Great sail down the coast to Lagos, all whitewashed villages and golden beaches on the way. Anchored off Lagos beach and watched every other boat go into the marina! Including Marita III
Was a blowy night but no problems with the holding at all! Next morning, Friday, we went into the marina and had a shock - 59E a night and that was after the CA discount of 5% ! Won't be staying here long we said, charge up batteries, fill up water, shop for provisions and off!
Well it is now Tuesday morning and we are still here. Not sure how it happened but we decided to go for the cheaper weekly rate and stay put. We discovered that all the marinas along the Algarve are this price or even more - we believe Vilamoura would be about 100E. We met a couple on Saltwhistle III, Tony and Rachel, (flag flying CA members) who said they had booked in for a week and decided to have a 'holiday' and I think this idea took hold in our heads.
Saturday morning brought an unwelcome early morning call for Marita when a departing Spanish boat got it badly wrong and ended up ramming them hitting their wind vane(self-steering gear)with their anchor and then becoming hooked up and attached. Bit of a shock when you are down below having just woken up !With help from the marina guys in a dory and several people on Marita this boat, Ciao, was unhooked and then tried to say '...you ok,no damage...' apparently with one of those expressive shrugs . It looked like they were going to leave without any further conversation so the marina guys radioed for the pedestrian swing bridge to be closed preventing this and they were persuaded to stop at the marina reception. What a load of hassle for Mark and Helen! The wind vane had one strut badly dented, seeing as how it's stainless steel tubing and very substantial that gives you an idea of how hard they were hit. They also think the mechanism may have been damaged. The marina staff and the Policia Maritimo were very helpful but then they had to write an accident report, get it translated into Portuguese, and then hand it in to the police station in 48 hours. Then the insurance forms, the repairs, extra nights in the marina......... and Ciao just went off sailing! Seems unfair but that's how it is...
Another weird coincidence happened on Saturday afternoon. We were talking to another couple from a Moody 44, there are Moodys everywhere in this marina it's like a rally, when we asked the name of their boat. Turned out it was Siri, a boat we had viewed when we had our second buyers for our house. If the sale had gone through we would have bought her! So we spent a very pleasant couple of hours with David and Penny looking at Siri and then they came back to Max and spent a couple of hours looking at her! That was another day gone! Supper on Marita finished a very 'busy' day after we had to take a rain check on an invite to dine on Siri. We hope to catch up with them later in the month as our plans are similar.
On Sunday our friends Sue and Gary flew out here to their villa in Vilamoura and we are going to take the train there today (Tuesday) and stay with them overnight. It will be lovely to catch up with them and we are really looking forward to it. They have also been a life saver and brought our replacement credit cards out from the UK after Sam delivered them on Saturday-we are really grateful to all three of them! It will seem very strange to pack an overnight bag and leave Max for that long and sleep on land! We will then stay here Wednesday and Thursday night and then leave to travel along the coast, heading for Cadiz and then Gibraltar by the 20th to pick Sam up.
The weather has been in holiday mode too with the balmiest night so far last night and we actually put the AC on to cool the boat down which worked really nicely. Lagos is full of tourists, lots of them English and it's really strange to be surrounded by people talking English again. The chandlery, Sopromar, is excellent; they also have a boatyard where Marita will be having repairs done and a towing generator fitted, on Thursday. Ian has bought fender socks, something he disliked the look of but now sees as essential to protect the gel coat on Max, and has at last managed to find the right size clevis pins for the bathing platform!
One of the downsides of all the English tourists is English newspapers everywhere and we have been unable to avoid seeing the headlines and pictures of the riots back home. Takes us back to the riots in the 80's, is it as bad as that ?? Not seeing the news does have its upsides.
Ian and I would like to wish Lauren a Happy 21st on the 3rd Aug, Shireen a Happy Birthday in Romania on the 6th Aug and Emma a very Happy Birthday Today !!!
Right, off to pack now and catch a train.