Last Wednesday, we took a trip up the river to have a look at some of the lovely places near here. We passed through the boats anchored and moored near the twin towns and motored gently up river (we had hoped to sail but the wind was coming from the wrong direction!). It was a glorious day and the flowers, trees, creeks and finkas along the banks were showing off in all their glory. On route we passed the old mining village Puerto de la Laja approximately 20 miles from the entrance of the river. We think it was copper mining! The mines etc are in ruins but people still live in the village; presumably making a living off the land and river. Our first stop was to anchor near the mouth of the Rio Vascao right by the eucalyptus trees. This is a very important tributary of the Guadiana as it serves as the border between the regions of the Algarve and the Alentejo. This was wonderful – the river bends round and it appears to be a lake with steep rough rocky sides. On Thursday we took a dinghy ride up this river and much to Chris’s great delight we saw turtles sunning themselves and a pair swimming along doing things big turtles do to produce baby turtles!!! We got pretty close to them as they were rather distracted! Unfortunately, my camera skills in a dinghy are not that great and I only managed to get them in the corner of my pics. Slightly further along we reached the ruins of an old mill and pond that Chris believes dates back to Roman times. We managed to get ashore nearby, wandered round through the flowers and the trees –figs I think - and then sat on the bank with a beer. It was glorious. Friday we wanted to take a walk along the Guadiana banks there and struggled ashore under the old eucalyptus tree. It was coming up to high tide so it was not TOO muddy. There was no proper path and the undergrowth – full of flowers – was pretty dense due to all the rain and sun and after a short while we decided to go back as we were not quite sure what could be lurking in the grass! Even the ants were about half an inch (1.25cms) long! It was lovely and calm but the tide was running so we went for a “drift”, back past the boat and on for about a mile until we could see our next destination, Pomarao, just round the corner. The tide was slackening by then so we turned and very gently motored back to Moontide where we indulged in a glass or two of chilled white wine sitting in the sun in the cockpit, a lovely meal and then watched a film from our laptop. What more could we ask! However when we awoke on Saturday morning it was blowing like mad and as the anchoring at Pomarao is not as good as where we were we decided to stay put. It was still fairly warm in the cockpit but had definitely cooled down as the wind was from the north. Sunday was much the same so on Monday we came back down river to replenish our stores. We plan to take a trip back up to Pomarao as we will be here for a few weeks more. Unfortunately our generator broke down recently and does not appear to be easily mended so we are looking into getting another – either from the UK or locally so this puts our plans a little on hold for now. The generator is essential: not only to boost our power if it’s too dull and rainy but to run our power tools. Moontide being a steel boat we tend to use powered tools (the grinder in particular) to do the maintenance needed on her. One of the benefits of coming back is that it’s music night tonight so I’ll be off shortly for a proper shower. |
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FINALLY!! Spring and summer arrived at once. The last week has been wonderful – it fact now it’s almost too hot. The temperatures have been up around 25o-28o (about 80o F) and the days AND evenings glorious, although the temperatures do drop after about 9.00 o’clock! Chris has been working on the boat, re-fitting some equipment, painting and varnishing etc and I have been busy washing through the winter things to pack away (hopefully). We plan to go up river for a few days next week and I don’t think we will have i/net access up there. After that who knows! |
Keren & ChrisFollows us here on you journey, we will keep you posted on how were doing. Archives
March 2014
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