It seems the rain that has been infecting the UK and Ireland for weeks has finally expanded its tentacles to reach as far as the Algarve!

This was the sight that greeted me this morning when I opened the hatch whilst we anchored for the night in Alvor.

The crew (who was not altogether compos mentis, as it was only 10.30 AM) was blissfully ignorant of the fun weather that awaited her as she rose, phoenix like,  from her bunk!

Morning Skip

On downloading the pictures taken this morning, I discovered a few from the visit by Jessica and Ellie that I had missed. This one of Ellie, in particular, lifted my spirits on this dreech day.

All of this was in a huge contrast to yesterday. We went out from Marina de Lagos, for a fun days sail. As soon as we left the marina entrance the wind dropped to NW 6 to 8 knots. So we hoisted all the sails and we were ghosting along at 3 to 4.5knots. Interestingly, we were near a new Contest 50 with a full slab reefing main, and self tacking Jib. Much to both my and the skipper of the Contest 50’s amazement,  we over took him and then just pulled away from him. It was hysterical watching him staring at us, then his sails, then back at us again. We are a smaller, much heavier boat, but is seems the new Genoa is once again proving to be a real winner! The Contest 50 turned on his engine and went off in the opposite direction. Shortly after this the wind veered thru 360 degrees’, then went up to 20+knots, from the North. So we had a cracking sail out towards Cape St Vincent , before tacking and heading back to Portimao for lunch. The wind died completely 4 miles from Portimao, so we motored into the anchorage. Had a nice lunch and a siesta, before heading off to Alvor for the night. We rode up the estuary on the flooding tide, and 30knots of wind, on bare poles, doing 5knots !!. Passing all the kite surfers who were literally, flying across the flooded sand dunes. Once again we were greeted by the sound of busy Little Turns and Cicadas’ in the anchorage. It is just soooo peaceful here after all the disco noise in Portimao.

We may stay here a couple of more nights before returning to Lagos, to attend to  all the maintenance issues that need to be sorted and to finish all the work that I did not manage to get completed in Dartmouth prior to our departure. Then we will definitely start the mooch Eastward in to the Med’. If we don’t do that soon we end up joining the Velcro set in Lagos  marina who arrived long ago and stuck!