Back in Portugal. 37 06.808N 008 31.347W
Persephone... Cruiser/Racer
Nigel & Karen Goodhew...
Wed 14 Sep 2016 10:48
The Algarve has had a very dry summer. Forest and scrub fires have been raging, apparently deliberately set, and the fire service have had up to 900 firefighters working to get the blazes under control. They have achieved that now, though for a couple of days last week, the smoke plumes billowing out to sea, gave the false impression of an impending storm...the whole horizon was dark brown to black with the smoke.
After a little bit of running around, getting the spinnaker back from the sailmaker, organising a hull scrub and fitting a topping lift to help with mainsail handling, plus a few days while Nigel went out racing on "Reflex" with Roger and his crew in the Lagos regatta, we finally left the confines of the marina yesterday.
There is a pernicious phenomenon which creeps up on you, whereby excuses are found not to leave harbour, and having run out of those, the short hop down to Portimao was a doddle. We had 20 knots of sunny beam reach and were here in less than an hour.
So now we are back on the anchor, and about to return to the charming little town of Ferragudo on the eastern side of the river. We had a lovely lunch there 4 years ago. Hopefully things will live up to expectations this time.
Our plan is to head down to Cadiz in the next few days.
Stop press....just heard that Eddie and Claire Proctor may be just down the coast in the Guadiano river....maybe we can organise a rendezvous?
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