had a surprise visit from our friends on Elos III. They are over in the marina and they came out to see us by dinghy. It was a real surprise, and just in time for Beer ‘o’ clock as Dean puts it. Tonight we’ve realised that most of the people we’ve got to know are going to be moving on and we’ll be here for the next few weeks so we’ll probably lose touch for a while until next year when everyone seems to be wintering in approximately the same area. 

Tonight we had the Cobb bbq out and cooked a pork joint and home-made kebabs, they were really tasty and we’ll definitely be doing them again. 

Monday 27th August… It was a bit stormy earlier today and we had a bit of thunder. The batteries were quite low again but not as bad as yesterday. We decided to go into the marina here in Portimao so we could plug into the mains electric and get a good charge up for a couple of days. 

Arriving at the marina across the river

Nice views of this fort

Starship Voyager

When we arrived at the waiting pontoon Dean switched off the engine but the ignition alarm was still sounding. He had to virtually dismantle the unit to get it to stop. It was really odd, but we thought could this possibly be connected to our battery issues?

After being allocated a berth it took three attempts to reverse in as the gap was fairly tight, there was a boat beside, and there was some breeze coming through the marina.  All tied up and secure Dean had the boat to bits in no time trying to find out what was going on. Eventually he pinned it down to a short circuit on the alternator….. Not the alternator AGAIN! This isn’t going to be fixed any time soon as we need spare parts. 

Yes, it's in bits again

The marina is in a pleasant setting but it’s quite a hike to the showers. Next month we will be spending two weeks here so will have to get the bikes out to get around easily. It’s been a stressful day, as Dean said… the definition of cruising is ‘boat maintenance in exotic places’.

Tuesday 28th August… Dean swapped the alternator back to the old original one. It’s not perfect because the pulleys are different but it will get us by until we have the new faulty alternator fixed AGAIN. Linda and Saffy had a local morning walk around part of the marina and the hotel that’s situated alongside. Then this afternoon we took shortish walk the other way towards the beach, noise, and hustle & bustle. 

The marina is kind of out on a limb, not really near enough for walking anywhere. The nearest chandlery is about 2 miles away, so there’s no way we could walk there and back in the heat with Saffy.  All seems abit crazy really, but we still like the marina itself even though it’s hard to function normally. But we’ve found that in a lot of places along the way. You really do need a car to get around here, and when we come back in a week or so we’ll be hiring one….that’s a definite. 

Dean scrubbed the decks this afternoon, and then this evening Elos kindly invited us onboard for drinks and nibbles. They used to keep their boat in Beaulieu and  left the UK around about the same time as us and we’ve been crossing paths along the way. They’re good company so it’s always a fun evening when we’re with them. Sorry no photos today, will try harder tomorrow. 

Wednesday 29th August… It was a hot morning so Saffy had an early quick walk and then Linda tried to give her a bit of a haircut, whilst Dean did some more scrubbing boaty things. Saffy got into trouble after Dean found her footprints all over the clean deck. 

She can't blame that on anyone else

We decided to stay in the marina for one more night. Linda's working on the next jigsaw, it's an English pub... The Blackbirds. Late afternoon we took a walk into the beachy gift shoppy part of town (now we’ve found out how to get into it), stopping for yummy caramel and strawberry ice-cream cornet. Linda spotted a summer dress she liked and Dean treated her to it. Thanks Dean. He also bought a bargain litre bottle of dark rum and some extremely yummy bread rolls. We didn’t have dinner until 9pm but it was worth waiting until late afternoon to take Saffy out as it was considerably cooler. The batteries seem to be functioning as they should so tomorrow we're going back over to the anchorage to see how they get on. 

Jigsaw no.2 taking shape

This one is 1000 pieces....having a bit of trouble with the edges

Fun in the sun here at Praia da Rocha beach

Thursday 30th August… Today Linda was up early making biscuits because she wanted to give some to our Elos friends before we left the marina. They’ve been so accommodating, twice feeding us up on delicious cheese, grapes, and ham. We checked out of the marina and went back across the river to the anchorage arriving just after midday. We didn’t quite get the same spot as before but it’s OK and we’re only going to be here for one night to see how the batteries get on. Saffy likes it at anchor because you get all the breeze on deck. She just needs to learn not to sleep on the HOT solar panels. 

4 months in and i'm now a true sea-dog

Friday 31st August…  Well it’s the last day of August, and can you believe we’ve been on the boat for 4 months! Some marinas finish their high-season rate today and change to mid-season rate tomorrow. Funny thing is it’s only about 3 euros cheaper in mid-season. Not much of a saving that. 

Yet another hot sunny blue sky morning. Just before lunch we took Thesee about 8 miles west to Lagos and anchored just outside the harbour entrance. It was a bit bouncy at times being on the sea proper and we could see the breaking waves rolling into the shore. While we were there our friend on Right Turn came out of the marina and came by to say hello. He was on his way back to Portimao. If the anchorage had have been comfy we would have stayed overnight, but after an hour or two we decided to head back just a little way along the coast to a place called Alvor.

We had a gentle sail, a mere 3 knots and Dean did a spot of fishing. Well you’ll never guess what happened... HE CAUGHT A MACKEREL, Hallelujah!! 

There’s no stopping him now

Rocky shoreline at Lagos

.... and looking to the town

Local pleasure trippers

Entering the inlet at Alvor

Alvor is a big sandy inlet but there is room to anchor if you’re lucky, albeit rather shallow. There’s no proper buoys marking the channel to the town and we found ourselves getting rather too shallow for comfort, so we did a U turn and anchored just inside the entrance (along with a ton of other boats all vying for space). Then we took the dinghy to the town, it was a bit of a jaunt but we got there OK and had a lovely drink in one of the harbourside bars. 

Having a little wander in Alvor

Saffy obviously found something interesting

Interesting restaurant frontage

Interesting Cider Drinker wearing a sunbrella??

Lovely bars around the harbour

When we got back a lot of the boats had gone. Just daytrippers it seems, so we had much more swinging room and Saffy tucked into her fresh mackerel supper, lucky girl. Tonight we’ve realised we have flying ants all over the boat. Better batten down the hatches. 

Saturday 1st September…  We did get some sleep last night even though we were in a tight shallow anchorage. This morning turned out to be unexpectedly windy 15 knots gusting 25 knots, but the anchor stayed good and we monitored the situation until about 1pm when it started to calm down. In fact it turned into a beautiful afternoon and the sea was a lovely shade. Dean did a little snorkelling to clean the keel coolers and check the prop and rudder were OK. 

Our beautiful afternoon was interrupted by the first of five party boats to come in the anchorage today. Well it was Saturday I suppose. It’s 8.30pm now and there’s still one here and noisy! Bah...

Beautiful afternoon in Alvor

Party boat arrival no.1

Saffy had two nice walks and it was easy to get ashore on the nearby beach. There were some kite surfers in the bay today when it was low water around midday, along with a number of boats who we saw go aground in the shallows at low tide. We’ve got 8 yachts as our neighbours tonight. We’re all in close proximity but you have to expect that in a small anchorage I suppose. 

Kite surfing in the shallows

Saffy's evening walk

Sunset in Alvor

We calculated our monthly marina costs for August and it turned out to be an average of 23 euros per night. Not bad for high season. We did in fact anchor for 15 nights out of 31... Wow!


Sunday 2nd September... HAPPY BIRTHDAY CLAIRE!! An early call to Claire to wish her a Happy Birthday and hear all about their trip to the Safari Park yesterday. It was cloudy here in Alvor today...yes cloudy... how dare it. This afternoon it brightened up a bit and we took a dinghy ride over to the town for a few hours, doing a little shopping and having a really nice meal at the bar we went to two days ago. Linda even had a Pina Colada.

Now we're getting adventurous

Dean's more interested in the food

This magificent residence takes pride of place

The dinghy ride is about a mile into town and it can be quite bumpy at times when we're going fast. Fortunately we all managed to keep our dinner inside.

Monday 3rd September…  Neither of us slept well last night for some reason. I think Dean had batteries on his mind, and Linda was uneasy that most of the neighbours had gone and we were virtually alone. Anyway, morning finally came and after Saffy’s walk ashore we left the anchorage about 11am and set a course for Albufeira. After three days in Alvor we needed a change of scenery and decided to sail the 25 miles or so to Albufeira for a few days before returning to Portimao later this week. 

We stayed close inshore because we wanted to check out the anchorage at Carvoeiro, that’s where our good friends Sharon & Michael have a place. We’ve read it’s a day anchorage (not sure really what that means) but I guess it’s open to the elements and therefore not advisable to stay overnight, like many of the anchorages on this coast. We didn’t stop as we had a berth booked in Albufeira marina, but it looks fabulous…. just like the incredible coastline here, littered with caves and secluded sandy bays. Here’s a few photos…

 

It was only about 4 hours journey and in no time we were at Albufeira and feeling excited. All was going well and we were directed to a huge berth (plenty of space to manoeuvre). The weird thing is Thesee looks so tiny compared to tonight’s neighbours. We’ve had a quick look around and visited the chandlery. There’s a Spar shop selling Bisto Gravy and Iceland Coleslaw, plus an open-air launderette!

Bunjee jump... no thanks

Handy Launderette

More white knuckle fun

Along the marina promenade

Villas for rent

Thesee you're so tiny tonight... can hardly see you

 

Dean's new way of climbing the backstay using a Prusik knot

This is the last post entitled Out and About in Portimao

The next post will be called More Exploring in the Algarve