Europe 2021 – part III: Algarve, Portugal
The storks of Faro, Olhão and Portimão were an unexpected delight. This area of southern Portugal is lovely and people flock here for the beauty, the wonderful climate, and well… for some of us, the storks!
We were headed for Faro, where our two new crew members would be joining. I was going to be taking a bus to Porto and meeting Kimberly, another crew mate rejoining the boat for the passage to Madeira and on to the Canaries. It was mostly a motorboat trip, but lovely weather and a good passage. We anchored by the island of Culatra, near Olhão. The entire area and up to Faro is an estuary. Culatra is a little fishing village on an island. There’s a ferry up to Olhão, which we took. There are storks in Olhão, in Faro, and in Portimão. The nests are huge and very impressive, perched on the church tops and other tall structures. After two days, we pulled up the anchor and headed up the estuary close to the town of Faro. It’s actually a much larger town than I had expected with a historic center surrounded by large modern neighborhoods. We found a lovely local fish restaurant where we enjoyed grilled sardines, a Portuguese specialty.
Off to Porto on a Flixbus (low-cost and comfy buses for mid/long-range journeys… who knew?). The price and schedule worked better than either flying or taking the train… especially if one were to be bringing back any bottles of port wine. Porto is an amazing place and Savvy Sailing Girl enjoyed every minute of the trip with Kimberly. In fact, we had originally planned on 3 days and wound up extending 2 more days as we were having so much fun and there was so much to see and do and sip and taste, lol! Stay tuned for the full write-up of Porto, Jerez, and Madeira – the fortified wine centers of the world! Savvy Sailing Girl got to visit all three, wowee!!!
Upon our return, we headed out of Faro and did a day sail west over to Portimão. We provisioned (with 6 people on board and the galley watch system assigned, no minor task) and had 2 days to explore before the good weather window opened up for our offshore passage to Madeira. The trip should take about 5 days. Speaking of the galley watch system… or would it be better not to? Okay, best not to. Stay tuned for the continued adventures and passage to Madeira!