Ambling in the Algarve

This is the first morning in a week that the wind hasn't been howling and very pleasant it is too. Last couple of days we've experienced cold for the first time on this trip. Even bought thick woolly jumpers.
Forgot to mention in the last post that we logged our thousandth mile on Fettler some time on the approach to Albufeira. One of the photos up for that post shows me cockling at Alvor. The lovely hand-drawn charts left us by Dave and Fran indicated 'good cockles at LW' and so there were. The sands there are teeming with them and it was short work for the three of us to gather a pint or so of very tasty little shellfish.
It's been a great stop here in Lagos. Got a lot of things done and enjoyed the town but now looking forward to getting back out there and anchoring up at Sagres (also the home of our favourite Portuguese beer).
Jeff's been a model guest. No trouble, doesn't take up much space and is more than willing to do the washing up.
The signs are looking auspicious for the Azores run starting early next week, so our next post may well be from San Miguel.

Go west!

We´re making slow progress along the southern Portuguese coast, due to the Nortada (which bends around to the west as it passes Cape St. Vincent). This singularly unhelpful wind blows against us at force 5-7 every afternoon, severely limiting westward progress.
We´re now in Portimao, having picked up Jeff here this morning. Just had a truly excellent meal of grilled fresh-caught sardines and will make a couple of short, early morning, hops along the coast over the next few days to avoid traumatising our guest too severely.
After that, it looks like we´ll have to sail to the Azores, to avoid the true Nortada, swell and current which would all make heading north up the Portuguese coast a serious trial. Instead, it´ll be west until we pick up the southwest trades which we can then ride up to the south coast of the UK or Ireland.
In the meantime, all continues well. We exited the delightful Guadiana on Saturday last, stopped in Faro and then made an unscheduled stop in Albufeira after one of the bolts holding on Nanette´s quadrant on sheared off, making a marina stop for repair necessary. Odd, legoland-type marina and expensive, but pleasant and got the job done without fuss.
More photos to follow, so be sure to review the last several posts when we get them up.

Carry on up the Rio

Definitely the most relaxing part of the journey so far. I can’t believe we almost passed this by. Caught up in the drive to get west and north towards home, we very nearly pressed on to Faro, without taking the time to amble upriver on the Guadiana. Fortunately, the madness passed and we only needed to travel a few miles before it was clear that the pilot book wasn’t exaggerating – this is truly a spot not to be missed.
The surrounding country is semi-arid and hilly, the banks fringed with willows and bamboo and the birdlife is numerous and interesting. Azure-winged magpies (!), listed as a rare bird, are plentiful here. We’ve also seen golden orioles, kingfishers, plenty of storks and long-tailed tits.
Yesterday, we forged upriver to a very lonely spot just a couple of miles short of Pomarao, where the R. Vascao joins the Guadiana and spent an extremely peaceful afternoon, evening and night there. The sensation of remoteness was heightened by the discovery that there was no mobile phone reception – this in a world where reception is strong even on the Aonnach Eagach ridge in the West Highlands.
A dinghy expedition into the waters of the Vascao was rewarded by sightings of several of the above-mentioned birds, plus some very shy and wary turtles that slid off their mudbanks into the water at the first sign of our approach.
This morning, we took advantage of the last hour of ebb tide to come a few miles back downriver to the opposing towns of Alcoutim (Portugal) and Sanlucar (Spain), where we are anchored just a little upstream and between the two. Both very picturesque wee towns of whitewashed houses with colourful window frames and each with its castle peering across the river.
The heat is quite extraordinary by the middle of the afternoon. We had to spray the dinghy with water to even be able to touch it, let alone climb in and ride into town. Full awning over the cockpit and windscoop deployed for’ard keeps things bearable on board.
The ‘Tube Action’ donut claimed as salvage on a windy day way back in Alcudia is proving most useful under these conditions. It now streams out astern of the vessel (with the aid of its own plastic bag drogue), ready to be reclined upon for a spot of cooling off.
We expect to be here another couple of nights, before heading downriver a little further where there’s reputed to be the remains of a Roman villa.

Jamon on board

We are now in Portugal, in the first town across the border from Spain: Vila Real de Santo Antonio. It is the first time on Portuguese soil for both of us and we soon realised that we knew as much Portuguese as Korean! However, we did buy a phrasebook and dictionary yesterday and this will soon be remedied.Before coming here, we were weatherbound in Cadiz for a couple of days, waiting for a fierce Levanter to pass through. We took the opportunity to go on a day trip to El Puerto de Santa Maria, a bull-fighting, sherry-making kind of town and stock up on local produce.
We bought a 4kg jamon, hoof and all, which now resides in its own wee hammock. He is a lazy crew member, only getting out of bed once or twice a day to be sliced. We also purchased some fine sherry and brandy from an old bodega. One litre of old Pedro Ximinez for 5.50 euros!
It was quite a wrench leaving Cadiz, especially since it was still blowing Force 6-7 when we took off. But we were going downwind so had a cracking sail to the resort town of Chipiona, which was mainly notable for the fact that it was almost exclusively frequented by Spaniards on holiday.
We are definitely back in tidal waters. Coming into Vila Real, we were just slightly early and had to contend with a knot of cross current flowing in the marina while looking for and slotting into a berth. The marina is small and tight and runs out rapidly when moving fast enough to keep steerage on top of the current. A small and toothless marinero pointed to a berth which was a sharp turn round but we made it in with a reasonable minimum of fuss. We will be sure to leave at slack water when, as the pilot book puts it, "manoeuvering is least traumatic".
Portugal is very pleasant so far. We plan to pop up the River Guadiana for a couple of days and then continue along the coast before picking up our first guest, Jeff, in 10 days' time. -S

On to the broad Atlantic

Where to begin? Our last proper update was from Cartagena – a stop we thoroughly enjoyed. Now we’re in Cadiz, another ancient (supposed to be the oldest in Europe) Phoenecian-founded city and, again, thoroughly enjoying it. Although the span of time in between is rather short, rather a lot has happened.

We pulled out of Cartagena around about three o’clock on a fine Wednesday afternoon. The sea was flat and we had a fine breeze on the beam wafting us westward. On the way out of the harbour, there was a small glitch when the winch for hoisting the main halyard stopped working. I knew they needed servicing, but not quite how urgently. Anyway, not really a problem. Conditions were pleasant and the main was hoisted, so we carried on under main alone while I stripped down, cleaned, greased, replaced pawl springs and reassembled the winch. We headed 15 or 20 miles offshore, to avoid tunny nets and shipping, and enjoyed an uneventful evening of simple sailing.

Around sunset, as often seems to happen, the wind died down, so we dropped the genoa and fired up Sven and were soon joined by a playful pod of dolphins. It’s impossible to tire of the company of these fun-loving animals. Just before dark, a tern circled the boat many times, almost alighting more than once, before flying off towards land.

12 hours later, we had 20 knots of wind again and we were running with double-reefed main and poled-out jib. Sadly, these conditions did not last and by the middle of the afternoon the wind had died completely. Sven was duly fired up only to conk out a few minutes later. There we were. 10 miles or so off Almerimad (the cheap British-dominated marina of Almerimar), no wind and now no engine, bobbing. Though the wind had stopped, the sea hadn’t and so we bobbed quite vigorously while I set about trouble-shooting the breakdown.

First thought was fuel supply, but there was plenty in the tank and cracking the line at the bleed point just before the injector and hand-cranking the engine showed there to be fuel present. Rope around the prop? A quick dive over the side showed this to be a false hope. Overheating or lack of lubrication causing piston to seize? Nope. Diesel injector clogged? After consulting the manual, I decided to pull it and check. Sure enough, the spray pattern didn’t look too good so I took it apart and found it to be a bit mucky inside. Following cleaning, reassembly and installation, I figured we’d be in good shape. No dice.

Finally, I decided to have a look at the fuel filter. I had been reluctant to do so, since it’s a damned diesely job and besides, I’d seen it only a few weeks ago, just before we launched, we hadn’t motored that much and I had only put in clean, quality fuel into the previously unused tank. As soon as I pulled it, however, the cause of our woes was revealed. Water! I’m still not sure how it got in there but my best theory is that it was condensation that had built up in the tank during Fettler’s long spell on the hard (should have checked this before putting fuel in for the first time). Anyway, this is a parameter that will be much more closely monitored hereafter. I found quite a bit of agua in the tank when I bled it out and then did all the fuel lines, replaced the filter, cleaned and reassembled everything once more and crossed fingers. That did it. Soon, Sven was happily put-putting away once more, sounding even better, I believe, for his newly cleaned injector.

There followed the longest motoring marathon in our sailing history – 45 hours, just the thing to clean out any residual droplets of water in the system. The wind seemed to have gone on strike for the next couple of days as we motored on across the eerily glassy sea. Dolphins visited us frequently during this time, by day and night, and I’ve seldom seen anything as beautiful as them playing by moonlight or, even better, after the moon had set and they were sheathed and trailing a bright glow of phosphorescence as they sported around the vessel. We were both on deck to marvel at this sight as the watch changed just before dawn.

Sometime between 0330 and 0400 that night, the log stopped reading. Something fouled around the paddlewheel, I supposed, so we decided to stop for a swim around 1000 and check it out. A bit of weed was the culprit, easily sorted. As we dried off in the cockpit afterwards, we were surprised by an odd blowing sound which turned out to be a pilot whale off the port quarter!

The motoring marathon went on. Just before noon (this is Friday now), when we were still 60 miles east of Gibraltar, we started to experience effects from the odd currents that flow there. We were plodding along with a knot and a half of foul current holding us back, when I noticed an odd line on the sea ahead. The line itself was a smooth band, with different ripple patterns on either side of it. As we crossed it, the foul current increased to two and a half knots. I immediately altered course towards shore and we crossed several such lines as we got closer in, until at last there was only one knot against us.

The main reason behind our big push for Gibraltar was the forecast we’d received in Cartagena. The winds were expected to hold easterly until Sunday and then swing around to the west. The geography of the Straits constrains the wind so that it almost always blows either due west or due east. Combined with the steady east-setting current and the tides, the practical effect of this on a small sailing vessel is that it is only really possible to get through, from east to west, with the wind behind you. We particularly wanted to avoid being bottled up at Gibraltar, waiting for the wind so we pressed on. Tide-wise, our timing was looking pretty good as we headed into Friday night. The best time to get through to the west is around 4 hours after high water Gibraltar, which would fall at 0700 on Saturday morning.

Sonja went off watch at 0100, just as visibility was starting to close down and we had 15 miles or so to go to Gibraltar. By 0200, we were shrouded in thick fog and I was navigating purely by radar and GPS, with periodic looks up on deck. There wasn’t much point in being up there, as I could only see a small circle of water around the boat and shipping was heavy in the approach to the Straits. At one point, just before Sonja woke up, I could see a dozen ships in the 3 mile range on the radar, some headed one way, some the other, some stationary, apparently riding at anchor. Several we passed within half a mile without being able to hear or see any sign of them. We passed the Europa light itself at a distance of one mile and couldn’t see a thing. In the end, we passed the Rock and crossed the boundary of the ancient world, through the pillars of Hercules, without even seeing it.

Sonja woke up as we were crossing the Bay of Gibraltar, had a near heart attack upon catching sight of the radar screen and now we both stayed on watch for the demanding passage through the Straights. Soon after we passed Gibraltar, the fog began to lift and a light breeze sprang up from the east. We were a couple of hours before the optimal time to pass through, but our speed over ground was reasonable and we decided it would be more hassle than it was worth to wait around.

Midway through I went down for a short nap and managed to grab half an hour before all Hell broke loose. Just as I came to, I heard a slightly anxious Sonja call down from the cockpit that the wind was picking up. Soon, as we approached Tarifa, the western extremity of the Straits and their narrowest point, the wind was blowing a near to full gale and the seas building quite fantastically.

Sven and Neville then went off duty and we ran before the gale with the double-reefed main out on a preventer and myself at the tiller. We had three knots of current against us and 30+ knots of wind behind, so the seas became very large and very steep in pretty short order. As one particularly vicious one slewed around, the wind got behind the mainsail and the boom whipped across with a bang. Accidental gibe – not good. The cleat that had been holding the preventer dropped into the cockpit, one screw broken off, the other simply ripped out. We had no option but to gibe a couple of times more, in a deliberate controlled manner, and to steer the course with great precision to avoid any further mishap.

Thankfully, as land fell away after passing Tarifa, so the wind and seas moderated rapidly and, though still rough, the danger was past.

It was a pair of tired but happy sailors who pulled into the unattractive and vaguely unpleasant port of Barbate a few hours later. The eventful 3-day passage from Cartagena was a challenge that left us with a great sense of achievement and the need for a good night’s sleep. Our satisfaction was heightened the following day when we learned that the wind had indeed come around to the west and was blowing a near gale the other way.- J

We then set out for Cadiz, hoping for a relaxing day sail. It was not to be – we had to fight for every inch of the way, with two knots of current against us, an unfavourable wind direction and horrible shoals that made for uncomfortable seas. We finally pulled in at the marina in Cadiz just before 2300, 11 hours after setting out for the 35-mile trip, and this despite doing over six knots the whole way.

Cadiz has a truly beautiful old town and we spent yesterday exploring its shady narrow streets and leafy squares. We will stay another two days here to recuperate before heading across the bay to sample some sherry at the port for Jerez and then continuing on to Portugal. - S

Through the Straits

We´re tired but happy, having made it through the mad Straits of Gibraltar. Now in Cadiz and preparing a full post, with photos, to follow.