Monday, June 25, 2012


Kinda fun, sailing to Seville. Its 50 miles inland!
Seville lies miles up the wide and gentle Rio Quadalaquivir. We navigated the shallow river mouth and enjoyed sailing when we could, and motoring when the wind died. We took our time, moving up river with the flood, which ran, surprisingly, all the way to Seville. We anchored early evening, just before dark, when the flood turned to ebb, and stayed the night in the delicious peace of the Spanish country side. When we reached Seville, we could have locked into the eastern river branch and entered the downtown harbour. We opted instead to anchor in the free river about four miles from the city centre near a small yacht club. We were glad we did - we enjoyed celebrity status for being one of the rare cruisers to come to town. It was lovely to have goats on one river bank and a small town on the other. We did day excursions by bus into the city centre.
We were interested to learn that at the peak of the Spanish empire, Seville was the only centre in Spain where the King allowed new world goods brought in from the off shore colonies to be traded. This preserved the region and protected the main trading centre from attack by other nations, as they were otherwise wont to do. It would have been a sight watching the square rigged Spanish ships, with no engines, working their way patiently up and down 50 miles of river with the tides!













We hung out about a week in the heat before catching the ebb back out to sea. Very hot in Seville, away from the ocean, we discovered. We scooped a huge sunken tree when we weighed anchor which slowed us down a tad. As on the way up river, we anchored about mid way down river to wait for the next day’s ebb. Again, we had another delicious night in the Spanish country side quiet, though we were hiding below decks from the hungry hordes of mosquitos. Next day we ran down to the sea and made our way down the coast to Caciz then Sancti Petri, where we find ourselves again up a lovely river.

Saturday, June 23, 2012


Breaking up is hard to do!!
Well, we ended the love affair with Lagos Marina. After arriving back in Portugal June 2 from our Canadian junket, we trolled around the internet for a week and a bit waiting on potential work prospects, and decided enough was enough. If nobody was going to put us to work, we might as well continue cruising until they do. And so we left the fine little port of Lagos and all the friendly people of Portugal behind and set sail eastward toward the Mediterranean.
But we before we close the Lagos chapter, I want to share some sadness about the place. Lagos, like all of the southern coast of Portugal – you may know it as the Algarve Region – has become another great big-condo-barren. Don’t get me wrong, the dozen or so historical, and I mean HISTORICAL Portuguese towns like Lagos in the region are cobble street, piazza quaint and charming, but they seem from our experience all to be surrounded by 10s of thousands of mostly empty condos. The historical city centres have been very nicely tarted up and ‘touristized’, but the rings of suburban condos surrounding them are, well, disappointing. Irena and walk frequently in these areas, in our losing fight to keep fit, and I can tell you, “we are in no danger of being run over!” We walk down street after street of condos frozen in various stages of completion. From holes in the ground, through hulks of moss covered multi-floor shells to empty finished and landscaped buildings, these neighbourhoods tell the sorry tale of a little bit of real estate folly. The building cranes are long gone. Judging by the age of the overgrown vegetation on the unfinished building sites, I would guess the workers put down their hammers probably sometime 2008, when the subprime recession kicked in. In the buildings that were finished, most of the units have been sold -- and some for a pretty penny in the early days --- but most of them are pretty much empty nevertheless. Purchased by speculators in the boom years, they have been left now ‘unloved’ apparently in a declining market. And like the deserted streets, the never occupied shops on the ground floor and the moulding pools behind rusting fences, these barren neighbourhoods are haunted by their emptiness. The ex-Planner in me sees the car oriented suburban neighbourhoods of condos soulless in the best of circumstance, but to see them all but deserted is a bit unnerving, especially given, that with a little more thought and a little less greed, it could have been better.
And what does this means for the people who live in this part Portugal? They will need to find a new way to make a living. Historically, the people of Lagos, and in neighbouring villages, made their living by fishing and by trade. The slave trade did a roaring business in Lagos for nearly a hundred years. We stood in the main town square in Lagos by the town docks and read about how families of slaves were separated -- husband from wife, children from parents -- and auctioned like animals. Now there is a statue and a fountain at the foot of the steps of the catholic church which otherwise oversees the square. A darker time. Then there was a period of industry in the Algarve, but this moved overseas with globalization. Today, in Lagos we see the remains of industry -- half a dozen stunning brick chimneys -- preserved by some romantic Portuguese, now jealously occupied by the ubiquitous heron. They make great nesting sites! And now that the high end recreational real estate market is in retreat, and tourism begins to wither in the European recession, these people must again find another means of getting on. But knowing what we know now after some time with the resilient Portuguese, I think they will find a way. I spoke with a boater on the docks one day close to where Conversations was moored in Lagos Marina. This fine fellow came to Portugal from Brazil to fund his retirement with real estate investments. Ten years ago, he bought a whole building. Now the unit he and his family occupy is the only unit occupied in a building of 10 units. At least, he says, “It’s a quiet building!”
Reflection:
The wheel of change rumbles ever on. As Europe struggles to heal the Euro, Portugal struggles to find a new basis for an economy, and Lagos seeks to hold its real estate market together. We see transition is everywhere.
You would think transition would be easier when we volunteer for it? To misquote William Shakespeare on greatness: Some are born in transition, some achieve transition, and others have transition thrust upon them. (Twelfth Night). Maybe. Maybe not. I think transition is always hard.
While we wait for work, Irena and I have been girding ourselves by remembering, by virtue of our lifestyle, we have chosen transition. The pressure of transition is one of the costs of the lifestyle we live.
Like the Portuguese, we too will all find a way. 

Can’t wait to tell you about Seville in our next Blog!

Monday, June 4, 2012



Irena and I are just back aboard yesterday from a jet powered tour home. In a month, we whistled through Ontario, Manitoba and BC, stopping in Toronto, Orillia, Milton, Simcoe, Winnipeg, Brandon, Vancouver, Whistler, and Nanaimo and back to the boat in Lagos via Lisbon. We spent time with Jenn, Matt, Anglin and Juna, Don/Dad and Nancy/Mom, Cresswell Adam, John, Pat & family, Kristina, Colin, Kaylee and Chloe, Mrs. C/Mom, Wanda, Scott and Pauline, Erin, Larry and Linda, Bob and Jan, Al and Leona, Breanna and Jahn, Dennis and Rita, Mahen, Maureen, Harlene and Ross, David and Sandey, Sue and Aubrey, Bob, Paul and Darlene, Jordon and Megan and Doug. And still others, too numerous to mention and many others we did not get a chance to see. Perhaps this is why at 2am I am up at the nav station here with you, unable to sleep, while Conversations tugs at her moorings in the warm breeze blowing through the marina tonight. My heart is over flowing from connecting with so much friendship and love. To all of you, thank you for being our friends even though it may seem we desert you for our selfish journeys. We love you and you never really are very far away!

So now, back on board, Irena and I are posed to jump, but we know not where! I feel wound up like a spring, teetering on a precipice, waiting for the universe to say where  to leap next. After a year of sailing, we have eaten up our cruising budget and are now chomping down on our savings with alarming appetites. We are ready to work, indeed, must work, and it seems we must ……….wait.
But hold on Cresswell. Is this journey to work, not just another passage? Have we not set our course for the Middle East? Are we not sailing every day in that direction in our search for work (even though we seem to go no further than the internet café)? Are we not provisioned with savings for this passage, sailing a prepared ship? And even though nothing shows yet on the horizon, are we not never-the-less making progress toward our destination even though progress on this sea is invisible? Do we not yet know in our hearts, that like all our ocean passages so far, we will almost certainly make landfall!!? Some where!
We make it hard when we quake. So we have pulled out all our tools. We meditate, we exercise, we tap (EFT), meditate some more, between the hours on the internet. We remember all those we love and we hold the vision!  
Do the work.
Get the job done.
The Middle East? Ha! 
Here we come.