Exploring the magnificent southern coast of Portugal (#9)

After living on the boat yard for 2 weeks we were very happy to be in the water again. Our next challenge was sailing to Vilamoura to get the mast taken off! Luckily we had almost a week to get there, so that left us some time to relax and visit some magnificent places along the way.

Back in the water …

I remember the first few days we were on the hard… every time I took the stairs from our cabin to the saloon I was surprised not seeing any water through the escape hatch. So it felt very familiar to have our aquarium (as we like to call it) back. We immediately took our dinghy to go on a mini sunset cruise, our favorite activity around sunset.

We spent one night at the dock of Sopromar so we could leave in the morning. When we woke up we noticed it was very low tide, there was only 10 cm left before we hit the concrete boat ramp, we were lucky…

After breakfast Liam and Sky spotted a beautiful, red starfish stuck on the boat ramp. They went for a closer look and decided to save it by putting it back in the water.

Alvor ...

When we were all set we left Lagos to sail to Alvor, only 15 minutes further down the coast. We arrived their at the right moment, you can only enter the rio de Alvor during the high tide. When we entered the river estuary we could immediately see what a wonderful place it was. It was full of sandbanks which gave us the feeling we were somewhere at a tropical destination. The kids were super excited to go and play on the sand banks. It was obviously a very popular spot, even in winter there were a lot of boats. We didn’t have a lot of anchoring experience so it was a bit tricky to find a good spot between all the boats. When we finally thought we had found the right place it turned out we were actually in the middle of the fairway where the fishing boats pass. And since the relationship between the cruisers and the fishermen is sometimes a bit complicated we were advised to move a bit further in between two other boats. We had to anchor 3 times before we were in the right position. We think of it as a good exercise.

Ponta de Piedade ...

The next day we had planned to visit the caves in Lagos. The sea was calm enough to get there with the dinghy. First we had to stop by Sopromar to pick up our water hose which we forgot yesterday but it was on our way to Ponta de Piedade anyway. We made sure we were dressed warm enough and had our live vests on because dinghy rides can be cold and wet. Just as we were about to leave Nova decided she wanted to go along as well. It wasn’t far to Lagos by dinghy and the waves were ok so it wasn’t a problem. It even seemed like she was starting to enjoy being in the dinghy. The caves were beautiful, we tried to enter one but the sea was a little bit too rough and we didn’t want to hit the rocks with our dinghy. There were also some rocks just below the water surface that were sometimes a bit hard to see, so we enjoyed most of the caves from a distance. Even then the view was stunning. I love the coast of Portugal!

Clamming ...

Around noon we returned to Alvor and the tide was pretty low when we arrived. We could see a lot of people on the sand banks, digging in the sand, obviously looking for something. We were curious to see what they were doing so we changed clothes and took the dinghy to the beach. The kids were happy to play in the sand and Nova had the best time there chasing after some sort of bug (I think). We couldn’t really see what she was chasing but she had so much fun, it was a pleasure to look at her. Meanwhile we met a fisherman who was collecting worms to go fishing and he showed us how to find the clams everyone was looking for. We decided to give it a try even though we didn’t have the tools for it and we found quite a lot of them. Next we had to rinse them to get all the sand out and the next day we would try to prepare them. While the water was rising the kids enjoyed themselves by building dams. They had to start over the entire time because the water always won. Back at the boat Sven dropped the crowbar (which we had used to attach the dinghy in the sand) in the water. Liam tried to dive for it but the water was too cloudy to see anything. We tried with a fishing magnet later but we lost that in the water too.

Leaving Alvor ...

Every once in a while homeschooling is a bit more challenging, the learning material can be new or hard, the children are tired or in a bad mood or I might be less patient sometimes. So while the kids and I were struggling through the schoolwork of the day Sven went clamming again. He came back with even more clams this time and he prepared a lunch with the ones we found yesterday and that had been in water overnight to rinse. Only some garlic and olive oil in a pan together with the cockles… absolutely delicious!! And I’m sure they tasted even better because we found them ourselves.

After lunch we prepared to leave Alvor, we had to leave during the rising tide so that if we would get stuck on a sandbank we’d be able to get off when the water rose. Sven had checked out the exact positions of the sand banks while the tide was still low so we were ready to go. Seen from the boat it looked as if the water was too shallow in some places so it was a bit of a sensation to sail through the sand banks but we got out without any trouble.

We would have to sail 4 hours to Vilamoura but we didn’t want to arrive after dark so we decided to anchor in Portimao for the night. Turned out that Ystafell, the catamaran of Francois and Cathy, who we met in Porto was in the Marina of Portimao, so we met for dinner. Sven prepared the clams that he found in the morning. We had a lovely dinner and an amazing evening!

The next morning we left for Vilamoura as soon as we were ready. Read all about another stressful docking experience, a scratch on the boat and how our mast gets taken off for repairs, next week.

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