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Adeus Portugal
At long last we have taken down the Portuguese flag and are flying the Spanish flag again. This was quite a moment for us, having seen all our friends from Lagos sail off in 2007. We have received updates of their exciting times in Greece and felt like they were all at a party we hadn’t been invited to. The Portuguese flag had been repaired a few times and was hanging on by a thread but we were determined not to buy another one.
2EZ was relaunched on 3rd July. We sailed to Alvor for a much needed rest and checked that our repairs were all okay. We hooked up with Aubrey from White Shadow who had been our neighbour in the boat yard and made plans to sail in company for a few weeks, planning that we’d meet up in Cadiz. We slipped anchor on 11th July for a trip of 119 miles to Cadiz.
We sailed downwind most of the way averaging 5 knots and completed the journey in 24 hours. There were some huge waves which gave the dolphins a bit of a turbo boost as they leaped out of the water, jumping 2 metres, their tails still wiggling with momentum as they jumped, I was sure one would land on our deck.
We went into Rota historic town on our first trip to Spanish soil. We were treat to an amazing sight of the town square full of people all in their fine clothes. It seems that Saturday evening is the time that couples marry and there is one wedding after another. All their assorted guests, each trying to outdo the other, mingle together in the square whilst photographs are taken in the castle courtyard.
We took a ferry trip to Cadiz which is Europe’s oldest civilized city. Over three thousand years of trade stemmed from Cadiz. The streets are narrow with tall buildings each side which keeps the heat of the sun out through the day. Bourgeois merchants traded in silks and spices from the ground floor, the families lived on the first floor and the servants on the 2nd floor.
A few days later Aubrey from White Shadow and his crew member Porky sailed into the Bay of Cadiz having had a very lumpy sail. We also spotted John from Tanna, in the bay. John had been a pontoon neighbour in Portimao. Aubrey and Porky needed to rest a few days before the next leg of the journey meanwhile we had a very strange experience one afternoon.
We had been ashore most of the day doing shopping and using the laundry services. Our bucket was dangling from the rope into the water and we could see that our chart plotter was twisted and as I got on board I noticed the locked door was open. Thinking it must have been a freak wave that jostled everything I set off inside to meet face to face with a naked woman, all but a tassel belt, coming up from the starboard side hull. After a shocked intake of breath I squealed ‘who are you and what are you doing on our boat?’ It was at this point that it all went a bit strange. My iPod was playing, a quick look round I could see nothing was missing, even if it was, where would she put it! She said she had been swimming from the beach and was swept out and took refuge on the boat.
However if that was the case she should have just sat in the cockpit, this woman who was in her early forties was climbed in through the roof hatch, dropping onto the bed, had a good look round, read my diary, looked at ship’s papers and sacrilege, had touch my iPod! Apparently she had been on the boat for hours, after taking to neighbouring boats, she had been doing yoga on the foredeck, blowing the fog horn and looking through binoculars. She was either completely barking mad or very astute. She may have been dropped off and was blowing the horn for co-conspirators to come and get her and the contents of the boat, there had been a small dinghy buzzing around the night before that made us feel a bit suspicious.
In retrospect we should have radioed the Maritime Police but she seemed to be so mad we just wanted her off the boat. I gave her an old tee shirt and Keith took her back to shore. The good thing that came out of this was that it made us think long and hard about our security. Until we can get some bars for the roof hatches we now close and lock them, despite the heat. We always lock the door but now close the top lid and padlock it, and have moved the sound box for the alarm out of a back locker and set it.
Now fully rested we left the Bay of Cadiz bound for Tangier sailing with White Shadow. Aubrey mentioned he didn’t have a Moroccan flag. I had made ours a few months ago, and have 2 metres of the popular colours on board. I’ve even made the Tunisian flag. So whilst sailing I got the sewing box out and made a flag for Aubrey, not recommended whilst at sea, I must have pricked my fingers a hundred times!
About 11 miles from Tangier we were buzzed a Navy vessel they must have picked us up on their radar. No longer in the EU we had to abide by different rules ie:- not stepping ashore until we had gone through the check in procedures. We hauled up the yellow Q flag and waited for Customs to board, however as it was late no one appeared, so we just had to sit tight until morning when we could go to the port office. They held our passports and ships papers during our stay and we had to go through the port authority whenever going ashore.
But the wait was worth it. We went into the Kasbah and saw some amazing sights, smelled a wonderful mix of spices and heard amazing music, drowned out by the call to prayer 4 times a day. I was quite tempted to buy a traditional original kaftan, long coat dress with hood and hundreds of buttons down the front, and silk trousers underneath for my son’s wedding, but as I’d already held off from buying a flamenco dress, I had second thoughts. A beautifully embroidered Moroccan outfit like that wouldn’t look quite the same in a rainy Yorkshire. But I did buy 10 metres of wonderful upholstery material for only 250 Dirams, about £15!
Morocco is trying to improve its image and after speaking with a very charming President of the Royal Yacht Club, he told us they are cleaning up their act. Wiping out the drugs image people have of them and plan to build a super marina within two years. Most of the street traders are now licensed and those that aren’t, are arrested, which we witnessed. The reason for tight controls at the port is to stop Moroccan nationals going aboard visiting yachts if they do they are arrested along with the skipper of the yacht. Another event we witnessed.
Now 2EZ was ready to put some sea miles between the hulls, having gained confidence in the boats abilities, and our own, we were getting anxious to get as far east as quickly as possible before stopping to book flights back to Mark and Sam’s wedding. Leaving Tangier we headed for Ceuta where we filled every available container with diesel, at 98 euro cents a litre we took on 172 litres!
Next stop was Estepona, a fantastic view as we approach, with a huge mountain behind the town. During our night sails we enjoyed a spectacular sight of shooting stars from dusk until dawn. During the day the dolphins were swimming six abreast between the hulls, all rising and diving as one. Onwards to Fuengirola (a real Brits abroad place) then Mortil, Almeria and finally into Cartagena, where we are fastened to a pontoon again for the next 5 to 6 weeks. The flights are booked, we have wi-fi on board and we’re feeling much better having sailed 487 (trouble free) miles in the last month. We parted company with Aubrey and Porky at Fuengirola but hope to see Aubrey and his wife at the Southampton Boat Show.
Cartagena has a lot of history, the Carthaginians having their 15 minutes of fame around 227BC until the Romans took over. The bay still has its fortifications and there are a lot of Roman remains here. The town is host to a Naval Academy and there are lots of nice sailors walking around in very tight fitting white trousers as part of their dress uniform, though I’m sure Keith is enjoying seeing the lady sailors! The town had a revival in the 1800s when Cartagena had the best fleet of vessels and crew in the Med and tried to form their own Navy, perhaps trying to recapture previous powers. Spain retaliated by declaring the Carthaginian fleet as pirates and informed all other Navies to destroy the fleet on sight!
Other than that Cartagena has a famous son, Issac Peral invented the first submarine, which is on display on the main Avenida, the vessel was constructed in Cadiz in 1888. I’m looking forward to having a good look around the Roman sites before we fly back to England, the wedding and to see Clara again.
Post Script:- I visited the Roman Theater today (Tues 12th Aug) and found it to amazingly fantastic. A complete Roman Theater which lay undiscovered until 1985! As the Roman Empire went into decline the remaining Romans turned it into a kind of shopping mall. Then the Byzantines built little houses on the steps/seating which eventually collapsed so the Islam’s paved over it and built their houses. Once Christianity took over, to crown it off, a church was built, followed by housing which became the poorest area of the town. It was amazing seeing the pictures of three storey houses which TV aerials on the roofs and a van parked on a road prior to the discovery and excavation. Now it is restored, complete with wooden stage. A wonderful sight.
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Trains Boats Planes and a Stork
I am happy to announce the safe arrival of my (Pam’s) first grand daughter, Clara Moldrop Nielsen who, after a (9 month and) 8 day delay was born on 2nd May 2008 at 14.30 weighing a very healthy 8lbs 2ozs. Her daddy was like a dog with two tales and I guess her mummy was relieved, especially as the midwives were on strike and Martine had a very uncomfortable final few weeks.
Keith and I then set about booking flights to Denmark and took 2EZ, as arranged, to Bruce’s yard in Faro. Quite a cheap berth only 30 euros a week, with rough and ready facilities, but a convenient place to leave the boat for a few weeks. We had the train station behind us, the airport in front of us boats all around and storks flying overhead. When Clara was late showing up I told Liam I would point one in the right direction!
We’d had some quite horrible weather the previous month with huge winds and waves, 50 knots of wind some days, we had been tied up on the fishermen’s pontoon in Olhao riding out the storms, one night a wave came over the top of the pontoon, over the top of 2EZ and landed on the other side, at least a 25 foot distance, I dread to think how high the wave was, we snapped 4 mooring lines that night.
We planned our trip to Denmark via Seville to catch up on the places we’d missed when we went with Martin and Linda in February. I was amazed when I opened a book from my library on the bus to find the main character was called Clara, and even more spooked to find our hotel in Seville was off Rua Santa Clara!
We spent 3 days in Seville, visiting the Royal gardens of Alcazares, which were built for the Spanish Royal family and added to over the centuries, including Moorish, Arabian and Baroque influences. There was a display of Ottoman calligraphy going from the 9th century until the fall of the Ottoman Empire which was mid 19th century. The intricate work of the scribes was magnificent with beautiful flowers and patterns which surrounded the writings. Each new ruler of the Ottoman had their individual signature on a scroll which was huge. The gardens were fabulous with blooms of many colours and hidden gardens at every turn. Despite being in the centre of a bustling city, we could hear only the sound of birds singing.
Our flight to Denmark was via Valencia and we had a 5 hour wait in the airport for our connection. The weather in Portugal and Spain had been quite cool until the moment we walked from the airport to the plane when some Danish people mentioned they had been in Spain for 10 days and had been waiting to feel the heat on their faces. I didn’t like to disappoint them by telling them it was the heat from the planes’ jets!
We arrived at Billund airport, only 29 km from Vejle and hired a car. Liam rode out on his motorbike to meet us and guide us in and took us to meet his adorable beautiful daughter who doesn’t scream like a banshee, but bleats like a little lamb. I now had 5 days to soak up every available moment with her. I soon regained my pram pushing skills and find it hard to believe it is almost 30 years since I last pushed a pram! The time passed so quickly, we had a BBQ at Martine’s sister’s house. Martine’s mum took us for dinner and we just spent lots of lovely time with Liam, Martine and Clara. We stayed in a really nice lodge just half a kilometre from their apartment, and went to see their new apartment that they have just moved in to.
Our return flight to Portugal was via London Gatwick and our day started at 4am, baring in mind that Denmark is an hour ahead of the UK that made it 3am and we woke up to frost on the car……brrrrrr. In fact it had been hotter in Denmark than Spain during our stay. Our 5 hour stop over at LGW became 10 hours as our flight had been cancelled. Our friend Susan, who looks after all our post and important matters, came to see us at Gatwick between appointments and brought a bag of post for us to check whilst we had a picnic lunch with our delayed flight voucher and a good gossip. We finally arrived back on the boat at 22.00hrs, a long day.
Once back on the boat we thought we’d only stay another week, as we were on neaped tides and not even floating at high tide. Our berth was only just a snug fit between two pontoons (!) really just some stakes of wood with a walk way which became a plank of wood then a small tree trunk chopped in half, to get to the shore. When we were at low tide the pontoon was 6 feet higher than our decks, it took some climbing to get off the boat. Another catamaran was berthed behind us a day before we left for Denmark, the people not returning until 20th June and it being too windy for us to have swapped places.
We noticed that our bilge pumps kept running every ten minutes and couldn’t understand where all the water was coming from. Then we discovered that the starboard side hull had landed on a log of wood at right angles to the hull, right where a transducer poked through the hull. It had pushed it out of its seating and was letting water in. It was six days before we floated enough to be able to leave. The owner of the boatyard man handled the other catamaran out of our way with the use of ropes and we set off down the very winding channel back to Olhao. Although it is only 3kms away on land, it is 10kms via the winding channel and took us 3 hours.
We beached the boat so that Keith could reseat the instrument, however due to the soft sand he couldn’t reach it. So we asked permission from the IPTM Port Authority to settle 2EZ on a concrete ramp. Once Keith could fully see under the boat, with the aid of a mirror, we discovered a metre and a half crack right on the bottom of the hull. Seemingly that hull had taken the full weight of the boat every time we bumped up and down with the tides. Keith did a quick repair job and we left on the next high tide at 2.30am.
We rang our insurers who told us to go straight to the nearest port that could lift us out of the water, to have the damage professionally repaired. So, here we are again in Portimao, after a 10 hour sail back against the prevailing wind, our bilge pumps running almost constantly. I’m reminded of the German navigator saying to his Captain, ‘We are sinking, we are sinking…..’ ‘Ah’ he replied, ‘vot are you sinking…’
We’re on the very VERY hot concrete, 45c at mid day which goes from 12.00 to 18.00 then the mosquitoes arrive! Under instruction Keith drilled a series of holes in the bottom of the hulls and around half a ton of water poured out. It would seem that we also took a lot of weight on the rudders and skegs and therefore took water in both hulls.
We were told it would take a month to dry out, our insurers (who have been marvellous – Navigators & General plug plug) said that was too much time out of our cruising year and to get some heaters on it. We told them, heaters it didn’t need! So, we’ve scrapped all the antifouling off and the repair of the crack which went right through the hull to the inside, which we discovered when we took the water tank out, is almost finished.
We’re drinking about 6 litres of water every other day thank goodness Lidls is close by! We’re hoping to start the antifouling on Thursday (27th June) and then be back afloat the following week. One good thing has come out of this I always thought our starboard side hull was overloaded (mostly with Keith’s tools) as it always sat below the waterline by quite a bit. So I decided to measure from the rubbing strake down and found it is actually 5cms lower than the portside hull, and on the hulls under the bridge deck a full 17cms, no wonder we always had a dirty waterline that side. The water line has been lifted twice by previous owners, and I raised it by 5cms in 2006, but only measured up from the last line. When she’s finished 2EZ will have a nice blue boot line to match the lines at the top and hopefully we will be rid of the growth on the sides.
Then we plan to have a shake down sail to Alvor, (never say you’ll never go somewhere again, you never know) and if alls well we’ll make our sail plans into the Med bound for Tunisia, our berth has been reserved, and I’m informed by Mick and Jo from Orizabo, that a hero’s welcome awaits!
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Trips and Visitors
After our return from the UK first I then Keith came down with ‘manflu’ though I’m sure Keith’s illness was far worse than mine. It was quite bad as neither of us could move off the boat for about 3 days and offers of help from friends Caroline and Jim (Moujik) were given, however we recovered in time for a pancake afternoon on Moujik.
We had to have our pancakes early as we planned a trip to Loule (again) for Carnival. Earlier this year than last by three weeks, but a very hot day, I’m sure the virtually naked Brazilian girls were glad of that. Caroline Jim Keith and I traveled by bus to Loule, a very precarious journey and at one point I remember shouting ‘look out’ to the driver who almost ran us into the back of a braking car.
My weekend trips to the gypsy market with neighbour Adriano from Ljuba continued, as I had promised his partner Wilma I would ‘look after the little one’ whilst she took a trip back to Germany. Adriano is a fascinating guy, Italian birth, with a French piano teaching mother, he formed a jazz band in Germany and was a pianist for 25 years. He also speaks Spanish Russian and Portuguese and of course English. He had a wealth of funny stories that would have me crying with laughter.
On the 9th of February our status of reserve traveling companions to Eric and Wiggie of Nokomis was moved up to full status and we accompanied them on a trip to Lisbon to the boat show. They are in the market for a new boat and wanted us to join them to chat through options. The Lisbon Boat show is nothing like the London Boat show, hardly any chandlery stalls or clothing but we went on a number of boats and I enjoyed a free massage on my back, lovely.
We stayed in a Holiday Inn Hotel and used the underground train system, very impressive with huge station platforms, clean trains and no rubbish. We saw more of Lisbon this time as Wiggie drove around the narrow streets. Going through one street Keith observed that we wouldn’t want to meet a tram coming round the corner towards us. No sooner said, a tram trundled round the corner forcing us to reverse back down the hill and winding street which was difficult as we all had a fit of hysterics.
A few days after our Lisbon trip our great friends Martin and Linda of Marlin came to stay with us for a week. They are part of our Lagos Leavers friends and had ‘made it’ to Vibo Valencia in southern Italy. Their journey started on Monday 11th February reaching us late on Tuesday 12th. Despite their long journey we stayed up until 3am chatting, laughing and catching up on news.
Caroline, Jim and Adriano visited for drinks the night before they were due to leave. Martin and Linda had hired a car and did the last leg of their journey from Seville so we joined them as they returned. We had two great days in Seville in a very good priced Hotel, only 55 euros a night and very central. Though, to find the hotel by car took us over 2 hours, driving through even narrower streets than Lisbon and the one way system taking us away from the hotel all the time.
We had good food, good company, a trip on the tour bus, which is a little touristy but really the only way to see a city. It took us across the river to Triana, a small artisan town with wonderful old houses with small verandas overflowing with bright pots of plants and flowers. All the shops were full of brightly coloured flamenco dresses as the city was gearing up for the post Easter festival. Keith and I hope to go back again very soon to see the bits we didn’t have time to see.
We said our goodbyes to Martin and Linda and promised we would visit them next winter and they us, no matter where they or 2EZ are. We had a very wet walk to the bus station as the rain had started around 4am with an almighty crash of thunder, it was then that I realised I had achieved the art of levitation as I must have lifted about two feet off my bed. However by the time we got back to Portimao our clothes were dry and the sun was shining.
More visitors on 2EZ for my birthday, being born on leap day I had a birthday this year. We invited Adriano, Caroline and Jim and French friends Nanu and Gee from Albibi. Caroline and I practiced our school girl French with the help of Adriano. I had gifts and cards and even rhubarb and custard on Moujik care of Caroline, later Keith and I had dinner at a Chinese restaurant we used to go to quite often and they brought a plate of fruit and cream with a sparkler to celebrate my special day.
On the 1st of March we moved to Alvor to carry out work on the boat as we dried out on the sand. Caroline and Jim and Adriano and Wilma came to visit often. Keith completed the final works on engine Mussolini with the fitting of the last Ruggerini piston in the world which has taken 5 months to be located and delivered from Holland. Alvor was the designated place for a traditional celebration this year. Fatima is the patron saint of sailors and her statue leaves its home place only once every fifty years. This year it went from Alvor to Ferrogudo accompanied by a flotilla of fishing boats. Many people lined the town harbour to watch the statue leave. The boats were decorated with palm fronds and tinsle, there was lots of shouting and horns blowing as it left.
Keith had trouble with his right knee which had been infected in November. The infection returned and we had to visit the hospital to get antibiotics. His leg was a full 4cms bigger than the other and had to be rested. At the end of the course of antibiotics his leg was no better. The only option was to have a scan to check for foreign bodies in the knee. Kindly Adriano lent us his car for the drive to Lagoa and after a long day we had the results. Basically he has a ‘sac’ of poison in his knee from years and years of kneeling and was told not to kneel again. (on a boat….yeah right!) A day or so later a huge bulge appeared on his knee (thoughts of Alien!) we treated it, making sure we got all the poison out, I think it may have been the ‘sac’ that surfaced.
Being brave and adventurous we thought we had better give 2EZ chance to prove itself and left Alvor on 30th March and had a most fantastic sail downwind to Olhao, with the main and Genoa goose winged we averaged 5 knots (9 at one point) in full sunshine, surfing on the waves. Now we have the luxury of wi-fi on the boat and are bidding our time for the birth of Liam and Martine’s baby in Denmark, due in 22 days from today. We have negotiated with Bruce’s yard at Faro to leave the boat there at a good price whilst we fly to Denmark, but at least we’re feeling a little more confident in 2EZ and are forming plans for the next move…..heads we go into the Med, tails we go to Madeira.
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New Year 2008
With our new engine in place the only thing left to do was have a maiden voyage. We needed little excuse to go to Lagos as our friend Sven had flown over from Sweden to crew on a boat going to the Canneries so we combined both needs and sailed to Lagos to see Sven.
Sven’s plane from Stockholm had taken and hour to be de-iced before they could fly, so arriving into 23f was good for him. His tan had faded considerably when we saw him as he rushed down the boat ladder to give us big hugs and brought us Christmas presents from Marita including a gift for Sven Jnr. It was great to see Sven again, but unfortunately he did not have a very good crewing experience and jumped ship at Morocco. It must have been bad for Sven to abandon ship and when we MSN’d him later he told us there were no provisions on board, only porridge, all the fresh water was lost into the bilges, there was water in the diesel, the auto helm didn’t work or the hydrovane meaning the boat would have to be manually helmed for six days. The genoa furling didn’t work so Sven had to go forward in a Force 7 to deal with the sail. And finally the skipper was like Dr Jeckell on land and Mr Hyde at sea.
Our maiden voyage started with a bit of a surprise as we cast off from Portimao marina. We were eased out of our berth with the help of Alan, our neighbour, Derek and Adriano. As Keith eased up the throttles we came hurtling back in….the new engine ran backwards compared to the old engines. Thank goodness he quickly realized what was happening and pushed the control into reverse, making us go forward! It was soon rectified once we got to Lagos as he changed the cable around. Also thank goodness we have Brunton feathering propellers as they work with the same thrust both ways.
I amazed at how much our speed on engine has increased as we buzzed out of the river, through the moles and along the coast to Lagos. We overtook boats, something Two Easy didn’t do too well with all the live aboard weight that we carry.
We passed the Dutch ladies Olympic sailing teams, out for their daily practice before they head off to Florida in the New Year and then Beijing, after the final selection of three girls for the team. They were berthed on our pontoon and I have never seen so many men who suddenly found a need be on deck polishing the ropes! Especially Hans, who had the upper hand being Dutch. Keith’s excuse was to ask for help with translation of an email we had from a Dutch engineering firm we were contacting for parts for the old engine!
After we left Lagos we ‘motored’ to Alvor with Brendon and Ruth from Tori on board. Ruth had made a big Irish hot pot which we enjoyed before going ashore to the pub. They were picked up by friends who took them back to Lagos. We had our final hug from Sven the next day and waved as we passed them in Alvor channel as they had run aground on the ever shifting sand banks.
The following two weeks of boatie jobs were handed over to me (Pam) as my winter project of reupholstering the cushions and making curtains started. The material had been ordered and collected from Lagos, and the curtaining from a shop in Portimao. The seat cushions have been made wider and beefed up with a duvet wrap making them twice the thickness and much kinder on the ‘bum’ Also they now make a better pilot bed when sailing.
November brought huge swells into the marina and we bounced about for a few days, snapping two lines. We took a very wobbly walk down the pontoon, trying to keep a check on boats without people on board and a few had ripped back fairleads and pulled off cleats. The thunder and lightening banged about for 12 hours and was mostly overhead. Not much sleep that night and it is amazing where the water finds a way into the boat. Little did we know we had another three similar sessions to come before the end of the year.
Christmas was now fast approaching I spent an afternoon online ordering gifts to send to our families. We took a trip to Lagos for Wiggie’s (Yvonne from Nokomis) birthday party. There were 30 on board and it was a lovely sunny afternoon. I believe there were 30 dead soldiers. (Eric speak for empty bottles)
With the sewing done and Lenin commissioned we took a trip to Ferragudo, across the river, in the dinghy to listen to Christmas jazz in the sun. It was a very pleasant afternoon sitting in the town square enjoying good music and feeling like we could relax a little for the first time in a long time.
Two weeks later our friends Ivor and Maggie arrived with their children Rachel, Daniel and David. Their apartment in Albuferia was finished but not completed on yet so we looked around and found them a self contained apartment in Portimao for 500 euros for two weeks, compared to 1400 euros of apartments they found online.
It was lovely having our friends close by for the holiday period and we ate out most nights. Unfortunately they brought the rain with them, Ivor had a bad cold as did I and poor Daniel took to his bed for 5 days! Never the less we enjoyed a sunny Christmas day and a lovely dinner at Jardim das Dunas in Lagos. We enjoyed many trips out with Ivor and Maggie and saw their new apartment, and enjoyed Sunday lunch at Silves.
Our visitors returned to England on New Year’s Eve. Keith and I walked down to the old iron bridge to watch the fire works. Portimao was hoping to take the Guinness record for a display. There was to be 81,110 explosions along 5.4km of river which lasted 15 minutes. It was magnificent and was seen in Lagos, 6km away! (I’m sure I only counted 81,109 though!)
Two days later, Dave, Keith’s son-in-law arrived from England to see the Dakar rally. It took us 40 minutes to walk in the pouring rain to the train station to catch a train to Faro to meet him. (It only takes us 9 minutes on the bikes!) As Dave is prone to queasiness on the boat, and we were going through a rolly period, we kept him off the boat as long as possible and went to Olhao and Tavira until late in the afternoon. I think Dave was so tired, having been up since 4am that he slept through the rolling and got used to it.
We had hired a car at the airport and drove up to Lisbon, the plan was to see the vehicles and stay overnight then watch the lorry stage and rush back to Portimao to see the vehicles arrive at the service area and watch the Portimao stage.
By mid afternoon a lot of the vehicles were leaving. Not knowing what was happening Keith blagged his way into the press tent and asked where the stage was to be the following day. It was at that point that we found out the Dakar had been cancelled. There had been a terrorist threat in Mauritania following the killing of a French family there at Christmas. I have never seen so many disappointed faces once the news filtered out, including Keith Dave and the driver of a big hummer.
I felt so sorry for Dave having come all this way to see the event, but he was very philosophical about it, at least he had seen the lorries (a passion of his). We spent the rest of the week touring around and went to Sagres to watch the waves on the west and south coast of Portugal, Sunday lunch at Alvor and a walk along the beach. A trip out on the big red rib to see the dolphins, and a trip to Ferragudo on the only sunny day we had.
We dropped Dave at the airport and had only one day to prepare for our own trip to the UK. We had rain the whole time we were in England, but managed our usual mad dash around to visit family and go to the boat show. We met up with Will who was our Celtic Raid leader and Sue and Ron from Eala Bhan (Yellow Van) who were also on the raid and thinking seriously about sailing off themselves. (Have you handed your notice in yet Sue?)
We saw my brother who is looking after my cats, Mark, my son and Sam who have a new puppy Milly. (We bonded very well) Up north to see my mum then back down south to see Keith’s daughter Polly then to the lovely Susan for the final weekend which turned out to be completely mad!
We collected Darin and Emily, Keith’s grandchildren from their mum Lucy and had some quality time with them Darin is recovering from major brain surgery to remove a tumor and years of chemo. He featured in a ‘Make a Wish’ DVD being a postman for the day. (His passion) Susan, not one for a quiet weekend arranged a bread baking session, Freddy her son arrived in his Subaru (he’s only 17!) and Susan’s sister in law arrived with her four sons. Darin Emily and three of the boys stayed the night, it was a bit like a sleep over/happening/love in as we all took over Susan’s apartment.
We left at 5am for our trip back to Portugal, stepping carefully over sleeping boys and arrived back to a very hot sunny Portimao. The Portuguese say they’ve had a very bad winter, which is now over. They don’t know what a bad winter is!!!!!
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Return to Portimao
The promise of our solar panel being delivered in one week was rather ambitious by Portuguese timescales. It even makes Caribbean time appear to run at high speed. We had all the usual excuses and found that 1) the order hadn’t even been made despite paying 50% deposit. 2) It was coming from Spain via Madrid and Lisbon. 3) It arrived but was broken so had to go back and start again. 4) Would definitely arrive on a Monday – Wednesday – Friday and 5) The proprietor drove to Huelva in Spain to collect it personally, finally admitting that DHL are not all they are made out to be. The whole process from order to receipt taking three and a half weeks rather than the promised 5 days.
Meanwhile our batteries were very close to dieing so we went to see the IPTM, who monitor the marina, I say monitor as nobody can enter as a visitor. The marina is full with 200 boats waiting to go in so absolutely no room for visitors. IPTM said to speak to the security guard on the marina gate. As he didn’t speak English and we speak very basic Portuguese it involved a lot of hand waving and many ‘faz favors’ before we made ourselves understood and we were allowed in for ‘uma noite’. Happy that we all understood the conditions we went back to 2EZ to lift the anchor.
Being paranoid that we had dragged anchor previously, we had two anchors down and had maintained our position despite the occasional blast of wind. However, when we lifted the anchor, with great difficulty it is a wonder we didn’t wake up in Morocco. The Delta anchor was clean and had not bitten into the muddy bottom at all. The CQR anchor was dangling clean on the rope. The only thing that had held us was the 50 meters on old fishing rope, cork floats and half ton on weed that we pulled up.
As we turned to make our entry into the marina, Keith said he wasn’t happy with the 1.2 knots of speed we were achieving, however when he saw the amount of detritus hanging from the anchors it explained our drag. We made full use of our 24 hours in the marina and fully charged our batteries, used our immersion heater to heat the fully replenished water tanks having a shower, hair wash and use of a hair dryer. The simple luxuries are always sweeter when not readily available. We freed the bikes from their confinement and took a trip to the supermarket to stock up on essentials.
We headed back onto the fisherman’s pontoon after our one night in the marina, and were surprised when we saw a familiar profile and yacht hull. Our friend Paul Kent from Lagos sailed into Olhao on Sula as part of his ‘holiday’, he being resident in Lagos now for 15 years. We had the usual few beers and Paul stayed for dinner. The next day there was a sailing race and Paul asked if we would crew for him. He said, ‘Now Pam, I want you to think, Americas Cup.’ To which I replied I preferred a Rolex watch to a Tissot as my reward for crewing. We had a few hours of fun, shifting our weight from port to starboard with each tack until the wind died.
We were very quickly ‘kicked’ off the fisherman’s pontoon back onto anchor. We learnt that it is a game that is played with the IPTM, come off anchor every few days tie onto the pontoon until they either notice or someone complains to the IPTM, go back onto anchor and start all over again.
Whilst on anchor Kurt, from Vienna whose yacht was called Aleppo asked where he could leave his dinghy whilst he and Karrin went traveling for a few days by car. We said we would be happy to guard it and keep an eye on their yacht. On their return we were invited for a trip in the car and followed a route from Tavira up into the mountains through Loule, Boliquime and Silves. Along the way our map told us of many legends and the history of our journey, one stop being the castle which features on the Portuguese flag.
We stopped in Silves for lunch at Café Ingles next to the castle listening to a band playing a very eclectic selection of music from Arabian to African to Latin American and Brazilian. Silves was a very important place during the 12th century as the Crusading Knights secured the region from the Islamic influence. It became a very important trade route and a lot of the fig, orange and olive groves are still growing around the base of the castle. The city has been modernized which is a shame as the spirit of the city has been lost apart from the small pocket around the castle. It still has the 12th century water tanks that supplied the town below. Now the castle is being refurbished and turning into some kind of theme park, being built over the top of the ancient foundations…..sacrilege.
We were kept amused on our final few days in Olhao by the dogs which set out for the long swim across the channel to Ilha Culatra. At first I thought it was a seagull in the water until I saw their heads pop up and their ears flap as the kept a look out for boats as they swam the at least half mile, or more. My heart was in my mouth as the fishing boats hurtle though the channel like the M25, I felt compelled to watch through the binoculars to make sure they made it safely to the other side. We later found out that the dogs do this trip regularly.
As we had received our Solar panel we knew we could leave Olhao and though we were tempted to go further east to Ayamonte we thought we had better make our way back to Portimao and the marina for winter. We left Olhao on 25th September taking an hour and a half to clear the channel, in daylight this time. However just as we were about to go through the moles the portside engine gave its last cough and splutter, dropping a valve and bending it over 90 degrees. However as Keith was down in the engine bay lamenting over the dead engine, I was on the helm traveling at half a knot and in danger of being blown onto to rocks that lead up to the sides of each mole.
I believe I asked Keith to pop up and pull out the genoa though I think it was more like ‘get your **** up here and pull the ******* genny out or we’re in ****’. A young Portuguese couple who were fishing close by asked if we were okay, when we said no, they quickly put away their rods and came alongside to throw a line to help us out the sea, fortunately the wind in the genoa gave us enough umph to clear the moles, but it was very reassuring to know they were on hand.
We had to tack in and out for the first two to three hours as the wind was on our nose. The trail it left on the chart plotter resembles a very nice herringbone stitch. Eventually the wind turned and we had a great sail back to Portimao with 28 knots of wind at one point giving us a boat speed of 8 knots. We pulled into Portimao at 3am and looked for a spot to anchor as the marina was still on summer rates.
The next day we could see a lot of familiar boats and spent the day visiting or being visited by old friends. Kurt and Karrin from Aleppo arrived and anchored by us later in the day. Our reason for heading back to Portimao ahead of time was to watch the P1 racing, the formula 1 of power boat racing. We watched from the old fort along with Kurt and Karrin and the crew of Witchway. We had a bit of a hairy trip across the channel in the dinghy however, after watching the time trials in the channel we headed across the bay after the all clear being given. I could see two big Sunseekers down the river and mentioned to Keith that I didn’t think they had seen us we were in two minds as to whether we should go in front of them or between them.
In the time it took to weight up the situation they set off at full throttle doing around 40 – 50 knots crossing 10 meters in front of us. They were waving at each other and hadn’t seen us. In the time it took to say ‘oh ****’ their wake came towards us and we were looking at one meter high waves. I thought ‘we’re going for a swim here.’ Fortunately the waves were far enough apart for us to ride each wake wave. All the boats in the marina bounced all over the place, I was just relieved we were safe but I am told the marina reception had seen it and called the Marina Polizia who chased after them and hopefully dealt with them accordingly.
The day before we went into the marina there was a huge swell and everyone on anchor spent the day laying down trying not to be sea sick. We were helped into the marina by the guys who work there. They knew we had only one engine so came over the channel in their little tender to be ready to push and shove as needed, finally we reached our berth and are tied up safely.
The decision had been made to buy a new engine and it left the UK on 18th October by lorry and arrived a few days later. Meanwhile with Matthew’s (Witchway) muscle both engines have been lifted out, one good one made from two bad ones and painted shiny red to match the new engine. Had we not given our head gasket to Hans from Dubble Trubble, also the sad owner of a Ruggerini engine, we would know whether the revamped engine worked. Keith didn’t think we would be so far ahead with our repairs, so we are waiting for a replacement head gasket before we can try it out.
So after a jolly good scrubbing of the cockpit and clearing all the oil out we sit and wait. And whilst waiting we had a marvelous night at the Opera with Hans and Paula of Dubble Trubble. A Gala Night of Mozart, Rosinni and Verdi to mention just a few of the pieces played at the auditorium and all for 15 euros each! (about £10)
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Olhao
We spent our few weeks of free berthing in Portimao very productively, sorting out reefing lines, and provisioning the boat for our next trip. Keith did a dive on Magic Marlin’s propeller and scraped off two inches of barnacles. We were paid with a few beers (the going rate for a dive!) It was windy, very windy and blowing a hoolie and hot, very hot and TOO DARN HOT at one point reaching 43c!
Robert from Mabs came to visit us a few times and we cycled to Alvor to see him and had Sunday dinner on one occasion. We helped Robert shift boxes into a van as he handed over his boat to the new owners and had a few beers to say our farewells.
One very sad Saturday afternoon as I was hanging out my washing I saw Foxy, the Portimao marina stray dog being killed by a German Sheppard. Foxy was a little black and white dog that the guys at the marina had adopted and built him a kennel. He spent the working day chasing after their buggies as they drove up and down the marina, or hitching a ride in their dinghies as they went about the days work. He gave the marina an energy that has now gone. He was friendly with all the visiting dogs which was his downfall. He was circling a 4 x 4 wanting to play with the German Sheppard when it jumped out of the window, obviously feeling threatened, and went for Foxy’s throat, shaking him once which broke his neck. I heard the commotion and saw one of the guys holding Foxy, who was wagging his tail slowly until he yelled and died. Everyone in the marina was devastated and a feeling of sadness was evident for days. Poor Foxy.
We were due to leave the marina on 18th August. The Breitling Med Cup was due to start on 19th so we watched the building of the Med Cup village. Unfortunately in the process a hedge was chopped down which then allowed all the red sand from the car park to blow over all the boats and we would spend everyday washing the decks to try to stay clean. At the same time we had the August meteor showers at night, talk about red dust and meteors, it was like something from ‘Day of the Triffids’!
We went on anchor in Portimao bay to try to watch something of the Med Cup, unfortunately it was so far off shore we couldn’t really see much and couldn’t wangle an entrance ticket into the hospitality tent. We decided to leave as we had some massive waves every time a fishing boat went passed. It was like watching a tsunami heading towards us, counting 3 – 2 – 1 and holding on to everything (especially our drinks) as we rode over the huge waves.
And so, we battened down the hatches, put the bikes indoors and made a sandwich, leaving Portimao and heading off, at last, on the next leg of our grand adventure. We headed out through the moles intending to go 3 miles off shore, however that route was taking us straight into the Breitling Cup course for the day so made our turn East at only a mile out. The sun was shining, the wind in the right direction, the views of the coastline amazing, we hoisted the mainsail, pulled out the genoa, hooked up the auto-pilot and sat back to enjoy the journey. Our plan was to sail to the Ilha Culatra, just next to Faro, a journey of around 33 miles, and anchor for a day or two before the next leg to Cadiz.
After three or four hours, just at that point when the feeling of wellbeing and alls well with the world sweeps over, the wind died so we started the engines just to make sure we would arrive in daylight. Then the black mist hit (not physically – unless we’re talking about the port engine) the moment when it all goes wrong. Alternatively the engines played up, stopping one against the other, a catalogue of problems that surfaced over the next six hours, a blocked fuel pipe, a leaking fuel pipe, a bent water cooling pipe, and the black smoke.
By now we could see the light house beacon for our entrance, another four or five miles to go and pitch black. We checked and rechecked the Reeds Almanac so we were familiar with the entrance and the combination of buoys and were looking forward to dropping the hook. Then both engines stopped, not a breath of wind and three or four fishing boats (yes the big ones) heading for the entrance also, I started to hear the words ‘Pan Pan’ in my head thinking we were getting into a ‘situation’.
Once again the engines coughed into life again and we followed the fishing boats through the moles mentally ticking off the buoys as we approached them We were keeping our eyes peeled for the anchorage, ‘Cat Alley’ we had checked it out as we flew back into Faro in April but couldn’t see any other boats, no bays were revealed so we had to make a quick decision to carry on to Olhao which meant negotiating a very narrow channel through marsh land. ‘Do not attempt this channel at night at high tide’ the Reeds said….urgh, we had both.
Keeping an eye on the depth meter we tried to follow the buoys and hit the bottom at one point with only 0.1 meter of water under us. Eventually we pulled off and decided to follow instruments only, coming in via the electronic chart plotter. Keith kept a lookout for the buoys and I kept my focus on the screen of the chart plotter. This entrance carried on snaking around for about three miles and took well over an hour until we were ‘in’ to town. We looked for the new marina that was being built according to Reeds 2006, but couldn’t find it. As there were a few boats anchored we also dropped our anchor, realizing that both engines hadn’t missed a beat for the whole time since coming through the moles.
We anchored in the shallow channel and spent the next four days bumping up and down with the tides. We also realized where all Simon Cowell’s rejects go when we heard the local karaoke, the get on a plane to Faro, catch a bus to Olhao and howl at the moon, every night, between 11pm and 1am.
Ohlao (pronounced O-LEE-OW) is a charming town, totally unspoilt by tourists, as it hasn’t been commericalised yet and hopefully won’t be. The old town is still intact with all its narrow winding streets and has a nice assortment of shops, cafes and bars. We tried to check in with the Marina Guardia but nobody seemed interested or bothered about where we were. However by the fourth day we were tired of bumping up and down with the tide and decided to moved off the shelf into the deeper channel and found a good spot.
Pleased that we were saving 200 euros a weeks not paying for a marina we thought it was time for a treat and made enquiries about a solar panel as we had little wind for the wind generator and didn’t want to keep running the petrol generator to keep our batteries topped up. The Portuguese are keen for new buildings to have renewable energy and so only charge 12% tax. We managed to get a discount of 100 euros on the panel which we should get some time in the next week.
Even more pleased with our purchase and savings we headed for a bar for lunchtime refreshments, only to look out to find Two Easy wasn’t where we left it and seemed to be going for a trip up the channel by itself. We had a long (too long) run/jog back to the dinghy and as we approached could see that she was tied off. Two guys, both called Mike had seen her drag the anchor and rescued her, but we were tied off in the deep shipping channel. The Polizia were cirling and said they wanted to see ships papers and passports in half an hour. That was five days ago and they still haven’t come back.
We rewarded our heros with beer and dinner and more beer after we tied off on the fishermen’s pontoon. This now meant we could get our bikes out and had a ride to the Formosa Nature Park to see the Portuguese water dogs. A unique breed, they were bred to help the fishermen ‘herd’ the tuna fish into nets and have webbed feet like the New Foundland dogs. They look rather like a large black poodle before the pom-pom trimmings The dogs had a sixth sense as to where the fish could be found, however in the 1930’s the dogs were abandoned to more sophisticated equipment and almost became extinct in Portugal, who breed the most pure form of the dog with no interbreeding of litters.
We have good wi-fi in Olhao which is always a good reason to stay. Keith has been in contact with Mick from Orizabo. They are now in Tunisia and he has had an hour or two or Skype conversations about the engines. Following Mick’s sound advise we (may) have cured our smoking engine and think we may take a short trip to Ayamonte to test them. Meanwhile we have just been asked to move off the fishermen’s pontoon back onto anchor. Amanha……..
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The Trip to Copenhagen
Our journey to Copenhagen began on Tuesday 3rd July when we moved Two Easy into Portimao. We had had a good 4-5 weeks on anchor in Alvor and had made good friends with Robert from Mabs, whose sewing machine I bought to finish our re-designed sprayhood. We had enjoyed dinner with Robert, and left his boat at 3am after drinking him dry and playing scrabble.
However we had a shock as we made our way back to Two Easy, watching the fish leaping out of the mirror calm water and counting the boats back as we passed. I was bemused by the strange silhouette in front of me and questioned it with Keith. Fortunately I looked up higher just in time to see the nav lights of a fishing boat and we turned just in time. There had been no engine sound as it glided ghostly towards us and I rather think the Portuguese fisher men were just as shocked as us as they shouted to the helmsman, which proves that headlights are not just a fashion accessory but a necessary item especially at 3am!
We waved goodbye to Robert as we left Alvor and enjoyed a sail without engines along the now very familiar coastline back into Portimao. The rest of the day was taken up with washing Two Easy, putting her ‘to bed’ and packing our bags for our travels. The journey involved a long walk into town, a six hour bus journey to Seville, we had intended spending the day in Seville however the 110f temperature was not pleasant so we took a taxi across town to the train station and a two and a half hour train journey to Malaga.
As we approached Malaga the train track took us straight through the mountains. At a speed of 80mph for twenty minutes, it must have been a very long tunnel. It broke out into daylight from time to time, giving us breathtaking vistas of secret canyons that we would never have seen unless we became mountaineers. It was a little cooler in Malaga and we soon found a hotel and went out for dinner.
We enjoyed a morning shopping in the mall at Malaga before it was time to go to the airport. Our flight took us via Frankfurt where we had to run from one end of the terminal to the other to make our connection. When we arrived in Copenhagen I was not entirely surprised to find our luggage had decided to spend the night in Frankfurt and catch the 8am plane the next day. Liam had sent me a text to ask if we were in ‘Wonderful Copenhagen’ I replied yes but our luggage was in ‘Sodding Frankfurt’
It was not contusive to a good nights sleep as I looked in my emergency pack given to us by the lost luggage clerk, to find a knee length t shirt. Not what I had in mind to wear at my son’s wedding. It was alarming to see mounds of lost luggage piled in the corners of the baggage reclaim areas all along our journey. I was quite shocked when we returned to the airport to meet the 8am flight from Frankfurt next morning, on two counts. Firstly the information desk didn’t check that we had flown in the night before, or even look at our passports or even scan our hand luggage. We were taken straight through into baggage reclaim to wait for our luggage. (A matter we reported as a huge security loophole as we flew out) Secondly our bag plopped off the carousel just as I was texting Liam to say we were waiting for our bag.
So with many ‘Yeehah’s’ and happy smiling faces we caught the train to Vejle, a lovely town on mainland Denmark and another journey of two and a half hours. Finally as we pulled into the station, there was Liam waiting on the platform and I was able to give him a long awaited hug. (It had been 15 months since I had last seen him as he and his future wife Martine left England via a Harwich ferry)
It had been raining in Denmark for a full two weeks, but I had promised Liam and Martine that we were bringing the sunshine with us an sure enough, within minutes of us booking into our hotel, the clouds parted and the sun came out. We bought an umbrella as an insurance policy for good weather and happily didn’t need it throughout the weekend.
The wedding service was carried out in English, all Danes speak it. I attempted using my phrase book but was told, don’t bother, ‘we’re such a small country, all Danes learn English at school’ Martine looked stunning and the pair of them are so happy. Their story of meeting is quite moving.
Liam and Martine ‘met’ though a computer game similar to Dungeons and Dragons, called War Worlds. There are around 7 – 8 million (yes that many) players, but their characters kept meeting up and they would join together to do battle. It is quite a compulsive game and they would often play until the early hours, each in their own country. Eventually Martine and Liam communicated, then spoke via web cam and finally met. They fell in love straight away as they already knew each other well. So after many tearful flights back and forth between England and Denmark, courageously Liam took the brave decision to move out to Denmark and start his new life. Martine flew over to England, and I met her. A few days later I drove their baggage out to the Harwich ferry as they followed by motor cycle.
Liam not only has met and married the love of his life, but has landed the job of his dreams as a carpenter. Always good with his hands, it was a job just waiting for him. Martine’s family have taken him to their hearts, they are a lovely family and like all Danes, are very proud of their sense of humour. We had a wonderful wedding dinner and ate Deer, which is quite the best cut of meat, eaten only on special occasions. The Dannish custom is to have a toastmaster with whom speeches are booked and he decides who and when the next speech takes place.
If the bride leaves the table, all the women form a queue to kiss the groom and vice versa. Stamping of feet mean the bride and groom have to go under the table to kiss and so the party went. We partied until dawn and wearily went back to the hotel. We had a great time and wouldn’t have missed it for the world.
My elder son Mark and his fiancée Sam are planning to marry next year, probably in Italy, at Lake Guarda. That being the case, we plan to sail there next year via Morocco, Tunisia and up by Sardinia and Corsica to northern Italy. Something to look forward to for next year as this year is passing so quickly we will probably go down to Cadiz and Rota and then make our way back to Portimao for the winter.
Meanwhile, we’ve met two people within the last month who were potential previous purchasers of Two Easy! The last one has kindly given us the remainder of his contract in Portimao as he has left for the UK, so we can stay on electricity and piped water until 18th August……then we really must get going.
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Portimao
We had a very busy time in England, and covered some 1500 miles visiting family from one end of the country to the other. We made some very good purchases at Beaulieu, our best bargain being a Genoa sail that had all the correct measurements for Two Easy, it only cost us a £35 donation to the RNLI. (Unfortunately when we tried it was too long and we had to have it altered by Antonio in Lagos) Also we got all our Med charts for only £1 each, Keith is the RNLI’s best customer! We had our injection pumps serviced and were relieved to find they were completely ‘cream crackered’ which means we would have to look no further into our engine problems.
We bought material to make tubes to protect the inner and outer Genoas from UV damage, and filled a bag with other bits and pieces that are difficult to get outside the UK. We had ‘fun’ getting that lot through customs and onto the plane. Fortunately we didn’t have to carry all the baggage too far, the longest distance was up the platform at Portimao train station.
Our New Zealand engineer, Rum, came to install the injection pumps and I am happy to say the engines no longer sound like a bag of spanners. They are running smooth and sweet at last. I settled down to making the sail tubes, they would have cost around £600 in total the cost of materials was only £120! And they work perfectly.
We hired a car for a few days to take our gas bottles to Boliqueme to be refilled and had a trip over the border into Spain to Isla Cristina with friends Bill and Rosemary from White Beard, a catamaran we first saw in Nazare. We went to Ayamonte as we have been looking for somewhere to leave 2EZ whilst we attend my son, Liam’s wedding in Copenhagen in July. Thinking we were getting ahead of the game we booked our flights from Malaga thinking we would be in the vicinity by then, however after phoning half a dozen marinas, we were told they would only take the boat for two days.
We thought that if we visited a marina and spoke face to face we may have more luck. The Ayamonte marina said they had a 12 meter space which I said we would take, but the young lady said we would have to return in three weeks as she would not guarantee the spot. I (mistakenly) asked if she could help with translation by ringing the other marinas along the route that belong to the same government group. She said I must learn Spanish! After all, when she visits England, she speaks English! I said that my second language was French and that I wouldn’t have time to learn Spanish, Portuguese, African, Turkish, Italian, Greek or Maltese for our tour of the Med. We had been pre-warned that she was a bit ‘stroppy’.
So, with friends Bill and Rosemary we drove alongside the Guardiana as Bill knew of a bend in the river at Alcoutim that has mooring. We spoke with the German caretakers of our problem and they will happily look after 2EZ. They are laying another 3 mooring buoys during June and will only charge 4 Euros per day, and will drive us to the bus station or Ayamonte where we will probably hire a car to drive to Malaga.
We have had an ‘enforced’ increase to our stay in Portimao due to the marina overcharging us by 120 Euros. We had suspected we had been charged too much and questioned it 3 times however when Bill and Rosemary were paying fees for another week as we were, they paid much less than us for a bigger boat, the marina could no longer ignore our query, so as they wouldn’t refund us, only offer a credit note, we decided to stay until we used up our credit.
What to do with all that time, as if I thought I could relax! I have now made a new cockpit table, smaller neater that the original, and started to look at the spray hood as I had never been too pleased with it. We weren’t on the boat when we made it and it was rushed a bit when we were leaving last year. We bought some material from Antonio, amazingly exactly the same as the material for the sail tubes and have started with spray hood mark 2. Keith has beefed up the frame work so it should be much better.
We also have upgraded our bikes seats. We’ve gone for the ‘lardy a***d’ version. Next size is a comfee armchair. Also we’ve fitted bigger chain wheels on the cranks and feel as though we have had another 4 gears added to our 6 gear bikes. Luxury!!!!
Our evenings are spent watching out for Darth Vader. A large fish or octopus named by the locals that terrorizes the soft mouthed mullets in the marina. Every so often they get spooked and leap out of the water. A Portuguese chap moored next to us thinks it is a sea bass, but I have a feeling a long tentacle may come out of the water and wrap itself around our ankles as we walk up the pontoon.
We plan to leave Portimao on 3rd June and may go back to Alvor for one day to drop onto the beach again to put new packing in the stern gland, then it will be off along the coast to, possibly Faro, then the Guardiana about which we’ve heard excellent reports, and then by car to Malaga, plane via Frankfurt to Copenhagen and Liam and Martine’s wedding on Liam’s 29th birthday.
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Six Weeks in Alvor
Our stay in Alvor was planned just as a short stop off to drop Two Easy onto the beach to carry out the usual pre season maintenance works of scrubbings of bottoms and anti-fouling.
There is, conveniently, a sand bank that surfaces twice a day at low tide, and as we went up the narrow channel into Alvor we pulled up the daggerboards. The portside board was difficult to pull up as an elastic bungee seemed to be stuck down the chute. Not one that we recognized, so it must have been there since we bought the boat.
Once we were safely anchored we attempted to retrieve the bungee, with us both on either side of the daggerboard pulling back and forth, the strap came out, along with the daggerboard and the bottom four feet missing!!!! Much to our surprise, it took a few minutes to scrape our chins off the deck and close our mouths.
The only time we recalled any problems with that board was entering Cardiff around 18 months before when it got stuck in the mud which makes up Cardiff’s shifting channel. It had stopped Two Easy in its tracks and took a bit of heaving to pull it out of the mud, which is when we either left the bottom of the board behind in the mud or weakened it. Either way it had been missing for some time due to the worm casts and state of the broken edge of the board. It also explains some of the problems we have had with keeping Two Easy on a straight track.
So, apart from anti-fouling, we now had a bottom half of a dagger board to make. It took a little planning and a few trips to Lagos to buy the materials, a lot of dust and mess, and itchy feet and legs from the foam and glass fibre. Any way, it fits but doesn’t go up and down the chute as well as we would have liked.
During our time in Alvor, we were visited by a few Lagos Leavers, also breaking free of the Velcro marina. We enjoyed a few afternoon beers with Stu and Steph from Matador, followed by a visit from Barry and Janet from Ruby Tuesday, and Sunday dinner with Phil and Pauline from Moyle Rose.
We watched the Good Friday procession in Alvor. The streets were strewn with branches of Thyme, making it very aromatic. The local scouts provided the somber drumming leading the effigy of Christ on a stretcher. We were amazed to hear a man behind us ask his wife who the ‘guy on the stretcher’ was supposed to be! Am I surprised that he was English and old enough to know better.
We became friendly with the dogs in Alvor, most of them were quite stumpy legged, but one with longer back legs than front amused us. He was okay going up hill but struggled going down hill. The chief dog was ‘Town Dog’, so called because he busied himself running back and forth to check everything was in order, in and out of the restaurants and back down to check out the old guys sitting under an old fishing market shelter, then back to his house and round again. He was definitely top dog.
We hade a few visits from Martin, of True Light who brought his motor boat slowly to Alvor, saying he thought he had a problem with his engine, and it may have been a rope round the prop. Keith asked if he wanted him to dive and have a look. It took half and hour to ‘dig out’ the gear, and no more the 2 seconds for Keith to come back up with a bin bag that had wrapped around the prop. We had a trip ashore for refreshments in lieu of pay, after which Martin powered back to Lagos at 22 knots!
We have now moved on to Portimao, only another few miles up the coast, but somewhere we can leave Two Easy whilst we go back to the UK for Beaulieu boat jumble, and a quick whiz round family and friends. I have made our bimini which, judging by today’s heat to 40c, we’ll be needing it soon.
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Leaving Lagos
At last we have broken free from the velcro that seems to hold a lot of yachties in one place too long. We had a resounding send off from our friends who gathered on the bridge to wave and blow their fog horns. We sailed out of Lagos on 11th March just a few miles up the coast to Alvor, and have completed our antifouling and polishing works.
As we are not paying for any marina fees whilst we are on anchor, we hired a car for a few days. We had a trip across the border to Ayamonte in Spain. They are one hour ahead of Portugal and don't open their shops until 10am so our arrival at 8am left us wandering the streets for a few hours. We bought some canvas to make a bimini, and enjoyed the sights and sounds. There were three old guys playing some tango music which made it even more atmospheric.
Our friends Ivor and Maggie flew into Faro for a few days to view properties so it was great to see them for a few evenings for a meal or two and catch up with news.
Meanwhile we have just seen friends Stu and Steph from Matador sail into Alvor, they have broken free too. We'll dinghy over to see them later.
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Still in Lagos
The weeks since Christmas and New Year have flown by and we will soon be planning our next move, possibly to Praira de Alvor just a few miles down the coast. We plan to sit Two Easy on the beach to carry out maintenance work, and scrub the Marina slime off the bottom. Then perhaps to Portimao for a month to six weeks whilst we have a trip back to the UK again to attend Beaulieu Boat jumble at the end of April, then to plan our next move through the Gibraltar straits
Meanwhile, we’ve been on quite a social whirl with whiskey tasting, wine tasting, Burns night and Keith’s birthday to mention a few. We had a trip out on Two Easy to Portimao with friends Martin and Linda from Marlin and Davey and Kate from Roamer. Martin had snagged an abandoned anchor when they were last in Portimao but were unable to haul it aboard. They had a good idea of its location so we headed out for the day, also a good time to add miles to the newly rebuilt engines. Keith donned his dive kit and after half an hour of searching he surfaced with a sea horse on his hand. It had curled its tail around his hand and sat on his palm just below the surface of the water so we could see it before he let it swim away. We had a good trip but found no anchor.
Our next adventure was a trip to Tavira to the camera obscura and then to the observatory. We had a convoy of around five cars with people from the Marina. A stone circle had been built five years previously, copied from an original circle and was accurate proving just how much we owe to the ancients and their awareness of the stars and their movements. Clive the owner of the complex gave a very interesting talk with regard to the constellations, their discovery and their movements. The dot to dot pictures were illuminated on a domed ceiling then when the pictures were ‘switched off’ it was extremely difficult to try to find the North Star and other points of reference. The early Portuguese navigators left from Cape St Vincent with little for than what looked like a an engine cog dangling from a string, called an astrolabe, and an ability to mathematically calculate the angle of the shadow of the sun on the decks of their ships. They sailed for three weeks at a certain bearing, changed bearing when the butter melted and discovered Brazil.
Friends Stu and Steph from Matador found a volley ball on the beach and in no time we had a team put together for our twice weekly games. The first few weeks we spent more time falling over and too shocked at getting the ball over the net to return it. That was then, now we have great rallies, playing for about two hours a time, and all feel much for playing too.
Last week was Carnival time. Lagos holds a parade of children however the bigger towns have the more exotic versions. Again we had a convoy of cars we hired one with Martin and Linda for the day and went to Loule. It was quite hot for which I’m sure some of the scantily clad girls were grateful. The whole event was spectacular with dozens of floats, dancing girls with flowers confetti and sweets being thrown to the crowd. No worries about ‘elf and safety, no one got hurt and everyone had a good time. The main Avenida (High Street) was sealed, tickets to enter were 2 Euros, no charges for parking, or programmes.
Keith had another dive a few days ago when he dropped his phone in the Marina! There was little or no visibility and after half an hour he surfaced, phone in hand. We gave it a quick rinse down with fresh water, the phone didn’t work however both his UK and Portuguese SIMs are functional. We bartered an Atlantic Pilot for a brick of a NOKIA phone with Caroline from Witchway, tried the SIMs and they fired up both times!
The latest adventure was the Tour of Algarve cycle race again the Avendia was sealed off as we waited for the riders. Suddenly almost every police motorcycle came roaring down the route, lights and sirens blaring to clear the road for the stage winners who flashed by. Again the programmes were free, it seems the less people are hassled to stay in order the more they behave and enjoy the day, well in Portugal anyway.
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New Year & the Lisboa - Dakar rally
Happy New Year..... we spent our New Year's eve, again in Lazyjacks along with most of the yachties from the Marina. We had free food, good music and company... and fireworks at midnight. The Marina was very quiet on New Years morning as everyone stayed in their bunks until well after midday!
The Lisboa - Dakar rally passed through Portimao (only 6 miles down the coast) on 6th January. Too good an opportunity to miss, we sailed to Portimao along with 4 other boats to see the rally. Saturday was spent wandering around the service areas, looking at all the cars and bikes being prepared ready for the Portimao section on Sunday.
We met up with Martin and Lyn from Marlin and had a meal with them. Later we caught the free bus back to the Marina as we were too tired to walk the one and a half miles back to the Marina. We asked the driver if the 'green line' would take us to the Marina and he said yes, however he didn't tell us it would be and hour and three quarters before we got there!
We thought it was great having a free ride home even if it may go round the houses a bit, but after we stopped at the hospital, went round Maxmart, up into the sticks, round the hospital again and to Maxmart we realised we better check whether we had any survival rations. Lyn found a bag of boiled sweets in her bag, we counted them and hoped they would last for the duration of the ride.
After our fourth circumnavigation of Maxmart we thought we had better limit the sweets to one lick each per hour. Finally we returned to exactly where we started. By now Lyn was incoherant, we thought it may be scurvy setting in however she was just hysterical with a gigling fit. As we were about to get off the bus and walk, the driver said the bus would be going to the Marina now.
By now we had checked the stars and instictively felt the direction we should be going was East......the bus went West, and it was another half hour before we stumbled off the bus, barely able to walk after being cramped in the seat for so long......we declined a night cap on each other's boats!
Sunday morning and I switched off the 5.30am alarm and went back to sleep however we did manage to get ourselves to the rally section by 8am. The organisation was incredible....the section was kept secret so that the roads would be free of cars driving to watch the event. Free buses shuttled people out of town to the rally section which kept the roads empty for the rally vehicles and their entourage. It was quite cold and misty and people built fires to keep warm.
The GNR (police) were present, but there was no trouble, no pushing and shoving no shouting, no yobs. Portuguese people are so respectful to each other. If anybody stood in front of me whilst I was watching, they apologised and moved to the side. The rally was amazing and Keith took over 400 pictures. He was at a hairpin bend and saw a car roll a full 360, land back on its wheels and drive off!
So now we are into the New Year, we are planning our next move, which will be to Portimao for a few months as we will save over 400 euros on fees as they do not charge extra for catamarans. We will probably return to the UK in April to go to Beaulieu, then plan our passage for the next stage of our trip.
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Merry Christmas
After a busy few weeks, the work on the decks of Two Easy is now completed, and she is looking very smart too. We will be going on a Boxing Day cruise with around ten other boats from the Marina, just a few miles along the coast to Portimao. Apart from an excuse for a sail, we will all be contributing an entry fee to the local childrens home. The Navigators Network support the home and many boats have a bottle on board into which we throw our loose change and give the full bottles to the home.
The weather is quite warm still through the day, around 17 - 19c, but it is quite cold at night and we have had to buy a fan heater to keep warm. Our friends Paul and Mo from Ti-Gitu have now left Lagos to go into the Med. Keith followed them down the river in the dinghy for a while, complete with two outboards to keep up!
We had an enjoyable Navigators Christmas dinner on 19th. Around 100 people attended a five course dinner, and every boat received a gift from the Marina, either a cap, key tag or similar and a bottle of Port. There was also a 'Decorate your Boat' competition, the Marina looks very attractive with boats lit up like Christmas trees. Naturally Two Easy is bedecked with as many LEDs as possible along with coloured lights up the mast and along the guardrails! (no, we didn't win!)
With only a few days to go to Christmas, we are not missing the fog or chaos back in the UK. We're looking forward to our Christmas dinner, we're booked into the Jardim Das Dunas with a number of friends and will go to our local, Lazyjacks afterwards. (We may even see the Queen's speech on Sky!)
Keith and I are currently running the Navigators Network club in Terry's absence. We did our first broadcast today and didn't get heckled once, though I'm sure that will all change soon.
Wishing all our web watchers a very HAPPY CHRISTMAS and PROSPEROUS NEW YEAR, and looking forward to fair winds for next year.
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Life in Lagos
We've been in Lagos now for 3 weeks and are settling into the 'live aboard' way of life. There is a Navigators Network every Monday Wednesday and Friday on channel 77 which is a way of finding out information and helping other yachties needing technical help or advise of where to buy boatie things.
Lagos is very 'British' as there are so many UK sailors here, all the locals happily like to speak in English as long as you have made an attempt at speaking in Portuguese. Even the local cinema shows films in English with Portuguese sub-titles. (Hope to see Casino Royal this week)
We've been to a few parties and went to a Thanksgiving lunch with the American yachties last week. On Friday (1st Dec) it is Portuguese National day when the monarchy was restored. There will be food and Fado music at one of our 'locals'. Fado music is melancholic and unique to Portugal.
Right now we are working on the boat when we want and going to 'Lazyjacks' for a brunch or off to the beach for a swim, when we don't. I (Pam) am busy working on the decks, as I pulled all the grip matting off. The decks will be painted white which will be cooler on the feet!
Keith did a presentation of the LED lights at a Nav Network evening. We have around 120 Lights on board that we hope to sell as we travel. He has an order of 5 so far and I have an order for curtain making.
There are huge storks nests on chimneys around the marina and a pair of black swans in a pool. We'll get photos onto the website soon.
Regular visitors to the site will notice it has been updated and now links into Google Earth. Unfortunately, previously we only put one decimal place on for our long/lat references, which now makes us look as though we have gone over land. (I thought it was bumpy) However hopefully we should have more accurate references in the future.
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Nazare to Lagos
We left Nazare on Wednesday 8th November mid afternoon for a 205 mile sail to Lagos. For the first time in a long time we managed to switch the engines off and actually sail! However Keith had to power back up in the early hours of Thursday.
We had a fairly uneventful sail (we've had enough excitement) and we're joined by some very athletic dolphins most of Thursday. We sailed about 28 miles off shore and well off the continental shelf which I thought would be too far out for dolphins.
In the early hours of Thursday evening we saw what we thought were more dolphins approaching from the portside. They were huge and swam more lazily. We realised later that they were pilot whales, unfortunately we didn't get any pictures of them as we were too enthralled by the size of them, about 8 to 10 feet long and taking deeper dives to jump fully out of the water just alongside.
We rounded Cabo Vincente at 2.15am Friday with only 20 miles to Lagos left to cover. However the current was not with us and we were only making 1.9 knots, so the last few miles took 6 hours to cover! The current was very rolly right into the entrance to Lagos.
As we tied up on the reception pontoon, the first person we saw was Roger Bennett, late of Rainbow sailing school of Swansea and last seen by us in La Trinite sur Mer in August as he took Rainbow Dreamer, our Celtic Raid leader's boat, down to Portugal. We saw Rainbow Dreamer in the marina and expected to see Will's head pop up out the hatch at any time!
We also have met up with Mo and Paul Fay, from Ti-Gitu who are now in Lagos. They had wintered in Bristol last year, so it was great to meet up and chat with them.
There are alot of Brits in Lagos and three times a week there is a radio network system full of information and advice. There's even a Lidls store!!!!
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Vigo to Nazare
We left Viveiro on Friday 28th October, waving a fond farewell to a sassy little Yorkshire terrier pup called Arnie that Helen and Paul got a few weeks ago. Arnie became very friendly with Rocky, our ship’s chief bear. (In fact he got a little too friendly for a pup of 12 weeks!) We sailed in full sun which turned into thick fog a mile out leaving us with no backward glances.
Our next port of call was Vigo, a journey of 159 miles which took 36 hours Keith did the night hours taking his off watch period through the day. We were surrounded by dolphins during most of Saturday. A pod that was making its way up the coast happily swimming along until they heard our engines, made a 45degree detour to play in our bow waves. I never tire of watching them jostling for pole position, criss crossing from one bow to the other (two for the price of one with a catamaran!) and down between the hulls, round the sides and start again. Even at 11pm, the dolphins were quietly surfacing and diving as we locked into our final approach to Vigo.
We tied up in Vigo marina at 1.30am Sunday. Vigo is a very sophisticated city with smart shops cafes and restaurants, no litter or graffiti and nice Prazas, town squares (or rectangles) lined with trees and sculptures. We soon found our café of choice for the best coffee and were now perfecting our Spanish for the key phrases to help us get around. Unfortunately, though, we were about to leave Spain on our next move, to enter Portuguese waters!
We left Vigo on Thursday 2nd November in 28c of sun. Sailing down the coast our friends the dolphins joined us again and I even saw a small whale about 100 yards off our starboard side. After 20 miles we entered Portuguese waters but the sea was a little too rough to climb onto the coach roof to change the courtesy flag. We had radio contact with a boat that had been moored next to us in Vigo, named Niedla. It was skippered by a professional crew of three Spaniards we became friendly with. They left Vigo just after we did, and went 20 miles offshore to find 18 knots of wind.
Keith took Two Easy off shore during his night watch and we made good headway however we then had to cross back over the continental shelf giving us a bump ride for about 5 hours. We set our course to Nazare and made the approaches at midnight. About 5 miles from the entrance I became aware of the ‘welcoming’ committee driving along the coast road and at one point 2 sets of vehicle headlights came on simultaneously to light up the side of the boat.
The entrance to Nazare is quite unique as there is an underwater canyon of 1000 – 1500 feet depth. It starts from the beach and appears to be tectonic plates that fractured forming the deep canyon. (Not the sort of place to go for a midnight paddle!) The welcoming committee (the Polizia) boarded Two Easy within 5 minutes of us securing our lines. Even at 2am in the pouring rain after another 36 hours at sea we had to deal with ships papers and passports! It was just the usual formalities as there has been quite a bit of drug and people smuggling along the coast.
Nazare is a delightful fishing town with a sweeping bay, sandy beach nice shops and cafes, and an historical town leading back from the promenade. Narrow streets cobbled with small white stones, where the women wear headscarves fastened in a unique way, and knee length skirts that look like aprons, with front pockets and trimmed with embroidery. The Portuguese are friendly people and the language only differs slightly from Spanish. They seem to be a little more relaxed and easy going and most of the locals speak English! The marina is run by an English manager with a wicked sense of humour.
The only industry is fishing and the boats leave at 4am to fish for 12 hours for very little reward. Most of the fishermen are only earning 1.50 euros an hour. Would you get out of bed and sail in some atrocious conditions for that
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Ready for the next move
At last the engines are working again! We had to call out a mechanic as the engine bores just filled up with water every time we tried to start the portside engine. We think the mechanic was called something like Fernadez Gonzala Emanuel Del Monte! We called him Bob for short.
He couldn’t speak English, so we went to see Cuban Steve, the car hire man at the bus station, who also teaches English, to ask him to write down a translation of our engine problem to give to Bob so he would know what the problem was.
Bob spoke in Spanish, Keith replied in English, yet they both knew what they were talking about! Bob took the head away and we were told ‘dos dias…’ two days. Right on time he came back and spent seven hours working on the engine. We can only presume he had the head skimmed as it fired up, with clouds of smoke, which soon subsided.
Great, we thought, now rather than being stuck we can go when we want. We hadn’t run the starboard engine since we came into Viviero and sods law was fully engaged…it wouldn’t start. As it was Sunday and very sunny the only thing to do was go for a jolly good bike ride. Oh how I miss the gel padded saddle from my stolen bike! We rode round the promenade which took us up into the hills round the bay, the whole ride was on a path that must have been about three miles long.
The Spanish like to promenade and usually end the day by gathering in a square where the children (who are always beautifully dressed) play together whilst the adults chat. We have quite got into ending the day this way and include a nice cool beer and glass of wine as our focus. The locals are getting used to us now and come to admire our bikes, and are amazed when we demonstrate how they fold.
When we returned to the boat, a rib rushed into the marina and three Aduanas (customs) jumped off and boarded a French boat that had just berthed. Half an hour later they boarded Two Easy to check our papers and passports. They asked (in Spanish) when we were leaving, we indicated that one engine was out. The chief pointed to one of his colleagues and said ‘mechanico’ The following half hour was bizarrely spent watching the Aduanas all in and out of the engine trying to repair it for us, without success!
We called Bob out again on Monday, with the help in translation from Mr Big, the local big cheese whose motor boat is berthed opposite us. We didn’t know he could speak English until he asked Keith to make sure the pontoon gate was shut at night! He also directed us to an ‘electrico domesticos’ as we needed a micro switch for a water pump.
Pepe Lavandanos (Peter Launderette) wasn’t in the shop when we got there, so we said we would go back after siesta. A couple of hours later a man knocked on our hull, speaking in Spanish, we tried to communicate in French but didn’t know what he wanted.
He said the word ‘parta’ and we guessed he was Pepe! He had driven down from his shop to find us in the marina! We can only presume Mr Big must have called him! Either that or we have now become so renowned in the town (probably as that mad English pair who ride round on bikes!)
Bob fixed they starboard engine with a ‘one off’ squirt of engine start that smelt quite lethal! The whole cost of the engine repairs was 350 euros (about £230) and worth every penny.
We are now waiting for some good weather, we had 40kn of wind yesterday (Wed 18th Oct) which was great for drying my washing. The duvet cover was washed, dried and back on the bed within 3 hours!
Tomorrow (Fri 20th Oct) is our first wedding anniversary, so we will be going into town with Paul & Helen, an English couple working on their boat, who we have become friendly with, for a meal, and hopefully setting sail again very soon.
We plan to winter in Porto Santo which is a small island just off Madeira we should be down there by mid November. We’ve already contacted Nelson, the port captain and agreed a discounted price for a long stay. Our plans for the Atlantic are on hold/cancelled as we have missed the timing for going and also need to test the sea worthiness of Two Easy. In any case there is a big Mediterranean to explore yet…..
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Boat Repairs
We had an enjoyable trip to England and helped out on the Celtic Goodwill Raid stand at the Southampton Boat show. There was a lot of interest and we gave out over 1000 brochures. Following the boat show we had a busy few days gathering together all the bits and pieces we needed to repair Two Easy. We filled a small travel bag with nuts and bolts, rigging and at the eleventh hour, our head gaskets had arrived from Italy. We met Michael from Diesel power at 10pm in the car park of a well known supermarket in the centre of London, as he had taken the kit home with him knowing we were due to fly back to Spain the next morning. He kindly guided us on our road to Stanstead. Now that's what I call customer service!
We also had a call from a close friend who was concerned about a hurricane that seemed to be heading for Northern Spain however when we returned the hurricane was just a bad storm that soon blew itself out.
The job we thought would be the most difficult, being the cracks to the bows and redesigning the rigging turned out to be the easiest. There was a never ending number of experts on the pontoon all pontificating over how to carry out the repais. The engine is still not working and we are waiting for an email from Diesel Power with the correct torque settings before we use another head gasket!
So we decided to have a day out by bus to La Coruna to buy replacement bicycles for the ones we had stolen the night before we flew back to England. The marina capitan had sent a diver down in case they had been kicked into the water and asked us to leave it to him to make enquires. However on our return to Spain his selective English was not working that day and we had to accept our bikes would be well and truly in the mountains by now.
The next thing in La Coruna, a very big city, was to find a bike shop. Where to start? First I put together a sentence 'Donde esta una tienda vende bicicletta?' (where is a shop that sells bikes?) we found a UPS delivery man who understood what we had said and pointed down the road to the left, over a bridge and walk for 5 minutes.
Fortunately I glanced to the right at one road junction and saw the shop. We bought two very smart folding bikes which will be better that our mountain bikes on the boat.
The journey back from La Coruna was like something out of a carry on film. We were waved down in a small village by a man who gave the driver a 5 litre container of paint, which was delivered to someone a few villages down the line.
The the driver stopped at a tabacos to do his shopping, and a little further along he stopped by a shop to deliver a big box! I don't think the Spanish understand PC, or if they do they don't give a damn, as under the sign that could only mean 'Do not disturb the driver by speaking to him' gathered a group of locals who chatted to him throughout the whole journey. The rest of the journey was carried out at full speed, making up for lost time!
We have had a few days of heavy rain and hope it will soon pass so that we can finish the repairs and make plans for our next move south.
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Español
We finally made it out of La Trinite Sur Mer and went across to Houat where we stayed on anchor for a week. Houat is a charming little island with a population of only 301. All the cottages are clumped together at one end of the island which is only about 2-3 miles long. Most of the cottages were painted in white with blue shutters, and a special building around the only water source on the island.
We visited the ecosolarium as the islanders are very proud of the way they manage the sea.
The day we had a trip on a ferry to Vannes, resulted in us going to Port Navalo due to misunderstanding over ferry times. The only thing there was in Navalo was the return ferry to Houat!
We left Houat on Sunday 27th August and went to Le Croisic where we sayed five days and became very friendly with the locals in a bar straight out of Allo Allo! The barman kindly gave us 6 beer glasses as a leaving gift, we gave him a picture of Two Easy!
We readied ourselves for the crossing of Biscay to Spain, checking the weather forcast and saw that we had a window of about 5 days of calm weather and high pressure. Would that it was true! as the Bay of Biscay has a weather system all of it's own and we found that just as we were about to cross the continental shelf, a bit of a gale blew up making the crossing very rough, the wind swung round to 213´ right on our course making our tacks run from side to side. We covered 45 miles to move forward 1 mile! Then the dolphins came to play around the boat just as I (Pam) had spent two days with my head in the bucket. (Result of a virus rather than sea sickness)
By day 3 we were on course on making great headway to Spain. It is an amazing thing to see land creeping up on you out of the mist after 4 days at sea, even better to find that it is the port you were heading for!
We were guided into the marina at Ria de Vivero by the wecoming lilt of an Irish man who had heard us calling up the port. (They had heard us but didn't answer as they could not speak English!)Ken took our lines and we look forward to drinks and a chat with him and his wife Carmen tonight (Wed 6th Sept)
We plan to fly back to the UK on Mon 11th to pick up a head gasket for the boat, go to the Southampton Boat Show and visit family.
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Lorient to the end of the raid
We arrived in Lorient on Friday 4th August for the closing weekend of the Celtic festival. The quite afternoon lilt of music turned into a cacophone of different bands in competition with each other. Girl violinists dressed in jeans with a pelmet like kilt over the top, mad drummers hammering out beats, we didn't know which way to look or which band to watch, which went on till 3am every night.
After another birthday party on one of the raid boats, a friend of one of the group was playing with his Anglesey band at the event and brought his violin to entertain us. We went into town to watch the final gig to end all gigs. The band were French Canadian with three sisters on various instruments and a wild corkscrew haired violinist playing Celtic/Irish music.
At 2am the next band came on. A girl aged around 24 with long blond curls fronted the band.One of the guys from the raid said she was 'marvelous' however when we pointed out that she hadn't played a note yet he said, 'I know, but just look at the way she holds the bow.' (he should know, he is recently retired from the Liverpool Philharmonic!)
He was right, the music was amazing, she kicked off her 4" heels and stomped out the music.
The floor bounced up and down by 6" as people joined in with the stomping to the music.
We left Lorient the next morning and had a nice sail up the coast in full sunshine to Etel. A small town with a difficult entry due to a sand bar and riptides. A walk through the market next day saw lots of fresh breads and cheeses for sale.
From Etel we hopped from an anchourage at Houat to Port Haliguen and onto La Trinite sue Mer and the last few days of the Celtic raid. Boats from the raid were leaving and the numbers dwindled. After a final farewell supper we were down to three boats. By Tuesday 15th August all the raid boats had gone their own ways leaving Keith an I in La Trinite, harbour bound by the weather and waiting for the Force 5-7 to drop.
Hopefully the forcast will be good for Friday and our onward trip to La Croisic.
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