With the end of the state of emergency in Portugal, Ilha da Culatra has changed quite a bit: the restaurants have reopened, tourists are coming from the mainland by ferry and some new boats have arrived in the anchorage. Among them were my good friends Ben and Elena from Beyond Elements.
I also made friends with the Australian couple Elayna and Riley from the catamaran “La Vagabonde”. The two are traveling with their son Lenny and André, a Portuguese skipper, with whom I also got along very well. Despite the enormous fame of their YouTube channel, the two “vagabonds” are super easy going and open, and invited me over for breakfast right away.
Meetings of up to 10 people are now allowed again in Portugal, and we sailors truly enjoyed this newly found freedom of social interaction. After the past week had been pretty rainy and busy for me, it was now time to celebrate the onset of summer together with old and new sailor friends.
Here are a few impressions of the past few days in this magical place:
(Many thanks to Micha from Sailing Terra who took many of these great pictures.)
Visitors at last! What a pleasure to see Ben and Elena again after 3 months. They had spent the lockdown on board their boat in Alvor.With Marianne on the mooring at shouting distance, we became some sort of “roommates”.In addition to our common coffee-breaks, we started a Co-Working-Space……on “my” office and yoga catamaran “Zen”. However, we did not really get to work that much these days. Too big was the temptation of pizza nights… …and BBQs at our pirate neighbors from Buona Onda. (Thanks Ronny!) We even had a movie night with “Blown Away“, Ben’s sailing and music documentary. The little pirates were also happy about the easing of the social distancing rules. On Friday we met for a sundowner on La Vagabonde… …with delicious mojitos… …and beautiful sailor-girls. It is amazing how much space there is on such a catamaran. I have to be careful not to get used to this luxury too much… 😉 Later, the sundowners turned into a proper party… …with guitar play and singing. In order to make up for the excessive party life,… …we went out for some exercises on the beach. But even the most wonderful week had to come to an end. On Sunday, Marianne sailed back westwards and La Vagabonde carried on eastwards. And I finally found the time to take care of the customer requests in my KlabauterShop.
After 2 months of lockdown, followed by this great week full of wonderful moments with great people, I got caught by the travel bug again. Even though bigger trips will likely have to wait for a while, I plan to set sail tomorrow to travel 20 miles east to Tavira. There is a package waiting for me in town and probably some more adventures at the anchorage.
Since I will likely stay in Algarve for a while, it is not so hard to say goodbye to Culatra. I’m sure I’ll be back in this magical place soon. I just hope that there will not be another Corona outbreak leading to another lockdown…
Thank you Jan for sailing my mind away with your story, a proper distruction from that inprisoned time of lockdown on the Planet. All the best for you on and offshore and have good wind for your boat wherever you are sailing ! ⛵Gabriella from UK
