The sail to Alvor on Monday was fun. We left Portimao Marina about 11.00am and the trip would only take an hour if you went straight there, however, the channel to Alvor is tricky and best handled at mid-tide which wasn’t until about 3.00pm. With a few hours to kill we set the sails in 15 knots of breeze and blasted away from the coast out to sea. We were in company with another cat doing the same trip ‘Alan Henry’ is a similar sized ‘Lagoon’ Catamaran and we had chatted in Portimao (they make cheese ‘Grandma Singletons’ – thanks for the sample – very tasty!). We had a great sail in good winds and to make it better a school of about 10 dolphins came to play in the bow wave. They were huge, the biggest we have seen in the last couple of years. We had lunch heading out to sea then turned and ran back to the entrance to Alvor by about 2.00pm. There is a lagoon just inside the walled entrance so we anchored there and waited for the tide to rise enough for us to pick our way up between the sandbanks to the town anchorage. It’s a nice place to anchor, we chose to sit a bit away from the town in the channel and it’s quiet and well sheltered – other than from the fishing and tripper boats that go past fast and leave us rocking in their wash!
We spent Tuesday relaxing and exploring the town. It’s quite touristy but has a good atmosphere and some quaint old buildings. The majority of the visitors are British and English is the predominant language in the streets, including lots of northern accents. There are multiple restaurants on all the streets around the port, probably one for every day of the summer. Despite this we ate on the boat both Monday and Tuesday nights and had a quiet time reading our Kindles. There’s only so much ‘high life’ (and alcohol) you can take!!
The shot shows the anchorage in Alvor. ’Splice’ is in the background, the second boat to the left of the white house.