When we arrived in Cadiz, we opted to go into the marina as we don’t yet have an outboard for Toodle-Pip! The marina is a mile or so outside the main city, so we used our bikes on a daily basis to cycle into town, then locked them up and went exploring by foot.

What a lovely city – full of narrow streets and alleyways and bustling with activity as Cadiz is very much on the Cruise Ship routes which are now coming back after Covid. The city is very much geared towards tourism, and the busyness somewhat added to the atmosphere of the place. The market square with it’s many vendors was a popular destination and the surrounding bars and restaurants offered lots of opportunity to people watch.

Typical narrow street in Cadiz

Cadiz Market

Selecting some cold cuts

The view from the top of the cathedral is great – right up until the clock strikes – it’s deafening and quite a surprise!

View from the Cathedral roof

LOUD bell!

We had fun touring around trying to follow some rather poorly marked walking routes painted on the streets in various colours and they pretty much covered the entire town.

We met up with new OCC members Ford and Michelle and their Jack Russel Issy on s/y Jeanne, a 39ft catamaran, and met up with them for a fun evening at one of the many restaurants in the city.

Neither one of us speak Spanish, but we managed to get by in restaurants in which we couldn’t understand the menu by resorting to the tactic of ordering a number of Tapas and asking the server to pick them for us. It never failed to produce a very tasty meal – and we really enjoyed the more out of the way places which had a local feel to them. In fact, at the first place we ventured into, we ended up standing at the bar while eating our food!

Tuna snacks

Street Cafe

Standing room only for our Tapas

A popular Tapas Bar

The selection du jour!

Cadiz has a nice beach

After feeling that we had pretty much covered the city, we opted to head over to the anchorage to fraternize with s/y Jeanne. We’re not really catamaran people, finding the hulls to be claustrophobic (unless you buy an enormous one), but Jeanne, the smallest cat we’d ever been on was certainly our favorite and despite her relatively small size, she was not claustrophobic in any way. We had a lovely evening aboard.

We rowed to the small marina close to the anchorage and went for an explore – in the end walking all the way to the old city – a bit of a hike – where we had another great Tapas selection at a popular restaurant. On the way back we stopped at a very large grocery store and stocked up on much needed essentials.

Cadiz had not been on either of our radars as a place to visit, but it was a delightful surprise – we really enjoyed our 10 day sojourn. Tomorrow, we’ll weigh anchor and head to the Gudiana River which separates Spain and Portugal.

So, in the end we couldn’t dock in Gibraltar – no space, or perhaps we were not Super-yachty enough! So we initially anchored outside La Linea’s Alcaidesa Marina, then decided that rowing the dinghy in each day would be a pain – so took a slip, which we stayed in for a little over a week!

Exploring Gibraltar from here was easy – a 30 minute easy bike ride – including getting stamped in and out of Spain each time. Interesting that one of the first things you do is cycle across the runway of Gibraltar airport!

Our first trip in, Laurie noticed everyone wearing red and white – turned out to be Gibraltar Day and the place was humming! It was very nice being in among it all – and we managed to find an Irish pub that offered excellent Guinness and great people watching!

Irish Pub

Gibraltar Day celebrations

The second day we went in, we went with a plan of getting to the top of the rock – and ended up pedaling and pushing our bikes up the bloody thing! We didn’t actually make to the tippity top – it was very hot and frankly not the most interesting ride – so figured we take the easy route at some point – a taxi or the cable car!

Irish Town

While up the rock we did stop to see the Siege Tunnels – built in the late 1700’s to defend against a Spanish invasion – the siege lasted over 3 years. The tunnels were dug into the rock and at various points they knocked holes through and pointed massive cannons down at the advancing armies. It was never taken.

Africa on the left, Europe on the right…

They stop the traffic when the planes are taking off!
(This photo from inside the Siege Tunnels)

We also saw a snippet of the WWII tunnels  which apparently stretch over 30 miles in a massive network and house a hospital, a couple of breweries, a distillery and stuff like that – all important stuff to keep the forces happy!

We had a nice rendezvous with OCC boat Eliana – Ian and Lyn – who we’d previously seen almost exactly a year ago in the Spanish Rias, but due to Covid couldn’t socialize – so it was nice to catch up to them properly this time.

Ian and Lyn from Eliana

We’d originally come to Gibraltar to re-set our VAT clock – which we later determined we didn’t need to do since we have a VAT exemption in the UK which we obtained in 2013. Since we were in Portugal on Brexit day, that should translate to being VAT paid in Europe… It continues to be a source of discussion between us – as all the rules are so difficult to understand following the UK’s exit. We did manage to fill up with Diesel in Gibraltar – so can document that we were there should anyone challenge us – though we’re not sure that qualifies either! At least the Diesel was (reasonably) cheap (78 pence/litre) and we’re now full!

Gibraltar from the anchorage

We set off back towards Portugal following Eliana through the Straights. We were heading towards Cadiz, but planned an intermediate stop along the way at Barbate, but since the wind was holding, we went a little further to a small bay – Puerto do Conil which looked like it would be suitable. No it wasn’t! Even with very light winds and barely a foot of swell, we rocked and rolled all night long!

The following morning we headed towards Cadiz, expecting to motor the whole way but in fact we sailed all the way, at times going wing on wing with the spinnaker! First look at Cadiz is very favorable – looking forward to exploring it!

We left Horta on August 26th – Abigail’s 30th birthday. (Ouch!) We had pleasant winds and were able to sail a beam reach with Genoa, which we changed to the Code zero when the wind dropped a little, and then to the spinnaker when the wind started coming from behind. We were racing a boat headed our way and doing very nicely thank you…

A call to Abigail (in Dallas) while the spinnaker was flying was not a good idea… things got a little out of hand (hour glass twisted around baby-stay) and we had to pull the whole thing down and in the process managed to rip the sail.

Up went the code zero again. A few hours later we’re making great progress as the wind was building again and then suddenly -BANG- and the Code zero was in the water – the halyard had broken – chaffed through.

That’s not good!

This wasn’t good – no light wind headsails on a passage forecast to be primarily light winds. Fortunately, we have a second (and third) halyard available – so once we’d recovered our composure we were able to re-launch the code zero.

We ended up motoring – a lot – and so decided to make an effort to repair the spinnaker with sail tape – which proved to be successful. The going was still slow and much engine use, so about five days into the passage on a lovely windless day, we decided to just sit there – and we went for a swim! I was quite surprised that I didn’t get vertigo in the 6,000ft deep water – and Laurie was pleasantly surprised that she didn’t get a manicure from a passing shark!

Mid Atlantic Swim

That afternoon, after reading our books, the wind came up to a whopping 4 knots, so we decided to see if our spinnaker repairs would hold and launched it. It was lovely to sail along – albeit doing only 1 – 2 knots rather than listen to the engine, and fortunately the main didn’t slat too much.

Unfortunately, the wind had taken us quite a way north, and since the passage was longer than expected and the wind’s approaching Gibraltar were expected to be very light, we decided to make a stop in Portugal – initially anchoring in Sagres for a night and then moved on to Lagos where we anchored in the bay.

With the longer than anticipated passage, our beer stocks were dangerously low so we decided come ashore and re-provision. Since we had checked out of Portugal (Schengen) and expected to arrive in Gibraltar, that meant we had to check back in – what a palava!

We stayed on the mooring for two delightful nights, but unfortunately the third was awful. Wind was now onshore and very quickly a swell developed and rocked us incessantly. We had to attempt to sleep in the main salon – I even used the lee cloths – and even then, sleep was elusive.

In  the morning, we decided that we should go into the marina (wind to Gibraltar was against us), but we had a problem – our dinghy was tethered behind us – with it’s engine on and we were worried about making the entrance into Lagos with the surf that had built up. We decided that we would weigh anchor and move away from the shore to what appeared to be somewhat less rolling conditions and then attempt to bring the dinghy aboard.

Less rolly, yes – but still very rolly indeed. Getting the engine off was challenging with the boat yawing dramatically – so with the engine attached to the boat’s hoist system it would gain and lose about 4ft altitude with every roll – bringing me with it! Needless to say, the side of the boat got hit a couple of times, so Laurie has some more gelcoat dings to repair this winter!

Getting the dinghy aboard was another major challenge. We managed to bring the dinghy over the starboard lifelines using a halyard, but setting it back down again on the deck was problematic as the boat rolled side to side. Our usual methodology is that Laurie controls the halyard on the winch while I man-handle the dinghy into place… At one point the dinghy flung me over the lifelines as we rolled to starboard and I had just one foot on the boat – I was considering letting go and taking a swim when the boat rolled to Port and I was airlifted back on deck! Finally I yelled for Laurie to just drop the bloody thing – which she did. It ended up on deck with me sprawled underneath it!

The next thing from Laurie was “This is enough! We’re getting rid of this %$#@*& dinghy!” “Hallelujah!” was my reply!

With dinghy now secured in place, we entered Lagos – the swell was significant, but not nearly as bad as we feared (so no reason to have brought the dinghy aboard!) and the marina allocated us a berth for a couple of nights.

We are members of the ‘Lagos Navigators’ Facebook page and Laurie suggested that we advertise the dinghy on it… We sold the dinghy and engine within 30 minutes of posting the ad!

We’d been discussing dinghy’s all summer. Our dinghy – a 2.5M Aluminium rib is very good – but it’s heavy to manipulate on deck – and as it turns out, somewhat dangerous in adverse conditions! We also have a fully inflatable Achilles dinghy which we bought in 2016 when we went through 5 dinghy’s in one year. We kept the Achilles and even tried it out recently with both a small petrol outboard and also an electric one. We’ve decided on the electric one – now it’s just a matter of finding one and getting it shipped to us in under 2 months!

We once again checked out of Europe and completed our passage to Gibraltar with a very nice overnight sail interspersed with some motoring as the wind died at night. We arrived the following afternoon having found out that we could not land in Gibraltar as there were no berths available and no anchoring is allowed – so once again we’re back in Europe – La Linea Spain, just across the boarder to Gibraltar which we’re cycling to most days…

Gibraltar Straights

It’s time to update the blog again – we’ve long since arrived in Horta, departed, arrived again and since departed – and are now in Gibraltar!

We’ve now been in Horta, Faial three times – 2013, 2018 and 2021. It must be true ‘cos it says so on our harbour wall painting which I dutifully updated again this visit. We repeated a walk around the caldeira – but it didn’t live up to the memories of 2018 – when we did it in spectacular weather – this visit was a bit cloudy and cool – and we forgot to bring glasses for the wine! 🙁

We woz ere!

Street decoration in Horta

Toodle-oo! anchored in Horta

Pastoral Faial

Horta Harbour

Cloudy Caldeira

Who forgot the glasses?

One reason we were in Horta was to pick up our replacement anchor light – which is coming from the US, but being shipped to Peter Cafe Sport (PCS) (the mid-Atlantic meeting point for all sailors). Unfortunately, CTT have done me in again and the package didn’t arrive until we were in Gibraltar some 10 weeks after being shipped! Jose at PCS has agreed to forward the package to our winter berth in Lagos – hopefully it’ll be waiting there for us when we arrive.

We also had a go at fixing our long range SSB radio. I can hear fine, but I’m not able to transmit. Marco from Mid Atlantic Yacht Services came aboard – he’s a real expert in these things – and after a bit tinkering around found that the radio was working – but only on digital channels – the microphone or analog amplifier was apparently defective. The good news about this is that it allows me to obtain digital weather forecasts while at sea – and since we would be doing a 1000+ mile passage to Gib, I certainly wanted that ability. Marco was unable to do much else but promised to research the manuals, so we arranged to have him back to the boat a week or so later for further investigation.

With a week in hand we left Horta and sailed over the Graciosa – the only Azores island we’d not yet visited. Our friends Stefan and Anne from Mokendeist were in the unfinished marina and offered to assist us in tying up to the mole. The marina was constructed in 2018, but they ran out of funding so it’s basically a protected basin with no slips. There’s enough space to anchor about 5 or 6 boats in there, but the holding is awful – rocks on the bottom and over the course of a few days we watched as several boats re-anchored multiple times. We felt sorry for a Brazilian boat and had them tie up alongside Toodle-oo!

Unfinished Santa Cruz Marina

Stefan and Anne from Mokendeist

Graciosa is lovely – what a gem – and the main town of Santa Cruz just a 20 minute walk away was delightful and I now hold it as my favorite town in the Azores. Because it’s slightly off the beaten track, it’s small and has limited docking facilities, Graciosa doesn’t get much tourist traffic. No doubt Covid contributed to the problem too – but it all makes it a very relaxing place to visit. Having tried and failed to rent a car or join a tour,  we took a great half day taxi tour around the island with Stefan and Anne – plenty of time to take in the island’s hot-spots. Our driver Severo spoke perfect English having spent time in both the USA and Canada and was very knowledgeable about the island’s history.

Crochet lace around all the tree trunks in Santa Cruz

Taxi guide – Severo

Bottom of a volcano

Whale Rock

Master chef at work

A day at the beach

Our only difficulty in Graciosa was that tie up to the mole, we ended up getting tons of very nasty abrasive grit blown onto the boat – which took us 5 hours of diligent cleaning to clear up.

Reluctantly, we left Graciosa to return to Horta for our SSB repairs and take advantage of Marco before he left on holiday. Unfortunately, MAYS had decided that they couldn’t help us further, so the return was somewhat wasted – though I really like Horta and enjoyed the extra few days we were there.

Our sail to Santa Maria was a mixed bag. Once we’d rounded the washing machine of Ponta de Sao Lourenco, we had light winds to take us west along the north shore of Madeira and it slowly filled in to allow us to sail close hauled using either the Code 0 or Genoa but after 24 hours we were intermittently sailing/motor sailing – which continued for the following 3 days! In the end I think we had the engine on more than 50% of the time ☹

We arrived in Santa Maria on a Friday morning, to find out that even though we are fully vaccinated, they don’t recognize the CDC cards, so we had to have a PCR test and remain in quarantine on the boat until results were in (and negative). Fortunately, by Sunday morning we were good to go.

We were greeted in Santa Maria by OCC boat Asante – Siegfried and Gudrun – who we’d met in Horta, Faial in 2018 on the Azores Pursuit. They’ve stayed in the Azores ever since.

We also got to meet Peter Smith on Kiwi Roa. Peter is the designer of the Rocna Anchor – which for a long time was one of the leading anchors. Kiwi Roa is his design – an Aluminium exploration boat in which he’s traveled to all the extremes – including the North West Passage last year somewhat controversially since the Canadians had disallowed passage through the NWP during the pandemic.  Peter’s contention is that the NWP is International Waters which the Canadians cannot control. He’s been fined and will fight the case – and may likely prevail. He gets my vote!

Santa Maria is a very pleasant and green island and we were fortunate to be able to rent a car – a scarce commodity in the Azores these days – and spent a couple of days touring around. We did a nice ridge walk centered around the highest peak – Pico Alto – which happens to be the site of a 1989 Air disaster – where a plane crashed into the side of the mountain having been using the wrong barometric pressure – which indicates altitude. I think nearly 100 folk, mostly Italians died in the crash and there are a couple of monuments to mark the event.

Gentle Ridge Walk

Cool in the Forest

Would like to see this waterfall in flood!

Dramatic Coastline

Siegfried was very helpful to Laurie as he’s fluent in Portuguese and she and he went up to the government buildings in town to chase down the status of her citizenship application. Unfortunately, it tuns out that her previous celebrations were a little premature – she still has the final step of the process to complete before they’ll hand her a citizenship card (with which she can get a passport, etc). So once again she sits and waits!

We had originally planned to head to Sao Miguel after Santa Maria, but there’s a spike in infections there such that anyone travelling from Sao George will have to take PCR tests wherever they go next – so instead we opted for an overnight sail to Horta on Faial. We managed to sail the whole way – but I got horribly seasick – and couldn’t shake it for the longest time. Not a pretty sight!

Barf!!!

We arrived in Horta and are anchored in the harbor – which turns out to be just as convenient as being ‘on the wall’ and a lot cooler!

Anchored in Horta – under Mt. Pico.

The far eastern end of Madeira is more like Porto Santo – very dry and rocky with minimal vegetation.

Well protected anchorage

Barren Peninsular!

We anchored in the bay protected from the brisk northerly winds for a few days so we decided to head our for a walk along the peninsular. The dinghy landing was interesting – the shoreline being a rocky beach with a sudden drop off ensuring that even small waves can cause dinghy occupants get a righteous dousing! (2016 was the year we went through no less than 5 dinghies – trying to come up with the best alternative. We’re now re-thinking that again!)

Time for another Dinghy re-think???

Our walk was interesting along the barren peninsular and up to the peak at the far end of the island. Loads of people about sharing the path and if we’d planned better we’d have had some cash available to purchase a beer at the surprising bar we found at the base of the peak! The rock formations of the coast were dramatic indeed.

Dramatic northern shoreline

Looks like combinations of Basalt and Sandstone??

We finally said goodbye to Madeira and set off for Santa Maria – the southernmost island of the Azores. With not much wind, it was always going to be a bit of a slow and noisy passage – but even so, we managed to sail nearly half of it – including a nice patch with the spinnaker.

I also managed to break a multi-year duck by catching my first fish – a small Tuna – in ages – right after we’d set the spinnaker – and we enjoyed a couple of nights feasting on fresh Tuna! Also while out with the Spinnaker, we spotted a large orange fender floating on the ocean – and managed to steer our way to it and Laurie captured the errant item – which had made it’s way apparently from Canada!

All the way from Canada!

Little Tuna – good for 6 small steaks!

We arrived in Santa Maria nearly 4 days later – and were quickly put into quarantine until we had negative results back from a PCR test… Santa Maria awaits us…

We moved Toodle-oo! from Calheta on the western end of the island to the capital, Funchal where we spent nearly a week at anchor, rocking and rolling on a daily basis. Our last night at anchor was so difficult we had to sleep in the main salon for fear of getting thrown out of bed! The following morning, we wimped out and took a berth in the marina.

We did however get out and about for some excellent meals – and the odd glass of Madeira!

Familiar theme! Well, when in Rome…

We did two long walks. The first was a levada walk – the benefit of which is that it was all downhill! We got a bus up to the start at Ribeiro Frio and were delighted to find that the 11km walk was not only downhill all the way, but nicely shaded – almost a forest walk. There were quite a few groups walking the same trail – including a friendly group of Czechoslovakians on holiday for a couple of weeks hiking.

Breaks in the trees for views of our surroundings

Nice flat / downhill walk – keep the water going downhill!

The Levadas are amazing constructions

Looking over to Porto Cruz

Steep downhill to the finish

We finished in Portela where we were able to secure the necessary post walk brews and watch parasailers launching right below us and flying way off into the distance, before hoping on a bus back to Funchal.

Billy’s next adventure?

The second walk was quite demanding! We’d arranged a taxi to bring us to the start of the “Ridge Walk” at Encumeada who would also pick us up at our destination, Pico do Areeiro, some 18km distant. One might expect (if you had reasonable foresight – unlike us) that the trail would be lots of up and downs when one considers the landscape – what took us a little by surprise was just how steep the ups and downs were – and the constant zig-zags and double-backs that the route had to take in order to even make possible the given trail.

This is where we started from – that hut down there!

UP!

Valley of the Nuns just around the corner

Clouds spill into the valley below

The views are spectacular

One of the many ridges

UP!

Botanist

Above the clouds

Not really surprising the trail was so difficult

Ups and downs!

Wow!

Jeeze! Another bloody UP

This is fun???

So Steep???

We’re nearly there – don’t fall off!

View from the finish

The scenery was spectacular and we enjoyed particularly good weather for the walk. The trail would take us over several arêtes giving us splendid view on both sides of the trail – provided one didn’t succumb to vertigo! Two thirds along the way, our trail (officially PR1.3) intersected with two others PR1 and PR1.2 at the mountain hostel on Madeira’s highest peak, Pico Ruivo. Even though we were both already very tired, we avoided going down PR1.2 (which we’d previously walked with Anette and Anders) and kept to plan by following PR1 to our intended destination – though we did make a call to the taxi driver to delay his pick-up by 90 minutes! A brutal downhill, including several places where they’d installed metal staircases was followed by a very interesting undulating section that took us through numerous tunnels cut through the mountain – some of which were 100’s of meters long. Of course, the finale was a climb to the top of Pico de Areerio which totally exhausted us. Happily, that summit is accessible by car – and there’s a place to get that well earned post walk brew – again! The walk took us 8.5 hours…

We had planned to leave Madeira the following morning, destination Santa Maria in the Azores, but have decided to delay for a week or so, so that we can investigate the anchorage at the far eastern end of the island, Baia d’Abra. The sail up here was painful with strong 20 – 25knot winds right on the nose, so we ended up motoring while hugging the coast to keep out of the worst of the wind and the very steep chop. In the end we arrived and anchored in 25 knots, to find a landscape similar to Porto Santo and clearly some popular walking trails as we watch numerous hikers up on the surrounding cliffs.

We’ve found a new favorite island. Madeira is just fantastic!

We arrived at Calheta on the western end of Madeira after a full day sail from Porto Santo to once again find Horizon waving at us as we entered the narrow harbour. Anders and Anette have been in Madeira for about a week and plan to be here in Calheta for another week, so we made plans to rent a car and generally have some nice socializing to blow away the Covid blues!

First we had a couple of projects to take care of: Toodle-oo!’s anchor light was on the blink and despite an effort in Porto Santo to fix the issue by replacing the connections at the top of the mast, it was still a problem. Anders offered to go up the mast with a view to re-connecting the wires, but when he got there, he found the wiring intact and the lights all working. He jiggled them around trying to make them fail to no avail – so I guess we still have a potential problem – but for now, all is good!

The following day, Anders and I played with the rigging on both our Outbounds. Horizon is only 3 years old (Toodle-oo! is 15), and our rigs were tuned very differently, with Toodle-oo!’s being much stiffer. Anders developed a very nifty way of evaluating the rig’s tension and we then set about stiffening Horizon to more closely mimic Toodle-oo!   Ander’s measurement technique is written up on his blog here. For anyone with a cruising sailboat, this technique will probably prove very interesting…

We had a car for 3 days and made full use of it, travelling most of the island and stopping for walks along the way. Oohs and Aahs at every turn – the scenery is spectacular. Of course we managed to climb the highest peak on the island Pico Ruivo de Santana at 1862M. Take a look at the pics – clicking on them will make them bigger…

View from the top looking down to the Valley of the Nuns

On the way to the top

Broom in profusion – turns out it’s an invasive species here and they’re trying to eliminate it – looks like a losing battle!

Valley of the Nuns

Clouds roll over the top of the mountains.

Another oooh – aaah

Interesting rock formation.

I think this is a Azorian (Madeiran?) Chaffinch

25 Fonts

Looks like an Orchid to me!

Following the Levada to 25 Fonts

Anders and Anette from Horizon

On the way to the top

Another stunning view

At the top of Madeira!

To cap off a great first week on Madeira, Laurie just found out that her 28 month long attempt to gain Portuguese Citizenship has been successful! (Though we don’t know how long it will take to get a passport…)

Our first sail of the season was a quickie with dock mates Ross and Lisa (s/v Betsy) – just out and about around Lagos. Allowed us to remember some stuff – and realize that we’d forgotten other stuff. Ross quickly learned the boat and had her self-steering in no time! I need another lesson from him!!!

So we headed east and made it all the way to Portimao – 8 miles away – and anchored off Ferragudo where we stayed for a couple of nights to catch our breath! We enjoyed a gathering aboard Toodle-oo! with Lagos dock friend Martin and his crew aboard Topaz Rival one night and then we started discussing our Mediterranean cruising plans for the season…

The unexpected outcome is that we are now anchored in the harbour at Porto Santo, some 450 miles south west of mainland Portugal!!!  Plans never last on Toodle-oo!

We decided on visiting the Madeiran Islands before venturing into the Med for three reasons: 1. It would let the whole Covid entry regulations sort themselves out, 2. because I’m a resident of Portugal, it wouldn’t impact our stay in the Schengen area – since Madeira and Porto Santo are part of Portugal and 3. with 90 days in Schengen, our clock will now be running out as the weather deteriorates – so we can head south to Tunisia or east to Turkey, both outside Schengen…

We had a good passage to Porto Santo – 64 hours and arrived to find our sister ship Horizon – with Anette and Anders – were still here, along with Franz aboard Skellig – so we had friends to play with too!

Arriving Porto Santo

On the way down, our new chart plotters gave us grief – alarming with failed AIS or GPS every few minutes. However, I knew that with Anders close by, I had a real shot at getting the bloody things sorted out as it was inevitably a Billyism that screwed them up. (Fortunately that turns out to be the case and they are now operating beautifully – thank you Anders!)

What a lovely place Porto Santo is!  It’s a very dry climate and rocky with a superb beach running all the way down the eastern shoreline. We had a lovely couple of days touring around on a scooter and walking up 3 peaks along the way. We’ve also been treated to some wonderful food – considerably more flavorful than the offerings on the mainland.

We had a lovely first walk – to lunch:

Neat trail

Tunnel to connect east to north shores

Lunch! Very tender Octopus

We toured a bit…

Ilheu de Baxio ou da Cal
(Neat rock at the bottom of Porto Santo!)

Then we climbed Pico de Ana Ferreiro

OK, some volcanic geology

Got any food mate??

Above the volcanic structures – quite the climb!

Looking down on the golf course

Then we climbed Pico Branco

Heading up Pico Blanco – summit is visible…

Snails inundating anything that lives – what’s with that???

We’re still smiling!

This is hard work!

But the views are great!

Made it to the top!

Day two on the scooter we climbed Pico do Castelo which was really just an exercise in stair-climbing… and then Pico do Facho which was very frustrating since we couldn’t find a way to the actual top which didn’t require climbing gear!

Today is a recovery day!

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

Culatra Sunset

Amazing Beach

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!

More of Lagos’ cliffs

Caves, Cliffs, Grottos at the entrance to Lagos

Monchique

Out and about in Portugal

Monchique

Cliff walk in Lagos

Wide open ‘Locked Down’ beach in Lagos

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

Weekly farmer’s market in Lagos

She’s got a big one!

Top notch cuisine

It’s all mine!!!

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!

Greg and Abigail tie the knot. Dad reads them a limerick…

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

Stringing Christmas lights

A Christmas Swim (Brrrrr….)

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!)

Cutting the cake

Happy Birthday!

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!

Serious work…

calls for serious alcohol!

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

Partying with BFF Sandra

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.

Beer Can Chicken BBQ courtesy Tom and Lois. Yummy!

Blue Ridge Mountains

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.