Rio Guadiana, Near Pomarao

MONDAY 28 APRIL 2008

Roger in the water!

It was a beautiful warm day, and I spent most of the time reading and relaxing in the hammock, listening to the exotic sound of the bee-eaters. A pair of bee-eaters seems to stay close to the bank near the boat. A family from a British yacht flying a Welsh flag passed us going up to Pomarao, and later in the afternoon they came to visit us. David is from Swansea, Sarah still works from the boat, and their two children, Bethany and Bryn, are being educated by their parents and learning history and geography as they sail to different places. David had been in Swansea Yacht Club until about 10 years ago, and knew a lot of the people we know.

We had another Bar-B-Que and listened to music in the cockpit.

WILDLIFE: Bee-eaters


TUESDAY 29 APRIL 2008

There was quite a cold wind yesterday, so we stayed on the boat all day. It was warmer and sunnier today, although the wind piped up later on. We had showers on the boat, and then the water pump wouldn’t turn itself off, which probably means there’s a leak somewhere. We pumped up the canoe and went up about 2 miles upriver to the quiet, remote Portuguese village of Pomarao. We had a coffee in the Association bar and walked to the Dam which borders Spain. After a picnic, we had a drink in the bar where we met a Dutch couple who spend their winters in Portugal in a camper van, and have been coming to Pomarao for about 4 years.

We canoed downstream, past Susannah, to the Rio Vascao tributary, passing terrapins who dived into the water as we passed. There is a beautiful area where there is a small dam which has formed lovely pools for swimming in. The water is clear and quite warm. We got back o the boat about 7 p.m. and found a message in a bottle! The Welsh family had drawn a detailed map of the river and how to get to Pomarao, avoiding the mud bank and the obstructions left since the last big flood, which included fridges and cars! Roger started searching for the leaks in our water system and found a pipe had blown off the watermaker. He fixed that, but there was still a problem. He found another small leak in the cockpit, but still the water pump didn’t pressure up properly. It got too late to see properly, so we left this problem until tomorrow.