Thursday - 16 August 2018

We have had several great holidays in the Algarve and have friends who are regular visitors here, but I suspect that the marina at Albufeira as not representative of the locations we have chosen.  During the day the marina is home to a steady flow of boats taking day trippers to nearby caves and secluded beaches, holiday makers for jet boat and paragliding trips, diving, etc. etc.  There are a line of bars and cafes along the quayside, offering full English breakfasts, and other typically non Portuguese foods.  There is also a crane for people to bungy jump from, and at fairly regular intervals, the guy manning the platform from which the jumps are made, will blow his vuvuzela, check everyone is watching and then give a 3 - 2 – 1 countdown for the person to jump.  The heavier folks just get their arms into the water, the lighter ones bounce around 5 – 10 metres in the air before the crane lowers them back to the ground and they get ready for the next one.  Neither Tricia or I are remotely tempted to try this, and Tricia has pointed out some of the medical problems that can arise as a result of these jumps. Anyway, we are in the area of the marina furthest away from the waterfront area, so are spared the noise from the bars.

After about 5:00 in the afternoon it all quietens down, and we suspect that the holidaymakers head back to their hotels to prepare for the evening out.

View of the marina, note the pastel coloured flats to the right of the water 

We had a productive day.  We have run and been shopping, the supermarket is in the Rua Sir Cliff Richard!  We have also now erected the bimini, and have a useful shady spot where we need to stand while we are driving the boat.  I am very pleased with the repairs that made this all possible.  I have also managed to resolve a problem with one of the navigation systems on board so our layers of fallback are now complete.  We have 4 different electronic navigation systems and then paper charts, so we should be OK in almost any situation.

Bimini now in place

We remembered a couple of details that we have overlooked in the blogs of the last few days.  When we were in Sagres, the marinaro asked me if I had seen the jet-skier. It transpires that there is a guy attempting to jet-ski from northern Norway to Athens, a distance of 11,000 kilometres.  If successful, he will get into the Guinness book of records for the longest ever jet-ski trip.  He is well on his way, and I suspect has now done the more difficult part of his trip.  However, it will still take a good deal on endurance to make it from here to Athens.

A couple of times we have disturbed flying fish, presumably basking at the surface, and you see them fly away, they go a surprising distance.  On the most recent occasion that this happened, the fish shot away, but was spotted by a sea bird, that was then in hot pursuit.  I was distracted by something else on the boat so I did not see the resolution of this, but suspect the fish had very little expectation that his flight from one potential enemy would take him into the path of another more dangerous one.

Distance covered today	0	nautical miles
Trip distance covered	1239	nautical miles
Distance covered 2018	1959	nautical miles
Steve (and Tricia)