Fast Lane

Miss WJ3 schmoozing in the Portimao Marina...

Portimao, Portugal

Having said we’re close to the end of our stay WE decided, in true last-minute-decision fashion, to further investigate over-wintering options.  Not many people haul out here at this time of the year and there’s no winterising to speak of.  We’d come across quite a few long-term marina residents who simply take a berth (cheaply) for 6 to 9 months and then haul out over summer when prices are exorbitant.  So we’ve temporarily docked at Portimao Marina, hired a teeny, tiny car and hit the motorway (without a map) to investigate all Algarve’s storage options. 

That of course offers opportunity to mention Portuguese drivers, most of whom are ex-rally participants.  Even though the motorway limit is 120kph, there’s nothing like being passed at the speed of light….  And it always happens just as you decide to overtake the only slow driver on the road.  Exciting stuff – no wonder they run from wild bulls for sport!

Arade River, fishing boat & seagulls with beach/tourist enclave beyond

One other lesson for foreign drivers is to encourage their navigators to develop a rich and vigorous vocabulary of sign language.  Police, on seeing said foreign driver skid across lanes at a busy roundabout (or something equally naughty), will naturally feel sorry for him and consider navigator’s nag punishment enough.  Worth a try – we think it worked for us…

It’s just as well we’ve had plenty of practice driving the Algarve motorways as we had to make a quick, late night trip to Lisbon.  BW is now fully qualified to pen best-seller, “101 Creative Ways to Miss Your Flight”.  I’m sure he will be only too willing to explain this whole ordeal once he has regained his sense of humour.  He may never travel again, never with TAP and certainly not with a bag brimful of surfboards!! (Sadly, no photographic evidence exists.)  Just as well he did his sea survival training before departure......