All good things come to an end; this time it was saying goodbye to our friends still left in Portimão – ‘English’ Mike, Daniel, Nicholas, Aline and Mael, Taffy’s Bar, the Surf School, and loads of other people whom I can’t remember right now but you know who you are.

About midday on Tuesday 1 April, Aline let our ropes go and rushed back to tell Nicholas and Mael who escorted us out of Portimão. We hope to see them again – somewhere – in the future.

Nicholas, Aline and Mael (RAPA NUI) escorting us out of Portimão.

Vilamoura revisited

Our first port of call was Vilamoura, not very far we know, but after spending the last 6 months tied to a pontoon it was far enough. The weather was ideal in a ‘no wind’ sort of way, it was flat calm and we motored the whole 20 miles. We trailed the fishing gear trying to catch some tea, but all I managed to do was lose a new set of three attracter birds – and still no fish!

Vilamoura hadn’t changed over the winter months, and we tied up one pontoon over from the berth we had last time we visited – handy for the ‘facilities’ and free wireless broadband in O’Neill’s (Sarah was back to her old tricks frequenting dodgy Irish bars in search of the Internet – or that’s her story). As a short shake-down trip it was ideal. Sarah and the kids remembered how to put the ropes and fenders away, and I remembered how to tell them off for not doing exactly what I was thinking!

“Go on Dad, let us guess which rope it is you want us to pull next.”

Andrew & Co

Our fiends Andrew and Caz and their gang arrived the following day and we BBQ’d burgers in the sunshine. Smoking out our posh neighbours in their ‘stink boats’ felt like yachties’ poetic justice.

Mazagon

On Thursday morning we decided to head off for Mazagon in Andalucia (Spain). The forecast wasn’t wonderful but it was decreasing. So yet again we headed off into a 20-knot headwind hoping it would do what the forecast said it would do. At this point Bryn remembered that he was usually sick before we left any harbour – he held out until we cleared the piers and let loose all over Sarah’s legs and feet. This set the tone for the rest of his trip. The weather did what it said it would, and the wind and sea dropped away to nothing. On discovering this, Beth decided to get some shut eye; down she went and up came dinner! Two down, two to go. Sarah went to bed to rest and I sat watch and couldn’t decide whether to throw up or get Sarah up and try to sleep. Discretion being the better part of valour and all that, I stayed on watch feeling sorry for myself. Unusually, Sarah was the only one who didn’t suffer on this trip.

Sarah swapping the Portuguese flag for the Spanish flag as we sail across the border.

We trailed the fishing gear using different lures and going faster but again no fish. Still at least in Spain seafood is reasonably priced and we can eat fish again! On this note I would like to point out that actually arriving in Mazagon with a propeller and gearbox took some doing – we have never had to dodge so many pot/net buoys over such a short distance. At times we literally weaved through a forest of them, with buoys skimming past us less than 5 m away and no room turn away. This was a passage we would have been best completing in daylight. We didn’t and a few more buoys bounced off the hull as it grew darker.

Eventually after a 12-hour passage, Mazagon loomed out of the darkness as a forest of lights. We were delighted to find how much easier the new chartplotter made the job of picking out the buoyage and it was great to have all the information we needed without having to go below or use a head torch to read the chart in the cockpit. We weaved our way between navigational buoys with nonchalant ease, and tied up on the holding pontoon. OK, so the chart plotter said that the holding pontoon was in the car park, but we will forgive it for now! Still it was a great feeling to get our first night (well, OK, part of night) passage of the season over and done with, and to be in Spain again. To celebrate we advanced the clocks another hour (that’s 2 hours in 1 week!), did the usual paperwork on arrival, had a stiff drink and went to bed.