The Algarve. 23rd June 2012

Since we rounded Cape St Vincent and left the Portugese Atlantic coast things have ceartainly changed.  We are now deffinatly into holiday country. A beautiful coastline with magnificent beaches and delightful anchorages.

Chris and Elizabeth left us on Sat 23rd and we have just been sailing aaround this very attractive area and chilling out. We discovered Praya da Luz which we really liked. It was not until a few days that we realised that it was infamous for the very sad Mcann disaperance.

We watched the England, Italy game in a very crowded open air bar with several screens and the crowd actually sang the national anthem !

The sailing is good with beautiful warm winds setting in  the early afternoon to give  a pleasant force 4/5 offshoree breeze. On Thursday we set off further east hoping to visit Faro, Villa Real and the river (rio) that seperates Spain and Portugal and then on to Cadiz and Gibralter. We then prepare for a dash up the Costas and hope to spend some time exploring the callas of the Balleric Islands.

All is good here and our trip is working out well. Best regards to you all.

Ray & mandy

Porto in June

Lagos is lovely!

Hello, Well here we are almost reached the med!Josephine has been great as is her Skipper and crew we have just had alovely week with our first guests aboard and we hope they had a good week? We are now in the resort Luz to watch the Euro 2012 England v Italy lets hope the dingy ride home is happy one.If the wind gets up it will be a damp bottoms.I am having a few laptop problems with loging on so photo's are in short supply but we promise they are on there way so good iPad is keeping us intouch.As Ray said the coast here is spectacular especially from the sea.We will be moving east next week but in no rush to hot to rush sorry Britain but it is lovely here. Once we get to Gibraltar wewilldo a few long days sailing to getto the Balerarics and then again spend a month or longer there before moving on. Keep safe Mandy and Ray

Portugal & The Algarve

Thur 21/06/12 Hi and apologies for the delay between blogs. We have had Internet connection and a few other problems. We have now left the wonderfull Spanish Rias and cruised down the Portugese coast. Portugal is a country of many contrasts. Initialy in the north we encountered an air of poverty and what we can only describe as a generally poor standard of living. Properties were run down and lacking in maintaince,poorly dressed people,beggars etc. We continued heading south down a generally uninteresting coast with very long legs between harbours. When we arrived the marinas were always half full and the locals complaining of few visitors. The Portugese economy does really seem to be suffering with an air of despondency everywhere. We rounded the corner of Capo St. Vincent and turned left ( heading east at last!). Hey presto we were in the Algarve, the sun began to shine, posh houses along the coast it was an instant transformation. The Algarve coast between St Vincent and Lagos is really quite stunning and beautifull. We may well stay here for a while and just chill. My daughter Elizabeth and son in law Chris joined us in Lisbon on Sat 16th and return home on the 23rd. We think they have enjoyed it so far and it has been a pleasure having then on board We are still having connection problems ( probably not pressing correct buttons) but hope to post more regularly and pics etc. Missing you all and please keep in touch it is nice to receive messages. Ray & Mandy

Now you see it now you don't

Hello everyone You may have read an entry about Vigo and Biaona and now it's gone slight mistake and deleted it ops.So we wil try to up date it all again. Sat 9/06/12. Figueroa de Foz Since our last blog we have now left the Spanish Rias and are making our way down the Portugese coast. We spent an interesting day in Porto and visited the wine cellars and tasted a few glasses of complimentary port. Going on the tour and just smelling the wine in the casks would have been enough to make you tipsy !! Cruising down the coast we have decided that there are as many lobster pots in Portugl as there are bicycles in Bejing! Unfortunately minus one. Having spent all our time weaving through them a moments lack of intention meant we got one. From what we have seen so far our present location seems very nice. Tomorrow (Sun)we set of for Naziar and we have some wind forecast! We will be in Lisbon by mid week when Elizabeth & Chris Rays daughters and son in law, join us for a week. Ray and Mandy

The launching of Little Jo,Vigo and Baiona