Portimao and Ferragudo
23 April 2017 | Portimao
Carole Young
On 19/04/17 we reluctantly weighed the anchor at 0800, one hour before high water, and set off for Portimao. We carefully followed our track in on the plotter and at times had only 1m under the keel; fishermen were returning from their night's work and signalling to us about the high winds coming. Once outside the entrance Swallow was bouncing around, the wind was on our nose so it was to be the iron sail today! The trip was supposed to be just over 4 miles but the moderate face on winds and waves impeded us somewhat and the log's trip reading was 7.5 miles when we arrived at 1000. The rocky coastline, with its grottos, is beautiful, but as we near Praia de Rocha the high-rise hotels blight the landscape but I guess they are a necessary evil as tourism is important for the economy; families flock to this resort for the beautiful, long, sandy beach. I have happy memories myself of bringing Gemma and Jack here on holiday twenty years ago! The Algarve was the first place that Jack had squid risotto!
Today I am a little disgruntled that the forecasted high winds have caused us to moor up in the marina at Praia de Rocha rather than anchor at the much prettier Ferragudo on the opposite side of the river; but hey that's sailing!
The winds came in as forecast and were pretty formidable; Swallow was bouncing around and the fenders were rammed tightly against the pontoon; the solar panel awning became detached on one side and Paul struggled against the 40 knot gusts to do an emergency repair; I was in danger of being blown into the water when I braved the gales to go for a shower. On our third day here we saw the lifeboat crew getting ready to go out on a shout, their blue light was on; we wondered who in their right mind would be sailing in this! We switched on our vhf radio and Paul watched marine traffic on his I-Pad; a navy ship was trying to assist a 12m Polish yacht who had got into trouble trying to sail into the Force 7/8 easterly winds; they had clearly tried to seek refuge at Lagos but all marina entrances were closed as entry conditions were too dangerous. The lifeboat reached them and we heard them say "get ready to jump into the water"- this really upset me as I know this would have terrified me and I really felt for the crew, it's horrible to know that fellow sailors are in trouble ; the Polish sailors obviously refused to abandon their vessel and were then advised to change course and sail north until the winds changed for them to continue to their intended destination of Cadiz. We watched the lifeboat crew return, all in all they were out in the ferocious conditions for four hours, they then all proceeded to phone their families to let them know they were safe- these men are so brave. We did hear of a yacht that grounded at the breakwater of Rimini marina in Italy a few days ago they were not so lucky, the keel snapped and they capsized, four people died. I did then feel glad that we were in the safe haven of Portimao marina.
Whilst here we caught up on boat chores in readiness for anchoring at Culatra further along the coast. We took a bus to Ferragudo , much to my delight; this is a small unspoilt village with minimal tourism; here we enjoyed a quayside lunch of rock fish which was grilled outside, we then walked along the beach- it was still rather blowy so we were covered in sand! On our last day we met up with Shon and Liisa (Lotta), they were further up the river at the boatyard polishing their boat; we all watched the powerboat grand prix F1 down at Portimao quay, the more agreeable old part of town , the winds had now dropped and we celebrated with ice cream! Tomorrow we will be moving on to Albufeira for a night and then on to Culatra, near Faro.