Our last sailing foray of of 2020 was to Culatra – a lovely island with fantastic long beach and sheltered anchorage in the Algarve…

Our winter months were spent in Marina de Lagos in Southern Portugal (The Algarve). Temperatures were kind to us – with low overnight temperatures rarely dipping into the 30’s and daily highs often in the mid 60’s. Not much precipitation – but what there was, was often accompanied by Saharan sand!

We were able to enjoy walks and bike rides through the local countryside – and took the occasional car trip in a rental costing as low as €8 per day!

And Laurie out-did herself with countless new dishes using freshest ingredients…

In November, Abigail decided she’s going to get married – not sure how much input Greg had to that decision(!) and we joined them via Zoom as they enjoyed what looked like a fabulous event at their favorite pub!

For Christmas, we decorated the boat with some lights – and then foolishly took a swim.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In February, Laurie had a very significant birthday – so we celebrated as best we could on the dock, attempting to maintain some form of social distancing with our new friends in Lagos – enjoying some decent bubbly and of course, Chocolate cake! (The marina’s Marinaros only got ticked off when one of our party set off an alarm of some description!)

 

Several projects were attended to – most notably the windlass which pretty much died on us at the end of last sailing season. It took 4½ months for the package of repair parts to reach Toodle-oo! from California with diabolical customs issues delaying everything. In the end, the parts were inadequate for the damage within the windlass so additional parts were ordered…

We also replaced both chart plotters – which also got held up in customs – but that was due to the Brexit debacle – which was causing no end of issues for cruising Brits!

In February Laurie headed home to the USA to tend to ailing parents and in the end her father sadly passed away. She and Neal managed to relocate his wife Jeanne to assisted living close by Laurie’s mum and to put Jim & Jeanne’s house up for sale.

On the lighter side, while over there, Laurie perfected a range of cocktails and the clear winner was her Expresso Martini – which went very well with sorting out her father’s coin collection!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

She also got to visit with best friend Sandra – and to attend Sandra’s son Tyler’s new bride, Christina’s wedding shower…

When Laurie called me one day in late April, she reminded me that she’d promised to look after Stephanie’s house, dogs, cats and fish at the end of May, I decided that 2 months apart was already enough and headed over to join her!

While there, we had an interesting (long!) car ride down to Texas to visit with Abigail, Greg and Greg’s parents, Tom and Lois, spending a lovely weekend at their Lake House and enjoying my first beer can chicken barbecue.

It was great to catch up with everyone back in the US – and of course nice to be able to arrange Covid vaccinations for both of us.

We arrived back on Toodle-oo! June 1^st and finished repairs to the Windlass with the additional parts we’d brought over with us and managed to leave the dock on June 9^th headed east into the Mediterranean.