Blog 32: Our Floating Holiday Cottage on the Algarve!

A combination of Covid travel restrictions and several boat problems, in particular a leak in the fuel tank, have kept us local this year.  We have spent August and September sailing up and down the Algarve coast visiting and re-visiting our favourite spots.  We also hired a car to explore inland a bit.  One advantage of staying local is that we were very convenient for Faro airport which meant all our girls and some of their friends could join us for a holiday, which has been lovely.  We also managed a long weekend in Zürich, which made a great change – very different from Portugal.

We have used the time we have been ‘stuck’ here to explore the local area by car, bike and on foot, as well as by boat. 

This map shows where we have been

We have bought a second folding bike so we both have land-based transport now as well as water-based.

 

We also hired a car for a week and took the opportunity to explore a little inland and up into the hills, places we don’t normally get to by boat!

 

Monchique

Monchique is a pretty little town up in the hills inland from Lagos, a busy centre for cyclists and walkers

One of the typical houses

A rather cute mural on the end wall of a small cottage

Foia

The view from the top of the hill over to the coast was unfortunately a bit hazy the day we went, but still spectacular

There is a pop-up café near the top …

… where we enjoyed beers while sitting in bunny-themed bean bag chairs gazing at the view!

We had a delicious late lunch on the way back down – this is the view from the restaurant terrace.

The Barragem de Odelouca – a massive lake or reservoir in the Alferce area near Monchique and Foia

Tavira

Tavira is a very attractive little town which lies on both banks of the River Gilão

This is one of the central squares

The bandstand has been decorated with paper flowers

We climbed up the steep backstreets …

… to the churches and fortress that overlook the town

… and had a good view over the rooftops of Tavira

The fortress ruins adjoining the Igreja de Santa Maria do Castelo have been turned into an attractive garden

Across the other side of the river we had freshly-caught fish for lunch at a restaurant on this pretty square

Some shops with traditional tiled frontage

Silves

 

As we wandered round the old town of Silves, we were struck by the colourful flowers everywhere.

Pretty window boxes …

… and bright flowering bushes and trees …

… here with Silves Cathedral in the background, dating from the 13^th century

Silves Castle, a very ancient site dating from before Roman times, and redeveloped by Moorish occupiers and Christian crusaders

Charles dwarfed by a bronze statue of King Sancho 1, the first Christian conqueror of the city of Silves in 1189.

The design of the Town Hall shows a Moorish influence

You see many storks in Portugal nesting on rooftops, high towers, chimneys and electricity pylons!

Lagos

 

Back at ‘home’ in Lagos Marina, I have been volunteering as a dog-walker at the local ‘Canil Municipal’ dog rescue centre.  I have met some lovely dogs and the Canil staff do a really good job of treating dogs who are in a pretty bad way when they arrive and then rehoming them.

Walking “the minis” with fellow sailor, Bev

Sometimes the volunteers help with bathing the dogs after their walk

Part of my daily walking route in Lagos – I love the palm trees and mosaic pavements

At first sight a rather gruesome mural in Lagos (compared with the cute one in Monchique above!) but this building houses an X-ray unit and MRI scanning clinic, so maybe it’s an advert for that?!

Some of the boat jobs we’ve been doing while in Lagos ...

 

Going up the mast to re-thread the flag halyard

 

… strapped into the bosun’s chair …

… hoisted up to the spreaders and re-threading the halyard …

… raising the Portuguese courtesy flag on the new halyard.

Servicing the winches

Taking the winch apart and cleaning every little bit …

… all the winch parts cleaned and ready to re-assemble …

… back together again – just as well I took a photo at every stage!!

Meanwhile, Charles was doing ‘exciting’ jobs in the engine room like …

… fitting a new bilge pump …

… and installing a temporary fuel tank for the generator until we can get the fuel leak fixed over the winter.

And then there’s always the washing to be done!!  

At least in Portugal – in the summer at least – it’s always a good drying day.  We’ve had rain on only 3 days in 3 months and even then it didn’t last more than a couple of hours!

We also decided it was time to treat ourselves to a new dinghy as our existing one keeps deflating!

Proud owners of a new Highfield dinghy!

I think we deserved it - the old one looks quite sad by comparison!

Setting Sail at last!

New crew – Rebecca taking in the fenders as we set off from Lagos

Goose-winging with the wind behind us

More new crew – Caroline and Asha take the helm …

… and have a nice sailing breeze

Another crew change – Jo and Mark steering on a calm day when we had to motor-sail

A perfect sunny day with no swell and enough wind to sail in the right direction – a rare treat!

Our favourite spots to visit by boat with our visitors

 

Alvor

 

We love going to Alvor and have been there lots of times over the last couple of seasons.  It’s a big sheltered lagoon, with a pleasant village and a view of hills in the distance.

Normally, it looks like this, with blue skies and sunshine …

But one time as we arrived we could see smoke billowing up in the distance.

This is the forest fire just starting …

… building up and getting blacker …

… until it covered the whole area. People were evacuated from nearby towns and villages and we nearly had to leave the anchorage.  They had hundreds of fire-fighters involved, dozens of fire-engines, helicopters and several fixed wing aircraft dousing the fire from the air.  Luckily no-one was hurt.

This attempt at a panorama shows how dark it got and dulled everything rather like an eclipse of the sun. 

By the next morning, the sky had miraculously cleared and we were just left with a fine layer of ash all over the decks!

We visited Alvor again later with Caroline and her friend Asha – here we’re walking across the boardwalk from the anchorage to the village …

… through the wetlands which are a nature reserve

Alvor at high tide …

The same view at low tide

Jo and Mark on the beach at Alvor

A rather alarming – but delicious – green cocktail overlooking the harbour

Nice cloud reflections at dusk as we walked back across the boardwalk
 
Culatra

Another of our absolute favourite places is the island of Culatra, which is a low-lying sandy island near Faro in the Ria Formosa, a national park.

Here you can see Culatra as we sail towards it – it just looks like a strip of sand

This is a view of Culatra from the air, taken as we flew into Faro

It’s often very choppy in the entrance – the effect of wind against tide through a narrow channel – but very calm and sheltered beyond.

Ilha da Culatra is unspoilt and not touristy at all compared to other parts of the Algarve.  
 
There are several sheltered anchorages with good holding ground and some boats spend weeks at anchor here – it’s a lot cheaper than marinas!!  

If you’re at anchor here for a long time, this ‘water boat’ will come and fill up your water tanks – for a price!

We were intrigued by this strange catamaran at anchor near us – it seems to have two masts on one side and all the accommodation on the other!  We wonder how well it sails?

There is a small settlement on Culatra and some wonderful uncrowded beaches.
 
The Beaches

We anchored off this beautiful beach on the sheltered side of the island and swam into the shore

This boardwalk must be about half a mile long to reach the beach on the Atlantic coast at the other side of Culatra Island

This is Praia da Culatra (Mar) on the Atlantic coast

Here you can hire a sunlounger and order food and wine from a little wooden hut, the Molhe Leste Beach Bar

Another lovely beach in the sheltered lagoon

This time we’ve come ashore in the dinghy with Caroline and Asha

The water is crystal clear and many happy days were spent on the beaches and swimming in the sea.

The Village of Culatra
 
The village is built on sand – it has, as far as we can tell, just concrete slabs for foundations and the buildings are all only one or two storeys high.  It has a little bit of the feeling of North Africa about it.

This is the main street – you can tell because it’s two concrete slabs wide, not just one!  The slabs seem to be just laid on top of the sand.

Some of the typical low buildings covered with fairly low growing bushes and trees.  There is only one tree on the island that sticks up above the rooftops!

A rather smart house, but the road looks like it needs a bit of attention.  There is no traffic, no cars at all, just a few tuk tuks and a tractor or two.

Often old barnacle encrusted pots like these are used as garden decorations

This rather pretty little house is decorated with mosaic made from broken tiles

Fishing is still important here and there are dozens of fishermen’s huts with all their gear lying about.  In fact, parts of the island are a bit untidy with large items of rubbish (like old sofas, for instance) just left about because they would cost a lot to be removed to the mainland.

A nice view of fishing boats in the harbour

Culatra’s lovely calm anchorage at sunset, so peaceful

Vilamoura

Vilamoura is probably not one of our favourite places as it’s pretty touristy, with lots of Irish bars!  But it’s a good marina, convenient for Faro airport and has some nice restaurants and beaches.

Last year we were luckily able to meet up with my cousins, Kirsten and Aoife, who just happened to be staying about half an hour away – we had such a fun day and evening – as you can see from the debris on the table!

This year Jo and I cycled along this dusty track about 6 km to find a quieter beach – it’s so dusty the leaves and grass look quite silvery

We found a lovely spot – much less crowded and less noisy than Vilamoura 

This is the other end of Praia da Falesia which is a continuous sandy beach stretching the whole 6km from Vilamoura

It’s nice to be able to rent a bit of shade and a sunlounger!

Delicious refreshing salads for lunch – and so artistically presented!

This is the coastline just east of Vilamoura – we had a lovely sail along here the next day to Vila Real de Santo Antonio – I love the fluffy clouds!

Albufeira

Albufeira is another place with a reputation for rowdy stag and hen parties which we only visited once, but actually it was better than we expected.

We had to motor to Albufeira as the sea was almost like a millpond, but the clouds were very interesting!  What you can’t see in the photo is the unpleasant Atlantic swell from two directions which we didn’t enjoy!

Here we are approaching the entrance to the marina which is quite hard to see as the marina is behind the cliffs and protected by them.

The marina buildings are painted in surprising pastel colours.  The marina is actually a couple of kilometres from the main town and beaches and we received a very friendly welcome. 

This is the entrance to the marina looking from the inside.  I walked to the end of the harbour wall and could see the swell outside compared to the calm inside the protective wall.

This is the Convento de Nossa Senhora da Orada which stands above the marina

At first glance, these look like holiday apartments set among the trees, but if you look closely they are unfinished and no construction work is going on at the moment.  There are dozens, if not hundreds, of these apartments on the hillside above Albufeira marina, presumably waiting for an economic upturn or Covid to go away and business to return to normal.

The marina has a lot of restaurants and bars serving fast food and chips with everything, but we only had to walk for 10 minutes to find Castello di Norcia, an authentic Italian restaurant with views over the ocean, tasty food and a lovely convivial atmosphere.

Vila Real de Santo Antonio
 
We’ve enjoyed several visits to Vila Real de Santo Antonio, the last place on the Algarve coast before you reach Spain.  It’s been a good place to pick up and drop off visitors who are flying into Faro airport. 

This is the Rio Guadiana with Portugal on the left and Spain on the right – it’s a pretty river to travel up by boat, but unfortunately our mast is just a little bit too tall to get under the bridge!

With Rebecca in Vila Real walking along the Rio Guadiana.

Vila Real was destroyed in the 1755 earthquake and has been rebuilt with wide, traditionally tiled streets and spacious squares.  So although it does not have a quaint ‘old town’, it is a pleasant place to wander through.

This is the main square Praça Marquês de Pombal – sometimes there are some market stalls here

One of the typical streets in Vila Real

This is the entrance to the old barracks, later used as a market hall, now an arts venue of some sort, but not in use during Covid

A rather grand old building, but sadly looking a bit run-down

This is Vila Real Marina – the large building in the picture is the Grand House Hotel where we enjoyed the feeling of stepping back into colonial times with rattan furniture, big ceiling fans and old-fashioned service.

We got a little bit dressed up for dinner at the Grand House with Jo

This is the grand entrance to the Grand House Hotel

This is the dining room with its lovely old rattan ceiling fan and furniture and tall windows overlooking the palm trees and river.  The food was delicious too!

We came to the Grand House again with Rebecca …

… the barman enjoyed tempting us with his impressive array of gins!

On our final evening in Vila Real we ordered prawn skewers at a streetside restaurant, expecting a small kebab on a plate.  Massive prawns arrived hanging from huge skewers – so tasty!

Sailing back from Vila Real west towards Culatra.

A long weekend in Zürich
 
We had a trip to visit Jo in Zürich, where it was still warm, but cloudier, and a lovely change.

Charles and Jo in Zürich with the Grossmünster in the background

And it was warm enough for us to swim in Lake Zürich on the first day

We took a boat trip to the other end of Lake Zürich to visit the picture-postcard village of Rapperswil

We had a day out to the beautiful town of Lucerne – later in the afternoon we had a thunder and hailstorm with hailstones literally as big as marbles – quite painful!

The view from the cable car ascending Mount Pilatus overlooking Lake Lucerne

… we came down on the cogwheel railway dating from 1889, the steepest in the world with a gradient of up to 48 percent.  It passes through striking rock formations and pretty Alpine meadows with cows wearing typical Swiss cowbells.

We also visited Bern – this is the Parliament Building – and Einstein’s house nearby was very interesting too

One of the famous Bern Bears which have been a symbol of Bern since it was founded and have lived in the city centre since 1857 – they now have a lovely big enclosure and a place to swim.

The River Aare runs through Bern – it looks a beautiful turquoise colour even on a dull day

A walk along the River Aare

Back in Portugal – Exploring Caves
 
The dramatic limestone coastline around the Ponta da Piedade near Lagos is formed of sea pillars, rock arches and caves and grottos formed by the action of the sea.  
 

Caroline and I took the new dinghy (which is not going to deflate!) to explore ...

... dramatic rocks

… narrow arches

… hidden grottos with turquoise water

… beautiful colours

There are also caves near Portimão where you can anchor on a calm day.

One day I swam in to explore the caves with Caroline and Asha …

… but on another occasion the water was red with some kind of algae and the temperature only 16 degrees C, so I gave it a miss!

The End of the Season
 
Back in Lagos, we still enjoyed some excellent dinners, the Marina Club pool, the local beaches and even a ride on the funfair! 

Having looked at the big wheel all summer …

… we eventually went on it at dusk for a bird’s eye view of the marina.

We enjoyed several lunches at Linda’s Beach Bar looking out over Meia Praia

… and a number of dinners at No Patio – a very nice restaurant hidden in a quiet courtyard away from the noise and bustle of Lagos

We got to know some nice live-aboard dogs – and their friendly owners too!

This is Jake with Steve and Helen

And this is Echo who keeps Jules and Jules in order!

The Marina Club pool was well-used by our visitors and me …

… and it serves cocktails too!

I spent a couple of afternoons at Praia da Batata – Potato Beach – so called because a wrecked ship lost its cargo of potatoes and they washed ashore here.

This is another of Lagos’s beaches, Praia de Dona Ana – I just love the colour of the sea.

There’s a nice little bar on the cliffs above the beaches where you can enjoy a panoramic view of the Algarve coast while sipping a drink or two – we went there to gaze at the view on our final evening in Lagos this year.

A nice view of Lagos Marina at dusk

 
Portimão for the Winter
 
We moved round to the next town, Portimão, to have the boat stored ashore over the winter so we can get the fuel leak fixed, among other things!

Here we are motoring up the Rio Arade with Portimão marina on the left and the town of Ferragudo on the right.

Astraia is lifted out of the water by the hoist and moved to her winter storage in the boatyard.

Dinner at Casa do Rio overlooking the Rio Arade the evening before I fly back home!  
 
Till next year ….!