Rest days in Portimão

Our first stop in Portimão, Mukis girlfriend is leaving us, since she suddenly has to return to the reality of her Referendariat to become a lawyer. Due to weather predictions and many things to fix on the boat before leaving the southern european, meditation climate and weather, we decided to have a couple days to rest.
The first walk on land made me feel like i was still on the water, the ground felt like it was moving and i felt the waves even though i am sure the concrete of the harbour was rather solid :D.
Kiarash and i went for a little walk to buy some pastel de nata, portuguese pastry we both knew from former trips, for the group and ended up in a cute little bakery/ coffee shop with a super nice older italian owner, and a proper cappuccino. Back on the boat we all had a biiig breakfast with the pastel de nata, Bruschetta, veggie sausages, bread, cheese.. it is easier to cook without a moving boat after all :D.
We enjoyed a proper shower, for the first time in 4 days - oh the feeling of no salt on your skin ( just to cover it in sunscreen again immediately).
Then we went to buy some supplies to fix the boat, in a big harbour, with a lot of different sized, interesting, partially old and broken boats.
On the way back to our boat we went to pick up the laundry with our dinghy (a small blow up boat), had a nice dinner and then an early sleep.

The next day was a proper rest day, the order was not to work. After another cappuchino walk we took the water taxi to the beach (since Portimão is seperated by a river we had to cross). The Atlantic, even in the South of Portugal, is way cooler than the Mediterranean, but it was nice to have some hours in the sun and water to unwind and relax.
After the beach Kiarash and i decided to cook burgers for the group and since the supermarket was quite far away we had a long walk through the town - seemingly very touristy and catered to tourists with interchangable beach restaurants and many shops with beach supplies and bikinis, but in Mid-October almost empty so it has a nice charm to it.
Buying burger ingredients in this super market for a group including vegans and vegetarians proofed challenging. meat there was plenty but we couldnt find anything vegetarian and when i asked the shop assistant pointed me to an aisle with ramen and told me thats the only declared vegan/vegetarian aisle they had.
So we bought meat for all the meat eaters and improvised for the rest: Camembert burgers for the vegetarians and sadly only seasoned, oven baked sweet potatoes for the vegan. Shopping was done, but the next challenge was preparing everything on a 2-burner stove in a tiny kitchen under deck.
We had dinner late but it was amazing and everyone was happy. Also about the cold beer we served with it. A proper rest day.Læs mere