Ilha Culatra anchorage

Thursday 17th October
We were able to get the sails up right outside Portimao with a northerly F4 gusting F5. We were having a great sail, making nearly 6 knots when with no warning the wind just died, then clocked round to the south, increasing slightly before dieing again a few minutes later. Boo!

So now we are motoring towards Faro, the sea almost glassy smooth with a very slight swell. The day is warming up as the wispy white clouds fade away.

The Algarve coastline is not the flat, sandy beaches I expected. Instead there are multi-coloured sand stone cliffs, dotted with caves, pinacles and sandy coves which makes it much more interesting for sailing along. The towns and resorts stand out as a swath of white dotting the coast backed by low hills further inland.

So, we think about double checking the tides for getting in to the entrance at Faro. We'd hoped to be here around high water but it seems we were a bit slow getting going this morning and we'll be an hour late. There were warnings in the pilot book about the ebb tide getting up to 7 knots but surely an hour after high tide would be ok?

We see a yacht sailing in ahead of us. Ok, they are sailing in light winds and making progress so it must be ok. Then they stop. Hmmm. We arrive off the entrance doing 6.5 knots and can see some swirly water ahead. As we pass between the ends of the mohles we slow down to 3 knots and steering gets a bit tricky in places. The yacht that was sailing has only just got going ahead of us. But at least we're moving forwards and once past the first red buoy the outflowing eases a knot or so and at the Faro / Olhao junction has dropped right off, less than a knot against us now. No worse than the swirly water and tides we encountered in Scotland but perhaps we'll make sure we have tide with us on the way out!

We make a right turn and see masts ahead of us, looks like quite a forest but when we arrive at the lagoon off Culatra there are maybe 20 yachts and loads of space. We anchor and look around, most of the boats have no one on them - where is everyone?

We've been lucky with the weather the last 2 weeks, mostly light northerly winds, blue skies and warm temperatures with the nortada picking up in the afternoons as is typical in Portugal. This looks like it will come to an end next week due to the effect of low pressures much further north, tracking up the English Channel as the jet stream wiggles south of the UK. The wide reach of these lows means strong westerly winds right down here, 1000nm away.

It's been good being here in the low season, anchorages aren't crowded, there are less fishing pots about and the temperatures are still good but not summer uncomfortable hot. We shall see how these lows develop but it may be that we head in for winter a week early and get going on the looooong list of jobs.