We still don't have regular internet so you still don't get any pictures. And you are missing the ones from Lagos where we took our dinghy and explored the sea grottos. There were about 20 caves that we could take the boat into. Apparently many of the local fisherman have given up fishing and are now using their boats to take loads of tourists into the caves - so it was a bit like a freeway out there. On the other hand, we could tell where all the good caves were just by following the other boats. One of them got grumpy that we weren't paying to see the caves, but the rest were fine. This trip was better than Disneyland and at some point we'll have pix and video.
We hung around Lagos for 3 days and although it is a historic city, it seemed a bit ordinary and dirty after the Azores. The wind hooted every afternoon which kept us on the boat for a while. Finally we decided to move along toward Spain - only about 80 miles more to the border. For 3 days, we tried to check in with the officials. Nada! We couldn't find any bureaucrats. I guess that on the mainland, the government employee to civilian population is much lower than the Azores. If we had stayed at the marina, the marina staff would have filled out the papers, but since we didn't it didn't get done. They told us not to worry about it - we were officially in Portugal once we hit the Azores. I hope they are right, but we'll stay at the marina in Portimao for a day to get the papers filled out (assuming that it is less expensive than Lagos). The Lagos marina is priced like the West coast of Italy - the megayachts have spoiled it for us working folks (or former working folks).
This entire coast has lots of sailboats because it is a sailors dream - flat seas and good winds on the beam. This morning when we decided to come to Portimao, we just unrolled the jib since the trip was only 7 miles. We are getting SOOOO lazy! In short order, we were here. We'll go into the marina tomorrow to go shopping, take on water, and use their electricity. Hopefully they will have free wifi so that we can put up the pictures. For now, we are anchored. Since this is a river, there is a tidal flow up and down the river and when the tide is against the wind, the tide often wins which results in the boat pointing in some strange angles - not into the wind like usual. Life is good.
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