There is a long sea faring history of sailors who leave mainland Europe and sail to the Canary Islands – which is one of the last stepping points before crossing the Atlantic. It is exciting to follow the same tracks with much more modern electronics – GPS navigation, water maker etc.
Part of boat life is that you can plan arrivals and departures but things rarely go per plan. Boat fixes, weather constraints and people’s schedule can stretch out your plans. So a one week stay in Lagos turns out to be a month. Instead of spending all our time in Lagos we chose to spend a couple weeks in northern Morocco and you can read about it in our blog post ‘Back in Morocco’
Like most places in Portugal, Lagos has its own unique character. The marina is right in the middle of town close to the shops and restaurants.
Without a car, we usually foot it to most destinations. This can mean miles of walking and returning with bags of shopping, or simply visiting places. On many of our walks we came across amazing murals on buildings, walls and sometimes on old uninhabited homes.
The scenic coastline of Lagos and, for that matter most of the Algarve area, are a draw for tourists due to its many grottos, caves and hidden beaches carved by the ocean onto its steep rocky coastline.
Portimao is a short bus or train ride from Lagos and we did a day trip there by bus as the train workers were on strike. It is a city with larger stores and I needed to buy some specific containers for the galley. Leroy Merlin are the Home Depots of Europe. And next to it was a Decathalon sporting goods store. As we passed it we had a vision of us exercising ourself into peak fitness on the Atlantic crossing. A quick stop to buy some strength training gear before heading to Leroy Merlin. We didn’t find all that we were looking for so we headed back to the bus stop. Quite by accident we came across one of those Chinese stores that sell everything. Thirty minutes later I came out of the store with two large sacks with everything I was looking for and some more – much to Sunil’s horror. Now I have a tidy pantry and a well organized spice box.
We left Lagos in the evening after checking out with passport control at the marina office and we headed into the night to our next destination -the Canary Islands. Skippering our boat for this crossing and taking us all the way to the Caribbean is David Pritchard. David is a very experienced sailor and has also done many Atlantic crossings. We hope to learn a lot during this passage. We sailed four days and nights with the wind behind us, perfect to fly our Parasailor. The weather was warming up as we headed south. Our plan is to go to the Canary Islands and then continue on south to catch the trade winds that will take us across the Atlantic. For ages, ships sailing across the Atlantic would sail from Europe ‘South until the butter melts’. While not quite butter melting weather, it was certainly warmer than the chilly winter we had weathered in France and Spain.
Sheer joy in being surrounded by a pod of a few dozen playful dolphins!
Curry night on Jajabor – Butter chicken, Veg Jalfrezi and Saffron rice
The first couple of days, we had light winds. The winds picked up on the third day and pretty soon we were whipping down the swells with our Parasailor flying high and driving the boat to speeds as high as 18 knots.
Doing 10 – 14 knots during my night watch
On the fourth evening we could see the coast line of Gran Canarias shimmering in the distance. We were relieved to have finally made an uneventful passage without any equipment breakdowns.
Sailing Jajabor 