Albufeira

Albufeira. For the Nimrod sailing into the Marina of Albufeira must have felt like coming home after two cold years in the Netherlands. For us, even though we thought it would a bit like coming home it didn't. We did take our time to go back to some of the places that will forever be in our memories. The coast path we walked along, looked out over the ocean and daydreamed about one day cruising there ourselves. The bar covered in sea shells where we sat on the terrace and talked about our thoughts afters seeing Nimrod for the first time. The rock we sat on, had a beer and made the decision to go for it and try to make Nimrod our one. It might not have felt like coming home, but it sure was very nice to be back here and visit these places again.

We were also reunited first with our friends Beautje and Square One for the first couple of days. Later on when they had left we spend a lot of time together again with Jo and Flip from the Stormvogel. We spend the first evening together with Beautje to eat our fresh catch of the day: 3 mackerel and 1 horse mackerel 🐟. Our sailing trip had been another fruitful one. Even though we are always very happy with our fish we mostly enjoyed the super sunny and windy sail. At one point the wind took a little nap, which gave us the opportunity to dive in 🍑naked.

Most of our time we spend waiting for our final packages to arrive. One would be delivered to the marina and would we come with a very special post officer: Fleur's mom. While we were here in Albufeira, Fleur and her mom were there as well for a yoga retreat. We were able to find a few moments in our, but mostly their busy schedules to see each other. It has been more than 5 months since I saw Fleur last, but we picked it up right where we had left it. And we also picked up our smart shunt to give us more insight into our batteries from Monique, Fleur's mom.

While we were waiting for our final package we took our time to go the old center of Albufeira, to the beach and to gorgeous coastline cliffs. The first time I went to the close I went with Jo. For me very early in the morning, we met at 08:30. We knew later in the morning we could expect some rain, but we didn't think too much of it. As we were chatting, bird watching and walking we saw the clouds build far away at sea. Since the wind didn't blow in our direction, we didn't see any trouble in it. Boy were we wrong. The path we were walking on would not last very long in the rain, let alone heavy rain. We quickly found a place to wait for the rain to pass. We enjoyed our little picknick of tea, fruit and muesli bars until the "roof", read plastic sail, started to let through not just a couple of drops but liters at a time. We moved a bit to another spot under the sail and were impressed by the water on the other side of the road which had turned into quite a stream of water as it was taking oranges with it. Then we realized that the same was happening on our side of the road, not just beneath our feet but over our feet as well 😅 We decided to go for it. We found a restaurant where we thought we could seek some shelter, but it was closed. After a while we decided to get an Uber to take us back to the marina. He almost didn't want to let us into the car, so we got in quickly to make sure he would take us. What did he expect to find in weather like this?! Very wet and very cold we returned to our boys and a warm shower. We won't forget this little adventure soon.

Over the weekend Jo and Flip spoiled us with a delicious dinner at the local fishing club. The feast included razor clams, dorade, red bream, Portuguese rice, fries, patatas, fried baby sardines and salad. It was absolutely delicious 😋 Monday and Tuesday we spend doing some boats jobs in the morning: fixing our windlass (ankerlier) and laying out the cables for our new flexible solar panels. I also spend some time researching some ways to start a little bit of a freelance career to make some money to either have some extra money each month or extend our trip. Twice it looked like they were trying to scam me so I reported them and not much later both accounts had been removed. A good warning to stay alert while I do this.

Finally, on Wednesday we were able to pick up our final package: the busbars where all our electric cables will come together. It had been delivered on Monday evening and somebody had signed for it. We walked around the neighborhood to find the address and person, but neither were nowhere to be found. I decided to look the person up on Instagram and found her. We send her a message and she replied she indeed had our packages. Since she wouldn't be near the marina on Tuesday we had to wait till Wednesday. On LinkedIn we had found where she worked so we tried anyways to pick up the package at her work as she said that's where she had received it. But no luck, Wednesday it is. First thing in the morning we picked it up. We spend all day, except for our pancake lunch outside, hanging in, over, under our batteries and in the bilge. But in the end, by 19:30, everything was in and connected and it worked!! Our boat yoga had been successful! We celebrated with Flip and Jo, who had made dinner for us. But since we were excited after the long day we went to bed pretty soon.

The next morning we did a few final tests to check if everything is working probably, check. After a birthday pastel de nata with Flip and Jo, we started the engine and left for Culatra. On to the next anchor adventure where we will have more solAr power, but mostly better insight in the status of our batteries!!Read more