| We anchored in Portimao at 8:45 pm, Wednesday, August 25. From the Azores to Portugal we had traveled 834 nautical miles in 7 days and 7 hours. We celebrated the completion of our trans-Atlantic crossing with a bottle of wine. It was also exciting to think that we had finally arrived on the continent of Europe.
Thursday morning we moved our boat over to the Portimao Marina and advanced our clocks ahead one hour to Portugal time. Looking out over the surrounding hills, the landscape reminded us of Southern California. We also received news that Mary�s brother Eugene had passed away just after our arrival in Portimao. He will be greatly missed. Soon after our arrival we rented a car with another cruising couple and drove from Lagos, Portugal to Rota, Spain looking at possible marinas to keep the boat for the winter. On our way back we stayed overnight in Sevilla (Seville), Spain, and were stunned by its historic beauty. It will be quite exciting to further explore this fascinating city at a later date. After looking at all the marinas, we have chosen to winter in Lagos, Portugal. This region in which both Portimao and Lagos are located is known as the Algarve. It extends along the entire southern coast of Portugal. The word �Algarve� comes from the Moors who ruled Portugal for five centuries. They called this area Al-Gharb meaning �The West� as this was the most western part of the Islamic world. Here in the Algarve the weather is dry and warm, very much like Southern California, with lots of beautiful beaches. As there are many tourists, especially from Britain, English is spoken by almost everyone. We spent two weeks at the Portimao Marina before moving over to the Lagos Marina on Thursday, September 9. Lagos is a charming town with lots of narrow streets within its old medieval walls and should be fun exploring this winter. Everything is accessible within a short walk from the marina making this a perfect place to live onboard our boat. We plan to fly home to Florida for the holidays on October 19 and return to Portugal on January 13. We will be in Lagos until around April 1st when once more the weather becomes favorable. Before our departure from Lagos we plan to do some traveling in both Portugal and Spain |
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