Sagres to Sines

The Beliche anchorage got a bit rolly when the wind died down at night. If there's one thing I hate, it's trying to sleep in a rolling boat. Maybe I wasn't rocked to sleep when I was a baby, I don't know. I got up at 6:00 anyway feeling a bit disgruntled, had breakfast and pumped the perfectly clean anchor up for the 58-mile leg to Sines.

After motoring past the very imposing Cape S. Vincente, a land breeze kicked in from the east. What luck! I pointed Jakatar into the wind, put the main halyard on the winch and, what's this?...the old Barlow winch wouldn't budge an inch. It worked fine in slow speed, but that would take forever to raise the sail. Pointing into the wind meant heading straight to a rocky shore. Time to think.

My boat may be naked, but it's got plenty of appendages. In no time I had a snatch block on a cleat redirecting the halyard to the genoa winch. And they say you can't teach an old boat new tricks.

An old trusty snatch block and I'm in business again.

So I raised 2 sails, unfurled the genoa and began happily sailing north, a rarity this time of year. Happily that is until the wind stiffened, the boat heeled and I began hearing noises down below. Down below, all I saw was a plastic water bottle rolling back and forth making a racket; I always (almost) stow everything securely. Storage is one think I don't lack.

Time to put in a reef on the main; something I haven't done in a while. Here's how it goes: sail close as possible into the wind without the genoa flapping (the staysail is boomed and couldn't care less); push the autopilot button; ease the main out until it starts flapping; release the main halyard to a pre-marked distance; pull in the first reef line on the luff (yeah, I know, this is boring); pull in the leech reefing line; and, finally, tighten the halyard again.

It didn't go as smoothly as I described, not by a long shot. But like I said, I hadn't done this in a while. When the wind piped up some more, I got a chance to redeem myself by putting in the second reef in three minutes flat without leaving the cockpit.

Two reefs in by now and the genoa rolled in a bit.

After a few hours of flying at over 6 knots, the damn wind started to shift north and weaken. Back to motoring until I reached Sines at about 6:30 pm and headed straight for the marina, took a hot shower in the posh facilities (only 23 euros per night). At the reception I also discovered that I could anchor off the beach for 12 euros and get a gate and bathroom card.

Hungry, I hurriedly climbed the long steps up to town, walked past the fort where Vasco da Gama was born and headed straight for Adega de Sines, one of the oldest, most charming and cheapest restaurants you'll ever find.

I sat on a stool at one of the long tables and the plump waitress with the perennial smile immediately came over.

"The chicken is all gone."

"What else you got?"

"Everything except the chicken."

This meant five other dishes posted on a blackboard at about 6 euros apiece. I ordered grilled turkey breast and a jar of red wine. After dinner I wandered around the narrow streets before heading back to the boat for a deep sleep.

Culatra to Portimão and Sagres

At 6:45 I worked up a sweat on the manual windlass to raise 45 m of chain. The Rocna anchor emerged from the bottom like a huge shovel filled with black mud. Since there was no wind I took my time cleaning it with a broom stick before bringing it all the way up.

Then I motored out in the falling tide to the fast-flowing channel, into the turbulent waters near the entrance and out into the open ocean where I set a course between the sandbanks and the fish farm. 

I'm all set. Got my logbook, line-handling gloves, coffee, harness (yellow) and knee pads. Sometimes I use knee pads because I use my knees a lot to gain leverage. Look a bit funny with tanned legs and white knees!

Motored for a while, then sailed for a few hours until speed fell to 2.5 kt, at which time the motor was summoned to do its job. I don't mind sailing slow, but I wanted to reach Portimão before dark, which I did.

Plenty of amazing cliffs and grottos near Portimão.

I threaded my way through the anchorage and then settled on a spot about 70 m from a Dutch boat.

As the chain rattled, I saw the Dutch skipper pop his head out. I couldn't see his face clearly, but I knew he was frowning. And to prove me right, he immediately jumped into his dinghy and zipped over.

"Do you speak English?"

"Yes I do."

"OK, a little bit, good."

"Ah...I have 50 meters of chain and the current makes boats go all over, not the same place...you understand," he said slowly drawing circles with his arms. 

I had already seen that, that's why I was 70 from him. "Where is your anchor?" I asked.

"I don't know, the boat goes everywhere," he said repeating the swirling gestures.

"OK, I'll move some more," I told him. He smiled and left.

At slack tide the wind aligned the boats with their anchors and I was so far from the Dutch guy it was embarrassing. 

The problem with anchoring near the port entrance when you have a dinghy with 2 hp is the distance to town and the fast boat traffic at night. In all these years I have never discovered a good place to dock the dinghy anyway, except way upriver. Don't really care, Portimão is not on my favorites list anyway.

More mud on the anchor the next morning before I set sail in a stiff easterly wind.

It's only 20 miles to Sagres so I unfurled the genoa and got 5 to 6+ knots from that. Why bother with more sails to get there a bit earlier when you're having fun.

My new HonWave T20 dinghy towed with a bridle (according to instructions).

The easterly wind was building substantial southeast waves that were rolling into the Port of Sagres and breaking on shore. The fishing fleet is tucked in the relatively protected southern corner of the port, but the anchorage, on the northeast side, is too exposed. 

The next anchorage - Praia da Mareta - was also a rolly mess so I headed for the last and very large Beliche bay that is nicely protected. 

I had my usual glass of wine after anchoring, which failed to appease my disappointment of being stuck on the boat for another day. My planned grocery shopping, walk about town and grilled fish for dinner were shot. At least the view was good. 

Anchored in front of the Beliche beach.

Soon I was joined by two and later three boats. Normally, nobody anchors here.

Dinghy on Wheels

I'm short on time so I'll just go ahead and ramble until I'm tired of it.

Snapped this shot from the bridge over the Tagus River (called Tejo in Portuguese). 

I had left Jakatar anchored in Culatra - for the second time - and drove home. Going home meant, translation work, moving guests in and out of the 4 units, cutting and irrigating the grass and a bunch of other useless hassles called PRODUCTIVE RESPONSIBLE LIFE.

I also bought a new dinghy, a 2-meter Honwave T20 with a slatted floor. Now I had to get this dinghy back down to Culatra by bus, which involved changing buses in Lisbon, walking more than a kilometer from the bus station to the ferry dock in Olhão and then lugging it to the water. 

It weighs 27 kg and comes in a backpack-like bag - no sweat, right? Wrong. It's a big clumsy backpack that's nearly impossible to lift off the ground onto your back. Solution: wheels. I bought a cheap aluminum hand cart.

At Lisbon's Sete Rios bus station. The bus luggage limit is 20 kg, but the drivers didn't get a chance to pick it up.

It was hot in Culatra. I spent an hour and a half waiting for the ferry sitting on a bench under a palm tree eating cookies and drinking water. The last time I was here I kayaked to the boat; this time I didn't feel too confident about rowing a flat-bottom dinghy that far.

Bought the 1.80 € ticket and enjoyed the ride along the marked channel. 

If it weren't for the marina problem, I think I'd rather get a catamaran.

Got off the ferry and argued with myself on whether to head straight to the café for a cold beer and a bite to eat or to inflate the dinghy and row out to the boat. I made to wrong decision, of course.

I thought about inflating the dinghy on the patch of sand on the right. This is where I previously landed the kayak. Decided against it because of all the junk between the sand and the water. The café is in the background where I should have had a couple of cold ones first.

The fishing marina's pontoons are about as cluttered as what you see above but, after exploring a bit, I discovered a nice open space on the last pontoon. 

The fishing fleet of Culatra.

The dinghy rowed quite well over the flat water of the calm lagoon. Before I knew it I was stepping aboard Jakatar happily floating just as I had left it. 

Immediately rowed back to shore, had a frosty cold beer, walked about a bit and then went grocery shopping. Yes, Culatra has not one, but two grocery stores.

I never get tired of looking at these small but well kept houses. You won't find any lawns here.

I had planned on having an early dinner at my favorite café/bar/restaurant but the woman regretted to say that, although she'd gladly make me something, her husband and boys had run off for the afternoon and she was serving drinks all by herself. Typical.

I had to dismantle the old deflated dinghy lying on the deck, stow it in a sail locker, get the sail covers off, organize all the sheets and halyards (I have at least 17 lines running back to the cockpit), mount the chart plotter and generally get the boat ready to sail off early. All this before it got dark. 

With that in mind, I rowed to the boat, made a tomato, onion, pepper and egg concoction, drank a bottle of wine and had a good time lying in the cockpit drinking tea with my mind as still and unperturbed as the moonlight reflecting off the lagoon. Don't you love that, a bottle of wine will have even a sloth thinking he's poetic.

Thoreau's Walden Pond in Culatra

Culatra has a shallow lagoon where low draft boats come to rest or, in many cases, to rot. The place has become a community of eccentric transients. But in this case the owners are the transients, not the boats that mostly stay here year-round baking in the hot sun.

There's a sort of community club (shown in the center below) and the most amazing art exhibit that, along with the old Danish artist, has been featured in many magazine articles.

Two years ago I had a long talk with him and he confided that newcomers were polluting the place with stress. "First it was a satellite dish, a generator and a TV, now it's WiFi. Then they get all stressed because these things don't work properly or break down. People create stress for themselves," he said ruefully.

He also showed me his pet octopus he kept in a cage in the water. I remember thinking that keeping an octopus caged didn't fit with his character.

This year I was on a kayak and didn't go ashore, but from the look of his studio shack (as shown further down)  overflowing with art pieces hanging on the wall it's evident that he's still here.

I tend to see these "sailors/campers" as the disciples of Henry David Thoreau. But I may be wrong because I met one Italian owner of a Warren-design catamaran and he is a psychiatrist who visits his beached boat on and off. Actually it's for sale. And what's even more amazing, he built most of it in Peniche by himself. Ain't this world full of characters, or what?

The clubhouse.

This "sailor" even has a lawn. Now, this is weird. We had houseboats, now we also have landboats.

My cheap camera and photographic skills don't do this place justice - believe me this is another world and people are living another life here.

This guy got stuck in the middle of Walden Pond. He definitively doesn't need a Rocna anchor.

The old Danish artist who has lived here for many years arrived in his incredibly unique boat (on the right with a blue tarp) and spends much of his time creating art pieces as seen in his "studio" in the middle.

Notice the gaping hole in the leaning boat.

This is a local shack near the entrance.

Kayak on a Boat

My new fuel-efficient recreational vehicle.

After driving 350 km, I reached the port of Olhão at 2 pm. It was a hot day.

A "parking guy" pointed me into a vacant spot near the marina. I tipped him one euro. He smiled and reminded me to hide the GPS.

When I began pulling the Bic Bilbao on its rear wheel over the rough pavement, it made a loud rumbling noise which, naturally attracted another "parking guy" who invited himself to pick up the other (heavy) end. 

When I told him it was not necessary, he replied cheerfully: "Amigo, I have nothing to do except help people, that's all I have in life." 

Those words cut into me like a knife. Here I was about to paddle out to my anchored sailboat and this poorly dressed unshaven guy was hustling tourists to survive. He was not a drug addict working for his next fix - no, he was just another unemployed young man struggling to make it through life the best way he could or knew. 

When we finally reached the ramp under the blazing sun, I turned around and saw him all sweaty and out of breath, but still smiling.

He asked me if I was paddling out to the island. I joked that I was going to Culatra if I didn't sink half-way there

"Have a good trip," he said cheerfully and began to turn around.

"Wait," I interrupted, "thanks for your help...have a cold beer on me." I was ready to give him a fiver but realized that my wallet was already packed in the bag. I only had 1.50 euros in change in my pocket, which I gave him with an apology.

He smiled, "I was just helping you amigo."

The kayak route. This Google Earth shot was taken during a very low tide showing normally submerged sand banks. This is roughly the same route the water taxi took, as explained in my last post.

It took me about 45 minutes to travel nearly 3.5 km. In reality I must have paddled at least 5 kilometers - somehow I kept going way off course. I think it was the tide.

Jakatar was exactly as I had left it.

It was tricky standing on the boarding ladder, holding on with one hand and trying to untie all the knots holding down my waterproof bag with the other hand. Attaching a line to the kayak's front handle with a bowline knot was impossible using only one hand.

I got back on the kayak, leaned forward on the the skinny bow with line in hand and quickly found myself in the water as the kayak rolled over. Performed that stunt three times because I can be stubborn or stupid - you decide.

At least I practiced rolling the kayak over and getting back on, just like I'd watched on Youtube. Finally got smart, jumped in the water and tied the damn knot using both hands. There, problem solved. I still felt like an idiot, though.

Main street, Culatra. That's not Ana, and I swear she just happened to walk by, really.

Follow this "road" all the way to the ocean-side beach.

Food shop

My favorite restaurant, people-watching hangout, café, bar and free bathroom. If I pick the right table I can also keep an eye on Jakatar.

Funny how I was away from the boat for 2 weeks or so and didn't lose a minute's sleep over it. When I'm there, I keep an eye out for other boats anchoring too close and so on. Is this nutty or what?

Alvor to Culatra

Alvor is where you hang your sailor's hat, for a while anyway.

It has a lagoon, an endless pristine beach and a really long - I mean really long - boardwalk built on stilts over the sand dunes. Although it's 3 miles from Lagos and about 8 from Portimão (both with large modern marinas), highbrow boat owners tend to stay away because of the complicated entrance channel and because it's not posh. Let me give it to you straight - the Alvor anchorage is populated mostly by cruising boats with experienced anchors.

In town, the narrow hillside streets are lined with bars, restaurants and the usual tourist flytraps (sort of forgot to take pictures). The town is rather peaceful during the day and jam-packed at night, mostly with gringos from the United Kingdom. Maybe I shouldn't say this publicly, but I can't help notice that the Saxonic ladies have a thing about painted lips, low tops and tight skirts. On the other hand, I might be suffering from a solo sailor's ailment called "visual scurvy."

Best of all, Alvor has two dinghy docks and the water is flat calm - perfect for sleeping after a few drinks in town. Worst of all, the water is murky at low tide and there's no source of fresh water. There used to be a very convenient tap near the old fish market near the lifeboat house, but it was eliminated a few years ago.

Traditional boat taking tourists on a daysail.

The town has a small fishing fleet, and rows of wooden houses where the fishermen keep their hardware and take naps.

Headed for Culatra motoring along the "Faro Ria," a large shallow body of water enclosed by a huge sand dune running parallel to the coast. The sailboat leaning over in the background no longer floats, only it's deck is visible at high tide. 

The village of Culatra in the background. I anchored at a distance to reduce the odds of a close encounter while I'm away.

The ferry to the city of Olhão. The crowd about to get off will make a bee-line to the beach through the traffic-less town of mostly tiny houses build on sand and with streets the width of sidewalks.

Went to Olhão to check out the express bus station - good thing I did. Even after asking three locals, it took me forever to find it on a side street in the middle of town.

This is the last I saw of Jakatar. I hope it's still there.

The afternoon before I left, I made arrangements with a taxi boat in Culatra to pick me up at the boat at 9 sharp. I described Jakatar, its position and name.

"It has Peniche written on the hull," I told him. Everybody in Portugal knows Peniche, not to mention that I was the only boat from Peniche.

At 5 to 9 I'm all locked up and standing in the cockpit waiting when I see a taxi boat slowly meandering through the anchorage and finally roaring off toward Olhão. I pulled out his business card and started dialing, got the number wrong (I don't have a smartphone and the keyboard is tiny), then got it wrong again and was just starting to swear when I heard a voice.
"Bom dia." I had been looking at the wrong boat and the right one had coasted silently up to me behind my back.

Boat taxis normally blast through the anchorage like madmen. This guy took off in that fashion but then abruptly slowed to a crawl with his head hanging over the side. I looked over the side too and realized we were in knee-deep water. Curiously, I looked for the depth sounder but there wasn't one.

"Don't you have a depth sounder?"

"What for, I was born here."

OK, that makes sense. We made it, I paid him twenty-five euros and he spent about 3 euros on gasoline by taking the shortcut.

Sailing Slowly vs. Motoring Fast

My summer is a mess - well, not really. The boat is anchored in Culatra and I'm back home working on a Sunday...that's messy enough, I'd say.

Since I can't spare the time to write a proper post, I'll describe the trip with photographs. This is the leg from Sines to Sagres.

The dinghy doesn't look bad in the picture. But I can assure you that in real life it looks like garbage, the deteriorating PVC sticks to pants/shorts and, if that weren't enough, it developed a fast leak in Alvor which I couldn't fix even with three patches.

Notice the crusty stainless railing - soon I'll be writing a post about how I polished it to a shiny finish with a few brushstrokes. I'm not kidding. I'm very happy to no longer being doomed to spend many hours rubbing like a slave to achieve mediocre results. The product I used does not deteriorate the stainless alloy, but there's a trick to using it. I tried it last year and failed miserably. Live and learn. My rag-and-polish slavery days are history!! Stay tuned to learn how to polish stainless.

Sitting at the bow watching and listening to the hull slice through the water is mesmerizing until your bum gets sore from sitting on the teak railing.

My favorite activity while sailing. But I assure you that I sit up and look around whenever I hear a ship rumbling nearby, when I get thirsty or have to pee.

Anchorage in Sines. It has a good marina too, but I like anchoring. All the hat-like things along the beach are food and drinks stands and the box-like thing just to the right of the building at the bottom is the bandstand that emitted huge quantities of sonic noise until dawn, every damn night.

Saw less dolphins than usual, maybe because I was sailing mostly under 5 knots. The three pods that visited took a liking to the towed dinghy - they must have thought Jakatar was the mother and the dinghy was the baby.

Sagres anchorage. I was sailing into the port, turned the engine key and nothing, nada, niente, not even a click. Tacked out of there and anchored in this large open bay. 

Here's the culprit. A faulty power kill switch. Removed it and made a direct connection.

Pretty cool tripod for the camera and camcorder whose legs twist and grasp anything that's graspable. Very reliable. A bargain at 6 euros or so at Lidl. 

Alvor at low tide. Jakatar is in the background somewhere.

Kitesurfing in Alvor. I ran aground pretty hard in the channel when motoring in. The sand shifts from year to year and that's why I always enter or leave on a rising tide. I cranked the wheel away from the bank, kept the engine engaged in forward and the boat eventually pivoted and came free. Maintaining the engine in reverse would have been a mistake because, due to the incoming current and sandbar configuration, it would have kept riding up onto the sandbar. I'd need a diagram to explain it properly. Trust me, I'm an old salt and old salts know everything...even if we're wrong more often than we like to admit.

Alvor beach, on the ocean side. It's a fifteen-minute walk from town. I went for a swim and the water was nearly perfect.