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Nimrod's Adventures

🧑🏽‍🦱🧒🏻 Bart & Bel
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  • Sailing NimrodNimrod's AdventuresPodróżnik
    11

    Rio Guadiana V: Pomarão

    18–21 gru 2024, Portugalia ⋅ ☁️ 19 °C

    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.     Czytaj więcej

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  • Sailing NimrodNimrod's AdventuresPodróżnik
    1

    Rio Guadiana IV⚓: Alcoutim & Sanlucar

    13–18 gru 2024, Hiszpania ⋅ ☀️ 15 °C

    We actually had a deadline to get to Alcoutim and San Lucar do Guadiana: Friday 13th of December. Why you might wonder? Because we had been informed that on the 13th we would be treated by Christmas Carols in the small church of Alcoutim, on the Portuguese side of the river. On top of that there would be churros, hot chocolate and Flamenco in San Lucar, on the Spanish side on the 14th of December. Suddenly we had plans.

    When we arrived in Alcoutim we tried to find some sort of confirmation that the Christmas Carols were actually happening. We walked around all over town and ended up at some sort of beach bar, nowhere near the beach. Here we were told by the owner he had been planning to host an event, but that there hadn't been enough response to let it go through. A bit disappointed we walked back to the boat. As we passed the local supermercado we saw a poster hanging in the window: Christmas Carols in the Church 8pm 13th December. We were on!

    We quickly had some dinner before returning to town. As it turns out both Alcoutim and San Lucar are crowded with internationals. Many of whom once came by boat and have decided to stay forever. They have blended quite nicely into both communities and as a result a couple of choirs consisting of both locals and internationals have been formed. We were treated by songs from musical groups from both the Spanish and the Portugese side. The Spanish had clearly rehearsed a bit more 😉. However our all time favorite was ex sailor violin Paul and the opera singer, it was absolutely angelic😇

    In the church we met young sailor friends Alessa and Michael. They took us along to the library where the after drinks and snacks were served and informed us about all the internationals and things to do in the area. We met up with them and with some other boats a couple of times for a drink while we were there.

    On the 14th we went to Spain for the Christmas Carols and Flamenco. It was mostly the same songs as the day before, but this time it was outside with some bonfires burning, hot chocolate, fresh churros and orange wine. The final treat was the flamenco performance by a group of around 30 individuals of all ages. The little girls, 5-8 year olds, gave the best show of them all.

    This is where we met Renata. Renata is one of the people who once came by boat, fell in love with the place, which apparently has "something special", and now has bought a house in San Lucar and works in the local restaurant. We were able to help her out a bit with some things and we enjoyed her tapas and paella, a surprise treat by Square One, in La Fuente restaurant.

    Most of the days we spent our time going different walks. To the castle, along the river this way, along the river that way and once inlands we went into the thicklebit. I believe that is supposed to be into the thick of it😉

    We had a lovely time here in between Spain and Portugal, but all those people who are staying here for months at a time or even forever also gave us the creeps a bit. We talked about what might be causing this. We think it is because for us it feels like we have only just started our journey while this place seems to be a spot where people end the lifestyle we are currently living. We are by far ready for that and do not even want to think about it yet! So after a day or 5 we decided to move along. Further up the river .     Czytaj więcej

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    Rio do Guadiana III ⚓: Guerreiros do Rio

    12–13 gru 2024, Hiszpania ⋅ 🌧 12 °C

    From Foz de Odeleite it was only a handful of miles to our next anchorage at Guerreiros do Rio. From here we took the richly European funded road to Laranjeiras. Along the way we spotted a bunch of orange and lemon trees! I absolutely could not resist leaving all of them hanging there while I could hear them call my name.

    Not coincidentally, this little town Laranjeiras, with about 11 inhabitants lays in the valley of the orange tree hills. Laranjeiras actually translates to This little fun fact we learned at the archeological findings in the small town. It includes the remains of a couple houses and a chapel from Roman and Moorish times.

    On our way back we ended up on the camino pequeña or grande again by accident. Over the hill, meadows and past the sheep we were afraid we had lost our track for a second, but luckily we were able to find our Nimrod again.

    From here on the evenings and nights started to become a lot colder than we were used to. As soon as the sun set it would become chilly. As a result, we would have very early nights for the rest of our time on the river. We watch some of our anchor show Sons of Anarchy, play some board games or listen to an audio book. Most nights we were in bed by 21:30😴 Lovely.     Czytaj więcej

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    Rio do Guadiana II ⚓: Foz de Odeleite

    11–12 gru 2024, Portugalia ⋅ ☀️ 14 °C

    Since we have about two weeks before we have reserved a spot in the harbor of Ayamonte we wanted to take small trips going up the river. Our second stop was only about 7 miles away from our first anchorage.

    We had one main activity during our time on the Guadiana: walk, walk, walk and walk some more. The surroundings are absolutely beautiful. On both sides of the river, both Spain and Portugal, we are surrounded by green olive and orange trees growing on the hills. Our background sounds are the bells from the sheep herds🐑🐏, turkeys "gobble gobble gobble"🦃 and every morning we wake up to roosters🐓.

    Foz de Odeleite is a tiny tiny town with probably only about 10 inhabitants. Here we discovered the Guadiana Pequeña (small) and Guadiana Grande (large) nature trails for us to follow through the villages and over the hills here all along the river. Along the way we have been able to pick oranges, tangerines, lemons and pomegranates 😍. Every now and then it feels like we have found our way to the Shire 💍🧙🏽.     Czytaj więcej

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    Rio do Guadiana I ⚓

    10–11 gru 2024, Portugalia ⋅ ☀️ 6 °C

    After a delay of a couple of days our adventure on the Guadiana River, the border river between Spain (Andalucia) and Portugal (Algarve), was finally about to start.

    After saying goodbye to Beautje and hello plus goodbye to Simon Hendrick, we went under the bridge connecting Portugal and Spain just after low water. The bridge height is supposed to be at least 18m at high water, while our total height is 18.5m. We have heard stories that boats higher than us easily have fitted underneath. Still, why risk it! We lifted our anchor and smoothly went underneath the bridge with somewhere between 2 and 4 meters to spare .

    After a few miles we dropped the anchor again. We were anchored in our first spot of many more to come on the Guadiana River. It was just us and one other sailboat in this first spot.

    It had been quite a cold night which caused us to wake up surrounded by fog. It made for a gorgeous view. Once it started to warm up a bit, we continued our trip further up the Guadiana River.

    The Guadiana is an international river. It rises in Ruidera, between Albacete and Ciudad Real, and gently descends through the southern half of the Iberian Peninsula. It flows into Portugal, forming a natural border between the two countries, before emptying into the Atlantic Ocean.     Czytaj więcej

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  • Sailing NimrodNimrod's AdventuresPodróżnik
    111

    Villa Real Santo Antonio🇵🇹 &Ayamonte🇪

    4–10 gru 2024, Hiszpania ⋅ ☀️ 19 °C

    We planned to set sail to Ayamonte at 07:30 in the morning. Naturally, we left around 08:00/08:15. With outgoing tide we motored back to the entrance where we weren't met by fishermen this time, just some eddies (waves against current). It was a bit of a bumpy ride, we made it out just fine. We had a beautiful sail ahead of us. Forecasted 8-15 knots broad wind, which turned out to be half wind going up to 20 knots. As we started off with barely any wind we did some motor sailing at first. The wind picked up and we were able to turn off the engine. It was the beginning of December and we were sailing in just a sweater, some jeans while the sun was shining and there were barely any clouds in the sky. It still amazes us.

    In the distance we saw some bigger clouds forming and the wind started to pick up more and more. We put in a reef in the main to stabilize the boat. Not much later we put in a reef in the genua as well. We weren't just cruising ⛵🏎️, we were flying ⛵🛩️. Since our destination was Ayamonte along the river that separates Portugal from Spain, we couldn't just arrive whenever we wanted. We had to make sure we wouldn't arrive too close to low water in order to be able to safely enter the river. Going at the speed we were going, we would arrive way too early. For the first time ever, we put in one more and a bit later another reef in the genua to slow down our Nimrod because we were going too fast😂 Well that was a first.

    The first couple of days we spend in Ayamonte 🇪🇦. Staying in the marina gave us the chance to do some laundry, fully reload our batteries and take a couple of hot showers. Plus we could go up in the mast to meausre our height to make sure we would fit underneath the bridge. After we were treated by Surf Song and Beautje with tapas and drinks ♥️, we crossed the border, the river together to Villa Real Santo Antonio 🇵🇹. A low of wind was coming our way and since the strong current from the river against wind can make things very uncomfortable, we decided to stay in the marina a bit longer. This is where we really started to get into the Christmas vibe. In the centre of the town Santa Clause had set up shop in a true Christmas village. Bart was very strict and told me I should let the kids get their pictured with Santa instead of me 😪. Two of the activities was a 10k run and 5k walk. Since we are not in shape we didn't sign up for either. We did however follow the 5k walk, just behind the bombeiros🔥, for a bit to find out if we would discover some new parts of town. We were even cheered on by several spectators and a girl from the Conservatorium played some tunes. We were inspired by the walk and one of the following days we walked through a forest to the beach. The forest made us feel like we were back in the Netherlands again for a bit. Except for the sunny skies and warm weather in December 🌞😉. We had some lovely dinners with and at Surf Song and Beautje before we hosted a final dinner as the following day we would all continue on our own journeys. Surf Song would go to their winter spot Huelva, Beautje would start their trip to Sevilla and we would, finally, go under the bridge and up the river.     Czytaj więcej

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    Olhão & Culatra ⚓ II: Just the 2 of us

    28 lis–3 gru 2024, Portugalia ⋅ ⛅ 20 °C

    If you look carefully at the map, you might see that we have anchored in two places while we were in Culatra and Olhão. That's quite the story. During one of our first nights at the anchorage a pretty strong wind (25+ knots) was blowing. At night we always turn on an anchor alarm on our phone to monitor whether we are snuck aka the anchor is holding. The alarm didn't go off that night and we had a pretty good night. We were both awake around 4 am and we took a look outside to check the anchor. Everything was looking good. Around 7:30 I climbed out of bed because something just wasn't feeling right. I went outside and saw Beautje who had been right next to us somewhere in the distance. The blue boat that had been behind us the whole time, was suddenly in front of us. We had miracously dragged more than 100 meters around the other anchored boats. On top of that, the anchor had taken grip again, in water that was just deep enough for us. I got Bart out of bed and very calmly we moved back to our old spot. We think that we wouldn't have been this calm if we had woken up while we were dragging. Anchored again we put out a lot more anchor chain and set three different anchor alarms on both of our phones for the night. Yet, when the wind picked up the following night I was awake for a good two hours checking our anchor alarm every half hour. The anchor was holding this time. Looks like we have been very unlucky and lucky at the same time.

    With just the two of us we have plenty of fun. We went to the Saturday market again, mostly my fun, played with the tide on land, fun for both of us, and we started fishing with a trap, mostly Bart's fun. The fishing trap is one of Bart's accomplishments. After chatting with the local baker/fisherman some more, he hustled a fishing trap for us. This would give Bart another opportunity to get even with Octo 🐙. First, he had to fill the trap with some bait. Bart has gotten really good at catching small seabream from the boat. Within half an hour the trap was filled with 3 small fish. Now we, but mostly Bart, had to wait. The next morning we checked the trap, nothing except for some shells. We had been told that the more rotten the fish, the better. So we had to wait another day. On the second morning, before breakfast, we had caught an octopus! Bart 1 - 1 Octopus.

    Sadly, killing the octopus is pretty hard. You have to get him right between/below the eyes. You see the octopus get white as it dies. Afterwards you have to clean it and beat the tentacles for a loooong time to tenderize the meat. After that Bart handed Octo over to me. Following a Jamie Oliver recipe I boiled the Octopus in its own juice with some tomato, anchovies and some other good stuff. Once the meat is tender you fry it in the pan. We ate the octopus with some pasta (twice since it was more than enough for two days). It was really good, although we could do a bit of a better job at tenderizing the meat. Better luck next time.

    We didn't expect the next time to be two days later. We put out the trap again thinking we would maybe catch some small fish, nothing big. Boy were we wrong. We thought we had caught a big one the first time, this guy was about three times that size. Killing it went much quicker this time, luckily, and Bart spend a good half hour tenderizing, aka beating, the tentacles. This time I tried a Greek recipe. Knowing we would get some help finishing the octopus the next day from Beautje and Surf Song in Ayamonte, I only boiled "some" of the octopus. It tasted a lot better this time. The next day when our guests joined for dinner, some of them had never eaten octopus before. To make it more appetizing I made some calamari from the ends of the tentacles and the head. For the rest I used the Greek grilling recipe. As expected the calamari was a better hit.

    It is always pretty cool to share your catch of the day with friends. However, we do feel we were a bit too enthusiastic and eager with the second octopus. In hindsight it was too big (I couldn't sleep for an hour that night because I kept seeing all those tentacles overcrowding the pan). Plus, even though octopus is very tasty, once in a while is more than enough. We shouldn't get too greedy.     Czytaj więcej

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    Before1After

    Culatra & Olhão ⚓ Part I: De Dorpsstraat

    21–28 lis 2024, Portugalia ⋅ ⛅ 19 °C

    Our presence in the anchorage inbetween Ilha de Culatra and Olhão had been requested for a while by Beautje. Now that we had upgraded our electrical system on board, we also could no longer contain our excitement to continue our journey East. We said goodbye to Jo and Flip, some of our Dorpsstraat crew, after a little birthday celebration for Flip at the local Spar and left Marina de Albufeira after a long 10 days.

    The trip started off a bit slow as the wind gods didn't seem to feel like putting a lot of work in yet. However, since we knew that after a siësta they would come back to work later in the day we accepted to move towards Ilha de Culatra slow but steady. We had a good sail all the way up to the river entrance. We did have a tiny orca scare the few minutes we had to go through deeper water, but we both think we saw a big dolphin.

    We had been warned that it can get quite uckly at the river entrance. So we took down our sails and continued on the engine. The entrance did look a bit dearing indeed. The current and the wind were creating quite a lot of eddies and a bunch of small fishing boats had positioned themselves right in the middle of it all, which left us to zigzag not just around the current but also the local fishermen. With a little extra rpm's we however smoothly sailed into the Ria Formosa.

    We were greeted by Beautje as we were nearing the anchorage. We had caught some mackerel on our way again so we invited them over for dinner, fish tacos this time. The next morning Bart decided to throw out his fishing rod for fun and somehow, still in his pajamas, caught a sea bream! Hilda was trying to get the same result over at Beautje. At some point did they got hold of something, a seagull... We quickly tried to get our dinghy into the water to help them out, but by the time we finally go to them the bird had spread its wings again. We decided to stay on board for a bit to see if together we would catch some more fish and then afterwards we would go get some groceries. We didn't end up getting groceries nor any fish, but stayed the full day at Beautje and had a great time. At some point Lajla and I took the dinghy to the sandbars where we saw a lot of local fisherman digging for something. Turns out they were looking for clams in the sand. We thought we can do that too. It took us a full hour, some very dirty hands but in the end we had about 12 clams that still looked alive and weren't secretly filled with sand. In other words, a lot of work, not a lot of reward you might think. But the dinner of our self caught sea bream and clams was very tasty!

    If only we had done those groceries... The next morning Lajla and I decided to go get the groceries and let Bart and Hilda try out their fishing luck again. Since the main grocery stores are in Olhão which can be about a 10 to 20 minutes dinghy ride, depending on the tide, this is quite the adventure. Compared to the day before there were a lot of waves between us and Olhão. To come prepared to battle, we both put on our sailing gear. That turned out to be a great decision. Pretty wet, but only our sailing gear, we arrived in Olhão. We walked straight into my heaven: a fruit, veggies, dried beans, olives and churros Valhalla, the weekly market. There is a daily fish and veggie market in the market halls, but these stalls outside are absolutely amazing. The most adorable grandma's and grandpa's sell, or so it seems at least, their home grown produce. Some only have a couple of tangerines and onions. Others have all kinds of fruits of veggies. Lajla and I both loved it and took all of the time in the world to walk around and spot the stalls we wanted to buy from, mostly based on the people behind the stalls and a little bit based on what they sell. We bought a lot of fruits we have never or barely eaten before, delicious.

    After the market we sat down at the local pastelaria to enjoy some breakfast before we went to the grocery store. Fully packed and most importantly, hours later than anticipated, we returned to the dinghy. By now it is getting too close to low tide to take the short route back home. With a fully loaded dinghy we started our journey. Within minutes the first wave splashes in our faces, into the dinghy and all over the groceries. This is going to be an interesting ride home. We try to take another shortcut until we see some local fishermen who have lifted up their outboards, that doesn't look good. We decide to turn around and take the long way back, which also means that instead of going with the current and the waves we now will have to go against both. Wave after wave splashes in our faces, into the dinghy and over all of our groceries. I am very impressed how Lajla is still able to steer with a wave coming right at her about every 5 seconds.

    Meanwhile Bart and Hilda see a little dinghy struggling in the distance against the waves and current. They feel sorry for them and are happy that's not Isabel and Lajla. Right? Because Bart doesn't recognize my hair, right? Completely soaked, and completely unrecognizable as I have tried to make myself dissappear into my sailing gear, water up until our ankles in the dinghy, Lajla and I arrive back at Beautje. The pastel de nata, Bart's tosti and most of the groceries have survived our splash zone adventure surprisingly well. The paper towels, hot dog bread and tortillas weren't so lucky. After a shower on the aft deck and Hilda's spare clothes I started to warm up again. That was quite the trip.

    The next day Harmen and Kiki (Square One) complete our Dorpsstraat by dropping their anchor behind us. With the three of us and in some cases the Surf Song, we enjoy a couple of fun borrels, cups of tea, dinners and games together. We also attempt to go surfing again, but since we didn't check the tides or the swell beforehand, we don't have any waves, oh well. Together we make a Happy Bday card on the beach for Herman (Kolibri) instead. On one our last days together as Dorpsstraat, before Beautje and Square One continue on, Bart gets all the boys and Hilda together to go fishing.

    From the local baker and fishermen Bart has learned that to catch dorade they need to go to the wreck a couple minutes per dinghy away around low tide. So far our fish luck, and Hilda's, hasn't been great and it seems to be going to end the same way this tim. Because the sun starts to set, which means that it will get colder soon. Twilight however also means that you can start fishing for squid and octopus, so Bart decides to put on the cephalopod bait. After a while Bart has got hold of something. It's an octopus!! It's got its tentacles around the line. Together with Edwin, Bart tries to get Octo into a bucket. Meanwhile he is getting sprayed with, surprisingly no ink, but a lot of water. They almost manage to get the octopus into the bucket, but at that moment it gets loose. Leaving only a single sucker behind. The next day is our last evening together so instead of going out on the dinghy again, we have a final delicious dinner by Kiki together. Bart cannot get Octo out of his head, but the score remains Octopus 1 - 0 Bart.     Czytaj więcej

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    Albufeira

    11–21 lis 2024, Portugalia ⋅ ☀️ 21 °C

    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!!     Czytaj więcej

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    Ferragudo/Portimão ⚓

    4–11 lis 2024, Portugalia ⋅ ☁️ 21 °C

    The past week was centered around two themes: upgrading our battery system and enjoying the good weather. After saying goodbye to Marloes we spend the morning and early afternoon still docked in Marina de Portimão. Bart and Hilda took the electric scooters to the ship chandlery on the other side of the river to check for new parts and I helped Lajla piece together a fishing line for them. After the sporadic rain had disappeared we motored a full 15 to 20 minutes to our next anchoring spot a bit further down the river. Here we joined the The Americans of Oso again.

    Our first morning started very early. We were woken up by horns apparently coming from a pilot boat. We knew we were docked in an area that is sometimes used by cruise ships to turn, but this late in the season we didn't expect it to actually happen. Especially because on the website of the port we saw only one upcoming arrival, which wouldn't be until the 15th of November. It's still quite mysterious where this ship came from. But, at 6:30 we were told that we had to move to make space for a cruise ship, but no worries by 7:30 we should be able to move back in. Still sleepy we lifted our anchor and set off. Beautje took the early morning and decent wind to sail to Albufeira. Us, an English boat who's crew turned out to be French on the last day and Oso came back to the anchorage.

    The rest of our days here we spend learning a lot about electricity on board in general, but especially all of the cabling on board Nimrod. We were able to follow and label almost all of our cables. Since the battery system has been fine so far and in addition to that we are complete electricity noobs, we have never touched it. But lately, as the days get shorter and therefore our solar panels soak up less sun, our batteries seem to be having a bit of a hard when we are on anchor. However, since we have a very old battery system, especially the shunt which measures the battery voltage and percentage, we have very little information to go off. This boat job has been pretty fun for two reasons. One, it's actually an upgrade instead of repairing something that broke. Two, so far we seem to learn and understand it pretty well, which always makes it more fun.

    We have taken quite a few trips to the boat shop and did a lot of online shopping to gather all of the parts: a smart shunt (which through an app will give us much more information about the status of our batteries), electricity cables, busbars, a fuse, a fuse holder and in the end more electricity cables for our new solar panels. We still have two flexible solar panels laying around for which we are hoping to find a good temporary spot for when we are at anchor. When we arrive in Albufeira, where the smartshunt and busbars will be delivered, we should be able to put it all together.

    The rest of our time we have soaked up a bunch of sun. We went swimming a couple of times, had picknicks on the beach, discovered the cute town of Ferragudo and went into Portimão. We hadn't heard a lot of good stories about Portimão as it is supposed to be a town that has faded through time. We didn't experience it as such. We actually quite enjoyed the fact that this town isn't fully tailored to tourists, but instead you can feel and see that people live here.

    How could I almost forget. It was here that we woke up, somehow again, to the, in my opinion terrible but sadly anticipated news, that some orange elderly guy had been elected president of the United States... We went over that morning to Angie and Mike (Oso) to talk about it for a little bit how Angie and I had felt pretty sad, but mostly to forget about it and talk about other things like we had done the evening before. They were waiting for a weather window to go to Madeira and together we took the time to get to know each other better. On their last evening they invited us over for dinner and as their upcoming crossing meant the beginning of their trip to the Caribbean, we celebrated in style with some dark and stormy cocktails. That evening we laughed a lot and we are hoping to meet again on the other side of the Atlantic some time.

    For us, Oso's departure meant that we had two full days to ourselves which we spend doing fun things: fishing, picknicks, doing groceries (fun for me), swimming, beach time and a lot of reading. These days "waiting" before we would have a spot Marina de Albufeira were absolutely lovely.     Czytaj więcej

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    Portimão

    2–4 lis 2024, Portugalia ⋅ ☀️ 20 °C

    It's an unwritten rule that as soon as there are two boats sailing in the same direction, it is a rcae. Whether you have never seen the other boat before or you have become good friends along the way, the race is on. So far we have ha not been able to cross the finish line, aka the entrance of a port, before Beautje. On our way from Alvor to Portimao we would get another chance. Pretty soon we had to admit to ourselves that yet again we weren't going to beat them 😉 Therefore, all that remained was to enjoy the beautiful sail we had. The sun was out, we had between 12-18 knots of wind and our fishing lines were out, of course. Since the wind was coming right from Portimao we had to tack our way there. During one of the tacks, as we slowed down a bit, we caught not just one, not two but five mackerel at the same time! As we were reeling them in we unfortunately lost one of them. We didn't need to be sad for a long time because we were catching one mackerel after the other. It almost felt like we were working in a Ford factory. All in all we think we caught about 12 to 15 mackerels. Since we could pick our fish we ended up with 6 good size mackerels. We informed Beautje and Marloes, who was driving to Portimao, about our fresh dinner plans.

    Once we were in the marina they claimed they didn't have a spot for us, only a 16m berth. Which would mean we would have to pay about three times our actual rate. We all saw a bunch of open berths, the marina claimed however that they were reserved for full year or winter contracts and that they could return any day. Sure... We never saw any of the spots filled during the three days we were there. Oh well. Bart used his blue eyes and his mom visiting us to ensure us a spot on the waiting pontoon where at least we only had to pay for our own size and no electricity since we had none. It wasn't how Bart envisioned hosting his mom, so it was a bit of a tough one to swallow, but we would have to do with it. We quickly made our way over to Marloes who had already spotted us from the pier, oops we had missed her, and was now waiting for us in one of the beach bars. Together we enjoyed an arrival borrel and some tapas before returning home to start the dinner preparations.

    Together with Beautje we had a lovely evening and used Jamie Oliver's Italy book as inspiration for mackerel crudo (seared in lemon) and "mackerel in funny water". After a long day and a couple of gin & tonics we had an early night. One of the highlights of the Algarve is the Seven Hanging Valleys Trail. This trail takes you along some of the most beautiful cliffs and caves of the Algarve. Since we had Marloes' rental car, and what a car, she was upgraded to a Mercedes Benz 😎, we were able to drive to the most gorgeous part of the trail the next day. It was very fun to do this trail together with Marloes and spend some quality time, especially after not having seen each other for 5 months.

    During the lunch Marloes initiated a very good and useful conversation about how to recognize, appreciate and communicate about each other's different cruising wishes and compromises we each make. We have agreed that as a team we are not ready yet to set on the adventure of crossing the Atlantic, even though individually in some aspects one of us might be more ready than the other and vice versa. For me, I have accepted that we are not crossing the Atlantic to Suriname and the Caribbean in my head, but not always in my heart. I sometimes get tempted to think what if... and feeling like we are missing out. Even though this feeling usually disappears rather quick, it is still there sometimes. It is not just me who needs to accept these feelings, but Bart as well. We made the decision to suspend our crossing together, but we had never really talked about it on this level before. Therefore, many thanks to Marloes!

    Back home we played some games and had our last dinner together. Veeerry early in the morning our alarm and Marloes' went off, but since she had here earplugs in we had to wake her up to make sure she would get to the airport in time for her flight. Which luckily she did! We look back at a great time together where it feels like we did so many things that we were together for at least a week instead of only a couple of days.     Czytaj więcej

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    Alvor ⚓

    27 paź–2 lis 2024, Portugalia ⋅ ☀️ 20 °C

    After a good nights sleep at anchor in the Bay of Sagres, we had a busy day ahead. At first we had to fix our spreader issue: getting the spreader back up and tighten the rigging again. Hilda and Lajla came over to help us think how to best ensure the spreader would stay up (without a better alternative we used a tie wrap), measure our rigging and to lift me up in the mast. Since I didn't have to go aaaall the way up, I enjoyed my time up there and used the opportunity to take some nice photos. Once the spreader was back in place and the tie wrap secured, we lifted our anchor to set sail for Alvor together with Beautje.

    The sail to Alvor was another gorgeous one. Sailing on south coast of Portugal is completely different from the west coast. The sea is so much calmer, even in stronger winds. On our way, we played around with the reefs again, as the wind picked up quite a bit closer to the coast. Once we were near Lagos we passed some beautiful cliffs and caves. In different weather conditions we could have anchored there and take the dinghy inside the caves. But unfortunately the waves and wind didn't allow us to do so. We would just have to do with the beautiful sightseeing, which a lot of tourists pay a lot of money for, from our boat.

    Beautje unfortunately beat us to Alvor, but luckily we were both able to find a good anchor spot. After a bit, once we knew our anchor was holding, we took our dinghy to go over to Beautje for some board games, drinks and good company. After a couple of drinks we were joined by Kiki and Harmen, our mutual friends from Square One. As usual, the end result was a bit too many beers for Bart and glasses of wine for me. Luckily we were able to sleep it off the next day 😉

    We were anchored at the beginning of Rio Alvor, which meant that, especially about an hour before and after low and high tide, we were rolling a lot. After two not so peaceful nights, we decided to go up a bit further down the river where it should be a bit calmer and where we would be a bit closer to the town of Alvor. However, Rio Alvor is a bit like the Waddenzee with a bunch of sandbanks. So we couldn't just leave whenever we want. Since we didn't fully trust the buoys nor our plotter, we decided to wait for high tide to make our way further down. We had at least 3,5m below us, so in the end we were more than fine, but still, why risk it right?

    In Alvor we surprisingly met up with a lot of people. Jeroen and Natasha plus family, Bart's friends from his Lemsteraak sailing team, turned out to be in the neighborhood and paid us a visit. A day later we got a message from Lenneke, Bart's old babysitter, and her mom that they were near and would like to meet up with us. Very fun! We also, finally, had drinks with a non-Dutch boat, Angie and Mike from the Oso. We now refer to them as The Americans.

    The town of Alvor is pretty cute, but very touristy. We mostly enjoyed the people and the beautiful nature. At one point we took Beautje and our supboards to the beach to make an attempt at surfing. The waves were very short, so this wasn't a great session to become better surf babes. We did have a lot of fun though and even had an awesome personal photographer with us. All photo credits go to Lajla.

    On our last days in Alvor we had a very special guest: Bart's mom Marloes. Bart picked up Marloes with the dinghy late in the dark. After a cup of tea and one glass of wine we went to bed. After a bunch of rainy days, and two absolutely amazing rainbows, we woke up to a beautiful morning. We saw some people picking things at the beach. We didn't know what they were looking for, but armed with a good pairs of boots and a bucket Bart and Marloes made their way over to the sandbanks. When I arrived a bit later on our supboard, I was send back to get some salt. The two of them had learned that people were looking for razor fish (scheermesjes) and to get them to crawl out of their holes you need to pour some salt on them. We didn't have any luck with the razor fish and almost lost our bucket due to the upcoming tide. In other words, we arrived late at the party again. Not a market, but a razor fish hunting party this time.

    Afterwards we prepared the boat to depart Alvor and make our way over to Portimao. Of course, we were accompanied by our loyal travel buddies from Beautje again. Another race was about to start soon.     Czytaj więcej

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    Sagres ⚓

    26–27 paź 2024, Portugalia ⋅ 🌬 18 °C

    During our 63 nm sail from Sines to Sagres, yes you are reading that correctly we sailed, we went through about everything. We haven't had such an active sail since we can remember. We left Sines, but mostly Flip and Jo, together with Beautje around 7:15am. Therefore we started our day with a beautiful sunrise while we were hoisting the sails. According to the forecast we should be prepared for a stable wind of about 12-15 knots and gusts up to 25 knots. We decided to put a double reef in botht the genua and the main sail. Throughout the day we went from taking out a reef, to putting a second reef back in, to hoisting our full sails, back to one or two reefs again. To put a reef in our sails,or to take it out, we have to go to the mast, so the middle of the boat. Which isn't the most ideal, but also not the worst. However, doing this while the boat is going through and over 3+ meter waves, it gets a bit trickier. Luckily, we got to practice a lot throughout the day and by the end we had become reefing experts.

    The strong wind gusts were almost always accompanied by heavy rain. Sometimes the wind would arrive first, sometimes the rain. Pascal, our autopilot, was put to test quite a bit during the heavier rains, but passed with flying colors. We did our best to use the clouds as our wind gusts predictors. We did pretty well. I don't think we missed any big gusts, but we might have been a bit overly careful a few times. But since it was our first sail in a while, I don't believe you can be too careful. One time when we were preparing for some strong winds by reefing the sails, I saw our paravane coming to the water surface. "Bart we've got one I yelled". As we were rolling in our fish line I didn't see a fish. From my angle the fish was camouflaged so well, I was unable to see it. Luckily Bart did see it and saw how big it was! A Spanish mackerel this time, another tuna type of fish I can add to my tinder profile. Since we are sailing together with our friends and buddy boat Beautje we call them on the VHF to ask if they would like some sushi for dinner, yes duhuh.

    We were a little bit less fortunate during one of reefing sessions when a flapping genua, at least we think that's what happened, caused our portside spreader come down again. Luckily, we would be sailing over portside all the way up to Cabo Sao Vicente, and thus wouldn't really need our portside rigging. Do you have to make a plan for when we round the cape because afterwards we will be healing over to starboard instead and thus rely on our portside rigging. We bind together a couple brooms and a cockhook (pikhaak). Unfortunately, our construction isn't as strong as we thought. Endscore is the spreader is still down and we lost a broom and the cockhook to the ocean.

    Somewhere along the way we receive a VHF call from Oso, an American boat who sped passed us a while ago, that they saw two female orcas. Since the three of us, So, Beautje and us, were all in much deeper water (80m) than would prefer due to the high waves near the coast, we all rerouted about 90 degrees to the coast. Luckily, none of us saw any orca for the rest of the trip. It was quite nice to have our buddy boat Beautje with us along the way. They were about 1,5 to 2 miles ahead of us so they were able to inform of us what was coming for us. And it was really funny to check in with each other every so many hours to see how we're both doing. Based on their cape rounding experience we knew we had to go around the cape pretty far because of the very choppy waves. Due to our loose spreader we also decided to lower our main sail, start the engine and use just a little bit of genua.

    Rounding a cape in a bit tougher weather is always a little bit stressful. As a result, the calmness after rounding the cape is even more overwhelming. Slowly but steady we cruise to our gorgeous anchorage near Sagres. The cliffs are absolutely beautiful. After a delicious dinner in the good company of Beautje, the four of us can't wait to go to sleep. After a long and active day at sea the swell in the anchorage doesn't bother us. Before we know it we are vast asleep.     Czytaj więcej

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    Sines

    14–26 paź 2024, Portugalia ⋅ ☁️ 21 °C

    Before this journey we used to rely on our family and close friends when we were going through tougher times. The last two weeks could have been very stressful, if it would have just been the two of us trying to fix our engine problems. The evening before we wanted to leave for the Algarve, we again found diesel in our oil carter. Bye bye good weather window and hello patience.

    Since we have had this problem before, in Roscoff, we knew what to do, replace the fuel lift pump. Through the guy at the small shop in the harbor, Louis, we were able to order one. Now the waiting game could begin. In the mean time we discovered that the diesel in our tanks was really gross, it had turned dark blue and almost black. Which might have been the reason why the rpm's kept spiking. When we were able to open up our tanks we found a lot of dead diesel bug, who knows how long our diesel has been like this. We pumped out the dirty diesel and attempted to clean out the tanks a bit. Since we have no manholes we had to use the small holes that are used to measure our diesel levels. We hope to find someone in the Algarve to make some manholes for us, so that we will be able to better monitor and clean our tanks. The cleaning and the waiting took us a couple of days. These days would have been quite lonely if it had just been the two of us and our engine problems.

    We knew that the Stormvogel had been in Sines for a while with engine problems themselves. What we didn't know is that Jo and Flip 1) are the parents of Bart's friend Max 2) Flip would turn out to be our engine guru 3) most importantly they are wonderful people. On top of that the first couple of days Square One, whom we have met before, was also docked in front of us and with them Beautje (Lajla and Hilda) had arrived.

    The first evening, we spent getting to know each other and with a good game of biggen🐖 (if you know, you know 😉). After four days of doing our own thing during the day and sharing dinner in the evening, the six of almost started to feel like our own little family. We felt so welcome on all of the other boats for a cup of coffee, a chat, advise or to ask for or offer help. It was very special to go through this experience. After a a day or two we jokingly renamed our dock "de Dorpsstraat". Yes we share the same life at the moment. And yes we share the same passion, which makes it easier to bond with each other. But I am still quite amazed how well it just clicked together.

    As the days passed Bart and Flip spend most of their time on their knees in the engine room. Once the pump had arrived, one of the screw threads unfortunately had been damaged. As a result, Bart and Flip had to improvise on how to make sure no air nor diesel could escape. On top of that the diesel pipe no longer fit into the diesel filter, so Bart and Flip (Buurman and Buurman) had to improvise again. They replaced the copper pipe with a rubber one. Meanwhile Lajla and Hilda were so kind to let me or the both of us, use their electric scooters🛴 to do groceries or search for spare parts.

    When Bart and Flip felt ready to bleed and start the engine, but it wouldn't start. We still, after all of the work on the diesel pipe and screw thread, heard a sort of spitting noise coming from the engine. Bart discovered that the pipe of our diesel retour had been torn wide open. He had just found another problem but also another solution. Bart and Flip went back to Louis who took them to a welder business. In a couple of days they should be able to replicate the parts that we needed. The waiting game continued...

    Luckily the six of us found lots of things to do. We caught a couple of sea bream from our Dorpsstraat dock. Flip made a very tasty dinner out of them. With Jo and Hilda we took our supboards to the beach and built a sand castle. Jo and I even found each other's fingers underneath the sand as we were digging the channel, just like in the old days. I have Bart another hair cut, which wasn't as successful as the first time, since we used the wrong clip on for the hair Clipper, oops. The ladies, Jo, Hilda, Lajla and I took the scooters for some double trouble on the road to the Chinese store and around town. And how could we almost forget, we ate a lot of delicious roasted chicken together. All in all, despite our engine perils we had a wonderful time in Sines.

    On Friday (25th) and Saturday (26th) another good weather window was starting to show on our weather apps. We, I mean Flip and Bart of course, knew we wouldn't have finished fixing the engine by Friday. So we aimed to leave for the Algarve on Saturday. On Thursday and Friday Bart made a couple of trips to the welders to see if they were done yet. He also had to go back because the piece they made wasn't air tight yet. Where we thought we would spend Friday morning finishing up the last bits, the men spend almost the entire day fixing the engine and I did everything around them to make sure we would be ready on Saturday to leave and be on anchor for a while.

    After quite a stressful day Bart and Flip were able to start the engine again!! We did so a few more times to make sure it wasn't a lucky shot. We still have a tiny diesel leakage in the diesel retour pipe, but not worrisome enough to postpone our last trip south, for a while, any longer. Together with Beautje we made a game plan for our trip the next day. We concluded our stay in Sines together with a dinner for six and at last a musical performance by Flip and Jo.

    Looking back at our time in Sines I think I will mostly remember the people and how warm it felt.     Czytaj więcej

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    Setúbal

    13–14 paź 2024, Portugalia ⋅ ☀️ 23 °C

    We know we have been slacking on our penguins when we start getting messages whether we are okay and if we are still sailing. Apologies! We have had quite the two weeks.

    While we were still in Sesimbra, one of Bart's friends Wouter, asked us if by any chance we were anywhere close to Setúbal because he and his girlfriend Maura are driving around Portugal in a van and were now near Setúbal. Since by car Sesimbra and Setúbal are very close the two of them drove to Sesimbra. After lunch the four of us left for Setúbal.

    Unfortunately, there was barely any wind so we mostly needed to rely on our engine Perky again to get us there. We also weren't lucky in our fishing attempt accept for managing to get the lines all tangled up😉 But, being around friends from home again definitely made up of for all of that. The coastline is also gorgeous as we were cruising through the Natural Park de Arrábida. The loud singing tourists were a bit less scenic, but oh well.

    We had picked out a few anchor spots for the day but hadn't decided on which one yet. Then the decision was made for us to go into the marina instead. Along the way the engine had been making some sort of revving sounds and the rpm's (toerental) were spiking every once in a while. Once we were getting closer to Setúbal this started to happen more often. Not being able to fully trust the engine at the moment we decided to go into the marina instead to do some research and talk to some of our engine expert friends.

    We said goodbye to Wouter and Maura before we picked up our phones to dig in our new engine perils. We were reassured that since we didn't produce any weird smoke and the symptoms didn't pile up, that we should be able to continue our trip to Sines the next day.     Czytaj więcej

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    Sesimbra

    7–13 paź 2024, Portugalia ⋅ ☀️ 20 °C

    We have already been in Sesimbra for a couple of days now. We discovered ;) this harbor by accident two and half years ago. Back then we were bringing Nimrod to the Netherlands with Suzanne and Bart Sr. On our way north we had to find shelter to wait out a storm. We were 'stuck' here for a couple of days before we could continue our trip. This time we came back on purpose to sit out the storm brought to us by (ex)hurricane Kirk. We knew from our previous experience that we would be very sheltered in the marina here. So, as one of the very few boats, we left the seemingly safe surroundings of Lisbon and set sail a bit further south around the corner to Sesimbra. We couldn't have been happier with this decision.

    First of all, we barely noticed anything of the storm. The morning of Tuesday to Wednesday this part of the Portuguese coast was supposed to get hit of winds going up to 45 kts. Well, let me tell you that we both woke up around 7 am because we felt that we wind was picking up. We woke up 2 or 3 hours later . We barely noticed a thing here in the harbor. We made a good decision.

    The sea out there is still quite rough because of Kirk. Besides, some other storm is also still raging around a bit. Therefore, we have been 'stuck' here again. It definitely does not feel as being stuck here at all. We have kind of turned it into a short vacation. We took a day to just lay on the couch and both watch some movies or a series; we went on a run; we went on a couple of hikes; we cleaned the boat; did some boat jobs to keep Perky our engine in good shape; walked around town a couple of times and we even swam in the ocean since it was a gorgeous summer day. We are loving life here at the moment!

    I almost forgot that Bart had to lift me up in the mast again. No, not because he was getting sick of me, I also didn't lose a bet. When we arrived in the harbor we suddenly noticed that one of our spreaders (zaling) was hanging down. On our way here we were surprised by a gust of wind, up to 30 knots, that came with a cloud filled with rain. Possibly it happened then, not sure. Most importantly we were able to fix it ourselves before Kirk came to visit us.     Czytaj więcej

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    Lisboa II

    6 października 2024, Portugalia ⋅ ☁️ 23 °C

    On day two, the three of us enjoyed being able to sleep in as we had slow morning together with some breakfast, good conversation and eventually even a short but very insightful drill. Tjaard asked us if we would want to do a short 3 minute drill onboard. After going back and forth for a while whether we wanted to, we decided let's do it. Tjaard told us we had one minute to think about everything we would need to gather in an 'abandon ship' situation. Then we would have three minutes to gather everything outside in the cockpit. The drill wasn't really about the tree minutes itself, but mostly about the reflection afterwards. How did we do? What could we do better next time? We did quite well actually. However, the most important lesson the drill taught us is that we should make a list of all the items we need to bring in an abandon ship situation so that we can just cross them off instead of grabbing some stuff left and right.

    After a successful drill we ventured into Lisboa again. I had done some research myself and I really wanted to go and just walk around in two neighborhoods: Alfama and Mouraria. Alfama is the oldest neighborhood of Lisbon. Historically, it was situated outside the castle walls and was home to many of the city's poorer residents. As Lisbon grew into a major seafaring city, the district retained its gritty status and become home to sailors and dockers. It is a maze of narrow cobbled streets and traditional houses. We did also go to the castle, to have a look, tried to get in a side entrance without a ticket, but were quickly requested to leave the premises.

    Mouraria literally means “Moorish quarter.” It was where the Moors who weren’t slaughtered when King Afonso Henriques conquered the city in 1147 were allowed to live -- until 1497, when they and the Jews were expelled from Portugal. Now, apparently, is the most multicultural neighborhood of Lisbon as people from 50 different nationalities live here. It was also, one of the more poorer neighborhoods, as we could sometimes look inside and see many beds squeezed into small rooms. We also walked through a street, which turned out to be an open gallery, where beautiful black and white pictures of elderly locals were displayed. They are an homage to them, as many are, also here, being pushed out of their neighborhood due to gentrification.

    We had a wonderful afternoon strolling, my favorite thing to do in cities, through these two neighborhoods. We also did something I normally refuse to do: we waited in line for the pasteis de nata from Manteigaria! There were worth it though and luckily the line moved rather quickly. We were also able to enjoy them inside at the bar while looking at the baker masters creating the deliciousness.

    From one delicacy to the next we strolled to Time Out Market (a Lisbon variant of the Foodhallen for the Amsterdammers here). We decided to all pick a dish and order them one after another to have a nice long dining experience. I started with a local bacalhau a bras, delicious. Bart followed with a seafood pasta. I was done at this point, but the guys concluded dinner with Tjaard's choice of some sort of steak burger. Of course we had to finish our evening with some more pasteis de nata ;) Which we enjoyed at home while playing some board games together.     Czytaj więcej

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    Lisboa I

    5–7 paź 2024, Portugalia ⋅ ☁️ 24 °C

    From our anchorage in Cascais we time our visit to Lisboa with the current of the Tagus river. If we time this right, at flood tide, this will provide us with a couple of knots in our favor instead of working against us. Even though we could already see the famous Ponte de 25 Abril (bridge ) from our anchorage in Cascais, it is still about 13 nm all the way to Doca de Alcantara. From this harbor, just passed the bridge, we will explore the city. Along the way we first pass Belem. Belem is known for a couple of things. First of all, for some of the sightseeing right by the river.

    Torre de Belem is a 16th-century fortification located in Lisbon that served as a point of embarkation and disembarkation for Portuguese explorers and as a ceremonial gateway to Lisbon. This tower symbolizes Portugal's maritime and colonial power in early modern Europe. A few hundred meters further down the river we pass Padrão dos Descobrimentos (Monument of the Discoveries). The Monument of the Discoveries represented a romanticized idealization of the Portuguese exploration that was typical of the Estado Novo regime of António de Oliveira Salazar. It always brings out a bit of mixed emotions to see such idealization of colonial times. It is fascinating to think how centuries ago people would set sail without any of the technology and knowledge we have now to set out into the world. I purposely don't say discover myself, because we all know "we" didn't discover any of the lands we have been taught to have discovered.

    Lastly, Belem is very well known for its Pastel de Nata. Which are claimed to be the original ones. Pastéis de Belém, which were created before the 18th century by Catholic monks at the Jerónimos Monastery in the civil parish of Saint Mary of Bethlehem, in Lisbon.[3] At the time, convents and monasteries used large quantities of egg-whites for starching clothes, such as friars and nuns' religious habits. It was quite common for monasteries and convents to use the leftover egg yolks to make cakes and pastries, resulting in the proliferation of sweet pastry recipes throughout the country.

    In the aftermath of the Liberal Revolution of 1820, following the dissolution of religious orders and in the face of the impending closure of many convents and monasteries, the monks started selling pastéis de nata at a nearby sugar refinery to bring in revenue. In 1834, the monastery was closed and the recipe sold to the sugar refinery.

    However, we never tried pasteis de Belem! How could we not?! Well because apparently, if you ask a local, pastel de nata from Manteigaria are actually the best there is! We didn't need a local to tell us this, because we had our friend Tjaard who visited us for a couple of us to not only give us this inside information, but to bring us some right to our Nimrod before we had taken a step into Lisboa. Tjaard has worked and lived in Lisboa for a couple of months so it was very nice to have him as a tour guide for a couple of days. He took us to some of the sightseeing you cannot miss when you visit Lisboa for the first time: LX Factory, Pink Street, miradouros (scenic spots) and of course to Lisboa's famous trams!     Czytaj więcej

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  • Sailing NimrodNimrod's AdventuresPodróżnik

    Cascais ⚓

    4–5 paź 2024, Portugalia ⋅ ☁️ 21 °C

    Today we know it's going to be a long day, but we are ready for it! We have accepted we won't be sailing today and decided to let Perky work a bit harder today so that we will move quicker. Again another foggy day. It seems like the fog continues to overtake us just when we think today might be a little bit of a sunny day. It is just like another 9 to 5 day, but we add a couple more hours. It takes us about 10 hours to get to Cascais. Along the way we play some games and Bart enjoys, apparently, the most liberating feeling in the world by watering the ocean overboard 🤷🏽 When we are at anchor on Cascais Bart takes out his supboard to do a little trip around the anchorages and visit some of the other boats. He returns with half of a bonito from the Equinox! We enjoy a delicious dinner mix of sashimi and some grilled bonito 😋 Czytaj więcej

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  • Sailing NimrodNimrod's AdventuresPodróżnik

    Peniche ⚓

    3–4 paź 2024, Portugalia ⋅ ☁️ 20 °C

    Even though it is only 20nm from Nazaré to Peniche, sometimes these shorter trips feel like they last forever. When we leave the port of Nazaré we briefly feel very excited because it looks like we can sail today! Unfortunately, this joyful moment only lasts for about half an hour. We are "doomed" to turn on our engine Perky (Perkins 50 HP) again. We know we are spoiled to be able to do this sailing trip, but we do struggle a bit these days to stay positive and keep our energy up. We haven't been able to have a good sail in a long time now and we can barely see a thing because of the fog. You could argue, then why do you motor on? Because the weather forecasts tell us the south westerly winds will continue to blow along the coast here. And if more favorable winds are predicted, they blow up to 35 knots. We are still hopeful that now that we are getting close to Lisbon, we only need 3 good days of no southern winds to get to Sesimbra, followed by Sines and finally Sagres in the Algarve! We also look forward to have some downtime in Lisbon and to go back to Sesimbra. When we brought Nimrod to the Netherlands from Albufeira two years, we almost spend a week in Sesimbra. We don't mind to do so again!

     We had another motivation booster today, we caught 3 mackerels again! Bart had been texting Equinox, a trimaran on their fourth big trip already!, all day and we offered to donate one of our mackerels to them. Instead they invited us over for a BBQ dinner together with the Noordster since the Noordster had caught a mackerel as well. We were proud of our catch of the day, but we weren't ready for the size and taste of Noordster's mackerel! They had caught a Spanish mackerel, they look and taste more like tuna than mackerel. Delicious 😋 and nice to meet some new people, especially after another foggy day 😉     Czytaj więcej

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  • Sailing NimrodNimrod's AdventuresPodróżnik

    Nazaré

    2–3 paź 2024, Portugalia ⋅ ☁️ 20 °C

    Today we placed a bet and we went all in 🃏. We bet on the fact that we wind would shift from a south western to a western direction. The shift should would start further down south around noon. For us, it would probably shift around 2 p.m. According to the predictions 2 o'clock turned into 4 o'clock, which turned into 5 o'clock, which in the end turned out to be 7 p.m. By the time the wind had shifted we had already spent close to 45 of nautical miles tacking and we were almost there. We think in the end we motor sailed about 50 instead of the 35 nautical miles we set out. We definitely lost our bet. Oh well, we have to try it every now and then.

    It does mean that we are now officially in the Valhalla of surfers: Nazaré. We mostly hoped there would be any of the magnificent waves by the time we arrived. The waves here are so big because there is a big trough (trog) very close to the beaches of Nazaré. Which makes that within less than a mile the water depth goes from 150+ to 20 or less. Since we arrived in the dark we were extra happy there weren't any big waves when we entered the area. Instead we were welcomed by another fog party. But we made it!

    The next day we went into town a bit before setting off to Peniche. There is supposed to be an escalator that takes you literally up town. Since we were covered in fog again, and expected we wouldn't be able to see anything anyways, we skipped this one. The parts of Nazaré we saw were very much accommodated to the summer surf tourists again. Also, as most of the towns we visit, a lot of the town's history lies in the fishing industry. And they seem to have a bit of a cat problem. Since we saw so many stray cats, who are able to stay in some sort of diy cat hotels. We didn't love it, so back to the Nimrod we went for another day of cruising.     Czytaj więcej

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  • Sailing NimrodNimrod's AdventuresPodróżnik
    Bart blending in perfectly
    All different seasons in these trees were pretty cool though

    Figueira da Foz

    30 wrz–2 paź 2024, Portugalia ⋅ ☀️ 23 °C

    It's only been a couple of days, but the both of us already don't remember how our trip from Aveiro to Figuera da Foz was. If we had to guess it was probably another motor sail one. Along the way Bart has been in contact with Tjeerd and Marieke from the Ella. The both of us are trying to get on the good side of the low pressure zone further south. We invited them over for dinner and since we still have a lot of tomatoes we start with some bruschetta followed by a tomato, walnuts and burrata risotto. A very tasty leftovers meal 😋 and a very nice evening together.

    The next morning we set an alarm for 8 a.m. to see if there was going to be any wind so we could move on. Unfortunately, there wasn't any. The day after there should be some wind especially later in the afternoon. We decide to turn off the alarm and turn around for a bit more sleep. After 2 hours I woke up a new person ready for the day. Bart had already been awake for at least an hour 😅. We explored the town of Figueira da Foz for a bit. Compared to the other cities and towns we have been to, Figueira da Foz felt a bit neglected. A lot of the buildings and streets could really use some renovation. Furthermore, since we are getting closer to the surfing Valhalla 🏄🏽, the widely stretched beaches are accompanied by lots of high(er) rise buildings and tourist accommodation and attractions. Foz, as the locals seem to call it, isn't our town. We return to Nimrod to watch the Rings of Power (prequel series to Lord of the Rings), it's nerd time 🤓.     Czytaj więcej

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  • Sailing NimrodNimrod's AdventuresPodróżnik

    São Jacinto⚓

    29–30 wrz 2024, Portugalia ⋅ ☀️ 20 °C

    From our anchorage at the Duoro we moved on to São Jacinto. The bigger town on the other side of the river, is probably a bit more well known: Aveiro. Since there is an electricity cable hanging over the water, it prevents sail boats from going into the Aveiro side of the river. We had a very quiet night here, especially compared to our stay at the Duoro where we always had to keep a watchful eye for the current of the river.

    The trip to São Jacinto was also very relaxed. We have decided to move further south at a bit higher pace, to try to get on the good side of the low pressure zones. So far we're happy with this decision.     Czytaj więcej

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  • Sailing NimrodNimrod's AdventuresPodróżnik
    121

    Duoro (Vila Nova de Gaia) ⚓

    27–29 wrz 2024, Portugalia ⋅ ☀️ 18 °C

    As we were getting closer to Porto the last couple of days, we, but mostly I, looked very much forward to anchoring on the Douro, not just on our boat, but on our own home, in Porto. As the weather hasn't really been in our favor it didn't look like we were going to do so. One thing we have to consider as we cruise along the coast of Portugal is that many of the harbors and the entrances (barras) leading up to these harbors can close due to big waves. Meaning we are not able to enter or leave a place. As we were making a plan for the coming days the Duoro Barra had been closed for a couple of days now. The Aveiro Barra however, about 35 nm further south, had opened up again. We decided to give it a try. However, this could also mean we would turn around again again since the waves were still between 2 and 3 meters.

    We left Leixoes, hoisted the sails, stuck our nose out and quickly turned around again. No wind and still massive waves. We would wait this one out. We went back into the port and dropped our anchor. For the first couple of hours we waited to see if the Duoro had openend yet, since that would be a trip of only 3 nautical miles. Unfortunately, no luck. After reading for a while we decided to try and fix our beam problem again and this we were succesful! First aluminium bending, I always knew I would turn out to be an earthbender, project, done! By this time we had forgotten about the Duoro, but Bart checked for a final time: "it's open". Let's go.

    Anchoring on the Duoro also meant we would finally meet Esmee and Dante of the Nova Mahea, one of the few other, even younger 😉, vertrekkers. We had very briefly met on the Vertrekkersdag in March, but a handful of boats has been telling them and us that we should realllly try to meet each other because we would have such a good click together. Well, I don't know what they were thinking...

    No, I'm just kidding. We had a really fun evening together. Even though we have had lovely evenings with all of the other very friendly people, it just is different with fellow young ones. At first we thought we would move on to Aveiro the next day, but we rather spend a really fun evening together with the Nova Mahea, some more time in the Porto area and as it turned out a very fun very Dutch borrel with the Nova Mahea, Lotus, Ella and Audrey. During the day Nova Mahea was very generous to serve as our private dinghy taxi to take us to land. We walked about 40 minutes to the main thing of Vila Nova de Gaia (on the southern bank of the Duoro): port houses. No tasting, or way too expensive tours for us, but we did have a good time walking around and having lunch in the park. We even bumped into some cool street art.

    It is quite bizar to be anchored on the Duoro, in Porto, in Portugal and to be surrounded by 4 other Dutch boats. It does however make for some very fun evenings. While hundreds of tourists on boats paid hundreds of euros to quickly go up and down the river on their sun set cruise. From the Nova Mahea, we were able to take some beautiful pictures of our home, the Nimrod, peacefully anchored on the Duoro as the sun was setting. It is still surreal this is our life now.     Czytaj więcej

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  • Sailing NimrodNimrod's AdventuresPodróżnik

    Porto

    24 września 2024, Portugalia ⋅ ☁️ 19 °C

    It is always quite nice to be in a city again after spending a lot of time in more remote or small town places. We found some really nice warm pastel de nata and walked around the older parts of Porto. We really like Porto. There's a nice vibe in town and all the colorful buildings and orange rooftops make it very charming. We also treated ourselves to some drinks, I enjoyed a very good Porto Tonic (white port, tonic, a cinnamon stick, mint and orange slice) and Bart had some beers. For dinner we went to a place looking out over the Douro (river) which more looked like a football canteen than a restaurant. We we had a great and cheap dinner at an awesome spot. Somewhere during dinner it had started raining again so we had to walk to the bus stop in the rain. Czytaj więcej

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