LinoCat

Well here is LinoCat already on his way to the hard concrete floor in the boatyard. ..afte we approached the crane... hanging around in a beach lounge.... LinoCat on dry land..... The story will continue later.... time to fly back now...

Well we also reached our final destination Portimao. This is the place where we set sail in 2009 to cross the Atlantic. Here you see Thomas and Andy having a sundowner while cruising along the Algarve coast. Here is Linocat at the visitos pontoon in Portimao. A lighthouse on a cliff at the Algarve coast. beautiful landscape with many caves and grottos. And of course sandy beaches. Some of them can only be reached via boat. time for another swim A happy skipper

After having been in Portimao a few days (4 to be precise) . Yesterday evening Liz and John from Scotland had a drink on our boat and we were chatting until 23.30. They also have a blog for their trip. The boat is called Jalan-Jalan and their webadress is: http://www.jalan-jalan.org.uk Linocat is now on the way to Alvor. Alvor is very close to Portimao just that it used to be a small fishing village and there is no marina. So you have to anchor there and use the dhingy (the inflatable boat) to reach the village. Lets hope that the anchorage is not to crowded. I do not know if we will have internet or mobile phone connectivity. Today the wind is almost gone and we are currently drifting at 0,5knots. The sails are down and we might go for a swim. The water is dark blue and 25 Celcius and air temperature is around 30. Weatherforecast is the same for tomorrow so there will be not much of sailing but rather sunbathing, chilling and eating. Well, we are extremly good at that! The watermaker ...

Nice scenery??? Could be Miami? Enjoying a coffee break Couple, boat and old castle Sailing school. Should we join? Leftover from the AUDI med cup

Of course we are dragging a lure behind. And today at 4knots in 67m depth suddenly there the was the sound of the line getting pulled from the reel. This happens often but usually it is just some seaweed that is caught with the line. There was no significant pull and so i realled it in with disappointment. When i saw the shimmering silver reflection of a fish under the surface i was amazed. We killed him quickly and Chris cleaned the fish and then he landed in the fridge. Either today or tomorrow he will end up in the pan. That was the first fish this season. That was important since it gave me also reassurance that the lure, line and reel are a good combination.

Yes, Jannic turned 20 today and so we had a breakfast with a nice chocolate cake and candles on the way out from Lagos. There was not enough wind and so we brought the sails down again after a while and went for a swim. We set course to Vilamoura since the young ones wanted to got out to a discotheque to celebrate Jannics birthday. We all had a lot of sun today and so we needed some more swimbreaks and also some rest.

This morning Sarah, Eric and Jannic arived in Faro and i picked them up from the airport. We decided to have a chilllout day and just go out by boat for a swim. There was almost now wind but still we sailed with slow 3knots. we had a nice swim in the 23degrees Atlantic but it felt like 15 degrees. We jumped in from the boat and enjoyed the crystal clear blue water and the sun. Sarah felt a bit seasick and so we turned around after an hour stop and arrived around 1600 back in the marina. In the marina we saw the "Celestial Hope", a 47m luxury yacht wich can be rented for a small fee but we could not see who has just rented it.

Today i climbed the mast to the masttop. No, rather someone winched me up there. 20m is quite high when looking down and i took the opportunity to take a picture of the boat from above. New batteries are installed (Energizer 140Ah 4 of them) and some other work will be done.

Life is great when you can set sail and the wind is driving you forward. Sun is shining, sky is blue and the sea is calm while the wind blows with a gentle breeze. You cruise along with 6knots and listen to music while drinking a coffee. Isn´t that beautiful?

In the morning i went with the folding bicycle to the boat yard. Linocat was standing on the dry and they were about to fix the solar panel. It showed that it needs to be reinforced and so everything came of again. But the boat will be put in the water and then the rest will be done there. I am not particularly happy about that but since the hotels are so expensive it makes sense. After a short ride LinoCat was back in the marina and i want to thank Dieter from the Flying Kefi who helped me to put it in the water and drive it to the marina. It made life much easier. Lani would have been an excellent coskipper of course. At least she has this command-tone-attitude very well :-) And she can say "wadder" which means "Wasser" in german and is her favorite element.

The flight departed at 14.05 from Frankfurt with Lufthansa. It was on time but they have done a gate change quite late and so we had a nice run to the gate after getting out of the Lounge. Lani had potato-salad in the lounge and liked it a lot. The car from Lagorent was there as always, it was a Renault Megane. I think some engineers need to have their hands cuffed because they produce really stupid solution. Like the Renault Megane or i am not getting the french way of building cars. It was a 25Min drive to the Tivoli Marina Hotel and the room was already reverved via HRS. It was 116EUR per night including a very nice breakfast. Expensive but very convinient since the hotel is built around the marina. After we met with Dieter from the Trimaran Flying Kefi it was time to sleep. No cloud, 32degrees and wind with force 2-3 from NW. A great start!

Hi, costs for Linocat in Portimao are: 403,53 EUR for 1 month on the hard stand 40,00 EUR the washdown per month 442,08 the haul out and in you have to add the VAT, which is called IVA in Portugal. This is cizrrently 20% Regards Michael

This is the marina of Villa Real de Santo Antonio which is reached pretty close to the entrance of the Guidana river. This river is seperating spain and Portugal. Which courtesy flag to run :-)? It is cheap, clean and even has free WiFi due to the Algarve digital initiative. We paid 28Euro for a night. The current in this river can be strong but we had no problems at all entering the marina even with the currents running. Some cruising guides state this as dangerous but i rather think they are making a to big deal out of it. As you can see the marina is really in walking distance to the city center. There are nice restaurants nearby. It is higly recommended also to do a cruise upstream the river which is quite, relaxing and you will see many birds and other wildlife. There are ample opportunities to anchor or use moorings. Of course one needs to watch the depth-meter since it is also getting shallow. There is a bridge right at beginning but if you have less than 19m it is never a probl...

Linocat had to be hauled out for 6Months. He was in the water for almost 2 years now and had good growth below the waterline. So we went to the commercial marina in Portmiao and took the big crane. Here you see part of the growth. Even the speed under motor was affected. So she needes a serious cleaning and repainting. Bluewateralgrave has taken care of that and they did a good job. This was LinoCat out on the dry. Be aware that if there is huge boat behinf which they are spraypainting that your boat will partly be painted too :-) Here you can see very well that the paint IS blue under the green stuff and the growth around the blackwater outlet. YUCK Another picture showing the growth around the saildrive and also a missing coverpart. I have no clue for how long this was actually missing and also i do not know if i should replace it. The original antifouling coming out after using the high pressure washer. The old one was Zaragoza and the new will be a hard selfpolishing Jotun one. The...