Since that last entry, which when I re-read it looks like it is tempting fate, we have indeed had some absolutely appalling weather, all in the space of the last two days. Saturday was nice, hot and sunny, and the local game fishing boats had the first of their two-day competition. Day two was cancelled by the weather!

On Sunday, dawn brought up a very different picture, frequent lightning and rolling thunder, coming near, going further away, then coming back with greater force. Accompanying this was torrential rain, huge quantities, half-filling our dinghy in 36 hours of dreadful weather. Winds peaked at 40 knots in the marina, causing the boats to heave around a lot. We listened as a yacht trying to enter the marina called a pan-pan on the radio, as he was in three-metre waves outside the entrance, and wanted to know if it was safe to enter, and was there a place for him to moor or raft up. He was a Swedish yacht, and a fellow Swedish yottie talked him through a difficult river entrance in Swedish. Then, round about 7.30 yesterday evening, what can only be described as a tornado, or twister, spun off the sea, through the Sopramar boatyard, and through the marina, passing behind our boat. We heard it coming, like the sound of a jet engine. I ducked below, while Ju watched, amazed, as the wind indicator went round by 360 degrees within a minute.

A yacht we had admired the previous day on the hard at Sopramar, called the Marina on channel 9, twice, sounding rather agitated. There was no response from the marina, so we tried replying on channel 9 to let her know the office was probably shut. No reply.

We found out why she had called, this afternoon, when we went round to Sopramar boatyard, to a scene of chaos! A large temporary building used for painting boats, had taken off in the sudden gust of the twister, flipped over in the air and landed on the yacht in the cradle beside it, smashing its mast like a matchstick, and throwing it sideways into the next yacht in line. When we saw it, mid-afternoon, the boatyard staff were still trying to cut the remains of the painting shed off the yacht, before attempting a lift back on to its cradle. The owner, who called last night, was visibly distraught, standing on the tilted toerail and surveying the damage to her boat. She must have been terrified when it happened, suddenly, in the dark, as she was on board at the time.

Other after-effects of this dreadful storm has been the transformation of the water in the marina to brown sludge, full of twigs, branches, litter and pieces of bamboo and rushes, all hoovered down the river by the force of the rain. The photo will show some of this debris round neighbouring boats to ours.

We feel sorry for people who have family and friends visiting them this weekend, as the expected Algarve weather does not usually include this kind of thing, and at times it was actually frightening. Our friends had their burgee reduced to half-mast, while we had our ensign dangling by its toggle. One woman lost her entire flag, flagpole, the lot!

I hope when our friends and family come out to visit us they will see better weather, particularly my two daughters and their partners and perhaps even the two grandchildren, if I can persuade them to come. Unfortunately none of them are sailors, so the thought of coming to stay on a boat in a marina even for a few days is probably not that attractive! Doesn't stop me trying to get them to come, however.

Ju is mending the flag as I write this, and is feeling a lot better thanks to the chiropractic treatment.

Portuguese class was fun, I think it will help us communicate better with people in shops, markets and restaurants, at least!