37:04.59N 08:07.24W

Wednesday 2^nd July

Cast off from Marina de Lagos and as we headed for the lift bridge, various crews came on deck to wave us off. We followed ‘Blue Beyond’ down the river and out into the bay as they were on their way to PortiMao to get craned out and get their leaking rudder gland fixed (again).

The promised strong winds picked up at once and with a single reef in the main sail and just the hard wind jib set, we were soon flying eastwards at speeds up to 9 knots. Sadly this was to be the highest wind of the day for us and for most of the 30 mile trip, we pottered along at between 5 to 6 knots.

We took this opportunity to test our newly repaired generator (!) and you will all not perhaps be too surprised to hear that after just 5 minutes it came to a halt, this time with the error message ‘Failure Oil Pressure’. Cue long emails to Holland, Sweden et al........

The coast along this part of Portugal is very impressive, with many caves (grottos) and sweeping sandy beaches, broken up by unbelievably ugly modern town and city developments. Sarah spent a depressing hour or two trying to recognise the villa and beach where she went to stay just after her A levels (a mere 32 years ago!). However she cheered up when we spotted firstly, a spectacular flying fish and then what appeared to be a pod of pilot whales, but when we sailed over, turned out to be 6 very large dolphins, some of whom turned and swam with us for a short while.

Finally we arrived at the marina at Vilamoura and motored in through the outer harbour wall to stop at their very smart reception pontoon. In fact as this was empty, we took the opportunity to stop on the fuel bay and top up midships fuel tank which we had last filled at Bayona in Northern Spain.

This is one very smart marina and I was a pleased and surprised to see that it had a 5 anchor rating (the best) from the Yacht Harbour Association, which is a UK organisation of which Viking Afloat was also a member!

We were allocated a berth close to a proper super yacht (photo to follow soon on the website) and then we had a brief walk around the ‘town’. Clearly this is a little bit of England we know very little about, or actually need to!!  Although this is a huge resort and we found it almost impossible to find anything written anywhere in Portuguese (or any other language) other than English. Loads of Irish theme bars (even a replica Irish street scene), Sky Sports, Full English Breakfasts (Double sausages, double bacon, double everything!) Pizza Express and thank the Lord...MacDonald’s, of course.

Returned to the boat and were hugely entertained by the efforts of a huge Sunseeker gin palace trying to moor on a pontoon parallel to us. They took six attempts to get in and each failure was even more spectacular, with lots of people shouting, pulling on ropes and a determined effort by the owner/driver to set off into the evening sun towing most of the marina infrastructure behind him.

Scott Free then arrived and moored up and so we radioed them to invite them over for drinks. To our surprise Sea Lion replied as they were moored close to Scott Free, so both crews came over later for a few drinks and nibbles.

Early night (loud disco bars permitting). We have a 6 am start tomorrow (she is tough my skipper) as we are heading to Rota (Nr Cadiz, Spain) which is a full 100 miles away. The destination the following day is Barbate where we are meeting up with my sister Anne, who although she lives in Seville, also has a beach house just 5 minutes away from Barbate by bus (or so she says).

Thank you to all of you who are sending us emails, it is nice to hear what you are all doing as well!