Rugby World Cup

We watched the Rugby World Cup semi-finals in Vilamoura (with TENGY), and the final in Portimão (with TENGY, DRY WHITE, DAWN RANGER, RAPA NUI and a parrot). We won’t bore you with the details but the other side won!

Watching the Rugby World Cup final (photo courtesy of Bryn).

The parrot – possibly a South African supporter, as he squawked every time South Africa scored, and spent the rest of the time pulling out his feathers.

Separate cabins for Beth and Bryn

Settled here in Portimão for a while, we have been catching up with the ‘to-do list’. One of the jobs was to move one of the children into the pilot berth (sorry Lawrence!). Beth won the first month on the flip of a coin, and we spent a whole 2 days sorting and moving toys, clothes and ‘treasure’ from the forward cabin into Bethany’s new cabin, and Lawrence’s stuff out of it into the now empty locker in the forward cabin. Both of them are enjoying having a bit of their own space – and Bryn is determined not to let Bethany back in!

Entry to the forward cabin is at your own risk!

The saga of the fridge, the cockpit table and the mobile ‘phone

We don’t have a fridge on board CAPE – we have managed so far by begging salt ice from the nearest fish docks (usually free for anything less than 25 kg), or buying small bags of ice (at 1.50€‑2.00€ a bag) to keep our beer and meat cool. However, on the Algarve, the fish docks are remote from the marinas, and our expenditure on ice has increased drastically. As we can’t afford the approx. £1000 to install a 12-volt fridge, we decided to buy a small domestic fridge or freezer for use while in marinas. Two buses later, we arrived at our local retail centre and found a small fridge that would fit under the chart table. We got it back to the boat via taxi, finally managed to get it in to the saloon via an overhead hatch (it wouldn’t fit down the companionway), plugged it in and sat back to wait for chilled beer. The compressor got hot and the pipes at the back of the fridge got cold, but our beer stayed stubbornly warm. We gave it the benefit of the doubt for 2 days, after which time we got the girls in the Marina office to translate a bit of paper that had been included with the instructions for use. The Portuguese equivalent of a “Request for repair” dated 2006 should have given us a clue. OK, we’d been sold a dud. Back to the shop with our fridge (minus its box – where on a boat can you store a fridge-sized cardboard box???) on our trolley (by taxi). Despite thinking that all Brits are barmy – bringing their fridges in on a trolley – we were give an apology and a new fridge. A taxi ride later, we are now wallowing in cold beer and wine, hard rather than runny cheese, cold yogurt, and the odd ice cube! Luckily, taxis here in Portugal are cheap!

We have also managed so far without a cockpit table. The fishing tackle box does for just drinks, but as the top of this only comes to mid-shin height, eating off it is a bit of a challenge. We found a lovely cockpit table in a mail order catalogue, but they didn’t deliver outside of the UK. No problem – we would get DHL to collect it from the UK and deliver it to us. We paid for 4-day delivery. 8 days later we were still cockpit-table-less. Eventually it arrived and we can now drink our cold beer, eat comfortably, do school, and play scrabble in comfort – in the cockpit.

As using our UK mobile ‘phone is so expensive, we decided to buy a Portuguese Vodaphone SIM card. Buying the card was simplicity itself! Topping up the credit, however, is another matter. We can’t do it online because the website is in Portuguese and we need to have the equivalent of a Portuguese national insurance number. We can’t do it at the autobank because we don’t have a Portuguese bank account. We can’t do it through Vodaphone UK because it is a Portuguese number. So much for European unity and no trade barriers! We can, however, top up in post offices, Vodaphone shops and some newsagents.

School, work, boat maintenance, and belly boarding

Our daily routine consists of school in the morning (plus work for me if necessary), lunch, jobs on the boat/shopping/laundry, then off to the beach for a swim or belly boarding if there are any decent waves. Now that the hour has gone back, it is dark soon after 6 pm, but still warm enough to sit out in the evening with a fleece.

Bethany, Bryn, Aline and Maël (RAPA NUI) indulging in a spot of beach architecture.

On the film front

The BOUNTY (as starred in the 1962 film of ‘Mutiny on the BOUNTY’ with Marlon Brando) came to stay in Portimão Marina for a few days. The children were delighted to scramble around her and learn that she also starred in ‘Pirates of the Caribbean 2’ (as the EDINBURGH, who was destroyed by the Kraken). We learned about the origin of phrases such as ‘shake a leg’, ‘son of a gun’, and that boats had figureheads because most sailors were illiterate and couldn’t read the boat names but could recognize the buxom wench attached to the front of their boat.

The BOUNTY.

Another exciting moment was the appearance in the marina of a black vulture. We looked this up on the internet and think it was probably a European Black Vulture (Aegypius monachus), about 1 metre in height with a wingspan of 2.5–3 metres – and a very large beak!

The vulture landed, but didn’t stick around for long.

My first dinghy sailing lesson

Today we launched the Walker Bay and I had my first dinghy sailing lesson. The first half an hour was somewhat marred by the fact that we took out some poor bloke’s fishing gear (well three sets of gear actually, as he had three rods set up on the beach), scooping all of his lines nicely with the bowsprit. We assume that it was Portuguese swear words that he was using to inform us of what we had done. David and Bethany came to rescue us in the dinghy and managed to get the fishing line off the Walker Bay and around the prop of the outboard. Free at last, Bryn and I scooted off downwind and eventually back into a different part of the beach out of sight of the now very irate fisherman (with a bit of paddle power assistance from Bryn). David & Beth drifted into the main beach to remove the prop and the 300 miles of fishing line wound around it! After about an hour, I got the hang of this dinghy sailing stuff, and Bethany and I had a cracking sail back across the bay to the marina. David’s main concern now is whether he will get his sailing dingy back!

Bethany and I heading out to sea, watched by an amused seagull sitting on the buoy, Ferragudo beach in the background.

Spotlight on David in the galley

The CAPE market research department was delighted to receive positive feedback on our alternative use for beer from Jackie and Dave (Oxford – the place, not a boat). So here, for those wintery nights in Blighty, is another pre-publication glimpse (from the man himself – the unedited version – I wasn’t allowed to interfere with this one) from ‘101 things to do with a dead mullet’. OK, so it doesn’t have any mullet in this version, but one could be creative if one had a spare mullet in the fridge!)