We left Portimao this morning after a day in the marina in which we took on water, charged the batteries all the way up, washed all the salt crust off the boat, and hopefully fixed the genset (we'll know more tonight when I have to use it). For the first time, we washed the boat and found that last night's southerly winds had brought some of the red dust of Africa. We have heard that boats in this part of the world are accustomed to getting red dust in their lines (ropes).
And we managed to do a little sightseeing as well. But I came away with the same reaction that I get on most tourist coastlines - there are too many tourists and too few locals not involved in the tourist business. All the sleepy little villages have become condos and high-rise hotels. If we had a car, Portugal is just a few miles inland. But we didn't.
Spain is the same. I have no love for coastal Spain (for the most part). But at least there I can talk to people and that makes a very big difference.
We are headed for a salt marsh that has rivers through it leading to the two towns Faro and Olhao. Each of them has a different channel leading to it. We are going to anchor since it is getting late in the day. Perhaps we'll take the dinghy up and explore one or the other - stay tuned. At the very least, this anchorage is only 24 miles from Spain!!!
Late flash: We are anchored at Olhao among a very large group of European sailboats - no Americans and only one Canadian. It is mellow here. Since it is high tide, it looks like we are in the midst of a very large body of water, but I understand that much of it will be exposed when the tide goes out. We won't know until tomorrow because the sun is going down. We could stay and explore the local cities, but we are so close to Spain that I don't think that I can restrain myself.
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