Praia Fluvial Azenhas do Guadiana

On our way to Pomarão I had one of those days where I had zero energy. I don't know if the place of Alcoutim and Sanlucár had done something to me, whether it was a certain time in my cycle or if it was just one of those days. Anyhow, I wasn't feeling good. The trip to Pomarão was in principle another uneventful one of just a couple of miles up river while dodging sticks and trees along the way. On top of that came a rock in the middle of the river right before Pomarão. Very happy we had manaouvered around it Bart went down below and cruised casually between the buoys. Or at least, so I thought. Thinking everything was going smooth and not being as focused as usual I didn't take the strong current in the last bend into account. We only had a few rpm's going on the engine, so barely any pressure on the rudder and suddenly that red buoy wasn't at a nice distance on my left anymore, but very very close.

Crrrrrrrsh, that is a bit like the sound we heard while the portside of Nimrod scratched along the red buoy. Bart hurried back above and found me halfway to a mental breakdown, as damaging the boat always hurts my intention to do everything really well and fear to break things, and as he tried to calm me down another while steer we heard another crrsssh. Not as bad this time, but not one of our finer moments. Luckily we weren't going very fast or the damage would have been a lot worse. Final score a big red scratch along the aluminium strip and a bend stainless steel pipe on which the solar panel is installed. At least, that's what Bart told me. In reality one of the scepters had pushed into the deck. But to save me from feeling even worse, Bart didn't tell me until the next day. Some additions on our boat jobs to do list for next week.

We spent one night at anchor, but in a spot where the current goes in funny directions so we had a very uncomfortable night. The next two nights we spent on the pontoon. We had a wonderful lunch at THE local bar where we had only two choices: Bacalao a Bras and some sort of pork, potatoes and clams dish. So that's what we had. It was delicious.

About 20km further inlands used to be a mine: Minas de São Domingos. The first railway of Portugal was built here to connect the mine to Pomarão, as the town was used as a loading dock. There still remain some tunnels through which the trains used to ride. We found them on one of our walks here. The highlight of our bikes, at least in my opinion, was our introduction to Rafael and Manolo. Two donkeys we found along the way. We fed them some greens and then we were invited by their caretakers, an Irish couple, to come meet and cuddle with them😍. We learned too many greens actually aren't good for donkeys as it hurts their stomach, good to know for future donkey meetings.

On our final night in Pomarão I woke up in the middle of the night hearing a sort of scraping sound. Normally Bart is the one who wakes up hearing things and wanting to do something while I am fast asleep. This time it was the other way around. I went outside thinking I would just have to remove some branches that were coming down the river due to the rising tide. I was not prepared to find an entire tree trunk 🌳stuck under our boat!! Luckily Bart had woken up in the mean time and together we were able to remove it. So far our calm night at the pontoon...

After a couple of days in Pomarão, the furthest we went upriver, we started our trip back down river again to get to Ayamonte in time for Christmas.Read more