Lagos - Albufeira

Pyxis
Karen & Richard
Thu 10 Jan 2008 22:11

Thursday 10th January – Lagos - Albufeira

37:05.048N 8:15.999W

 

After lounging around watching DVD’s for the last few days whilst the clouds rolled overhead, today we got back to normal.  With the sun finally out again today, we left Lagos for pastures new… the velcro was finally broken.

 

The forecast was for N2-3 with 1m swell so we thought we would have a slow bounce down the 20nm stretch to Albufeira.  So, we said ‘au revoir’ to everyone and set off.

 

When we cleared Lagos, we were met with no wind and no swell so we donked along the coast to Albufeira – the up side was that we had hot sun beating down on us the whole way, it was really rather a treat after the recent grey days.

 

The marina here is very modern and sheltered – it opened late in 2003 and the surrounding complex is still being developed (although we have the latest electronic chart for this area the marina does not appear and we are shown berthed on dry land!).  The complex forms its own enclosed world and is a little odd as the surrounding buildings are all multi-coloured (some refer to it as ‘Legoland’).  After Lagos it seems very quiet.

 

Once we had berthed in the massive space they gave us, Richard did the usual and dragged me off to explore.  The town is 2km away, if you don’t get lost, which we did as we didn’t have a map (Richard would call these opportunities); we walked along the coastal path and it was very pretty. 

 

We explored the whole of the old town, leaving no rock unturned, and it was much more charming than I expected.  Albufeira has a reputation for being very brash and touristy, and I expect it is up near the huge hotel complexes, but we stayed in the old part and liked it - possibly helped by being off season and hence it being very quiet.

 

On the way back we found the local supermarket at the top of the hill and then tried an ‘alternative’ route back.  Unfortunately this proved a bad move, the road did not go where we wanted it to go – we could see the marina but there was no way down.  In the end we finally found a ‘cut through’ and had to trek across some waste land to get back onto the right road – it was getting dark by the time we got back to the marina.

 

Then it was off to the showers to see how they stacked up.  Well, they were OK J (very clean and modern, albeit sited in the entrance to the multi-storey car park) but I’m pleased that I am here out of season as there are only four showers for the ladies, two at this end of the marina and two at the other end, which seems rather too few for a marina boasting 475 berths.  Richard reports that there are more showers in the Men’s.

 

Exhausted, this evening we are having a quiet night on board.

 

We enjoyed our time at Lagos – it was interesting to ‘live’ in a Portuguese town and see it through the Christmas and New Year season with the locals rather than just visiting for a few days as tourists.  The ‘liveaboard’ community there was also exceptional – we hope that we will meet many of the boats again once they head off into the Med in February and March. 

 

 

Marina de Albufeira

 

© Pyxis 2008