Culatra Anchorage, Faro

Well we have moved 40 miles further east in preparation for getting Jenny to the airport on Thursday. Been fairly eventful – had some very windy afternoons and at night until 10 ish – in fact on the last night at Portimao John spent several hours plotting our swinging circle using the GPS to see whether we were drifting back onto a sea wall - bit hairy at night - should have trusted Petronella – far from drifting back the anchor was so stuck in the sea bed we had to use the boat speed to break it out when we finally left.

The morning we left Portimao we were off at 6 am- at least we would have been except that in the strong wind the mizzen halliard managed to get stuck behind the steps so John climbed the mast - in the dark to the strains of a very loud disco which was just winding up with the DJ saying “Not everybody understands House music” As we had lain awake most of the night listening to the racket he would have better said “Not everyone can stand house music”! Have to say that choosing 6am in the dark to climb your first mast may not appear to be very sensible – but we needed the mizzen and it had been far too windy the day before to go up the mast. I winched him up and he mananged to flick the halyard away from the mast steps just fine. Jen slept through the whole thing.

Had a nice sail here until the wind died then we motored as we wanted to hit the Faro entrance on a rising tide - getting stuck on a sand bank at the highest tide for 2 weeks is not my idea of fun. We had a fairly tense but actually really good passage into the lagoon – really strong spring tide with overfalls to either side of the main passage. We followed a boat in but they went wrong turned round and stuck like glue to us – guess they thought that if we were still moving then it would be ok for them!! Anchored OK then Jen and I went for an explore of a truly random place – weird collection of fishing huts, old shacks, boats in all stages of decay, nets everywhere and holiday makers ambling around with buckets and spades. Had a most welcome beer then back to the boat for John’s morning’s fish – 3 rather small but nevertheless very tasty mackerel, with spuds, carrots and lemon.

Yesterday morning Jenny and I caught the ferry into Olhao then a bus into Faro. Had a mooch round Faro which made her think that Portugal is not so awful – so far she is not very impressed – the people are not very friendly and the places we have anchored at have been close to discos and rather scratty. Then back to Olhao to catch the ferry back. John met us in in the dinghy and we had beers before returning to Petronella for the catch of the day – 3 big mullet caught in 20 minutes.

This morning John and I took the dinghy to Culatra and had an explore of the place, finding the beach on the south side of the dunes and walking back via the shallow lagoon where various catamarans are anchored and live-aboards have set up home in in the dunes. Very weird place. Jenny wanted to go for a proper sail so we upped anchor and went out past the lighthouse and onto the sea. Within 30 minutes it had gone from almost flat calm to blowing a hooly – it was really nice to sail Petronella in some wind – though it got a bit much after a while and we had to get the sails in in a hurry as it was blowing up all the time. Came back into the anchorage with the tide and the wind behind us – we rocketed in – luckily we knew the way now as our marker buoys and leading lights flashed past!! Dropped anchor in more or less the same place and watched as the waves grew bigger then started to break in the anchorage and then 2 boats dragged their anchors at the same time. The unattended motor boat just behind us came loose and drifted down onto another boat where it’s anchor got tangled in theirs – the 4 people on the sailing boat had a difficult hour holding the motor boat off with fenders and boat hooks until the rescue boat arrived - complete with 3 Ronaldo lookalikes in black neoprene- Jenny was MOST impressed. They spent 30 minutes getting the loose boat under control before they towed it away – not sure how much damage it did to the other boat but if there had not been people on board it might well have holed it. We were really lucky that the wind wasn’t in the opposite direction as it would have hit us instead! Mind you, a 15 ton steel boat should come off better than a small fibreglass motor boat.

Jenny leaves us tomorrow and will be in India on Monday – can’t keep up with her!! We have a week on our own and then Emma and Ruth come out to join us for the last two weeks. We are intending to go to Spain for a few days before picking the girls up on the Portugal/Spanish border.


Bye for now.
John & Gill