A personal view on the highlights of life on the Silver Coast

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Winter of 2009 in Portugal

Discovering the Silver Coast Community

Hi
I am changing my blog to the following
www.ajm7.com/blog

I hope you will join me there.

I am delighted to announce the launch of a new web-site supporting the huge efforts made by my sister and her friend to raise money for cancer and children’s charities.
For more details please follow the link below.
Charity walk in Iceland – July 21st

Yesterday was a genuinely new experience for me. My friend JD took me out on a catamaran on the lagoon at Foz Do Arelho. We started at the sailing school on the banks of the lagoon about 3km inland from the ocean, and right from the start JD was really good at putting my rookie mind to rest and explaining what would happen.

We arrived after midday and found the conditions to be fairly calm and sunny but the wind was coming and going and changing direction all the time. I did not really understand the consequences of that until we got out onto the water and headed off towards the far side.

The school itself was a friendly place with many different types of craft to go out in. A first timer like me would normally pay for a guy to accompany me and teach me what needed to be done in every circumstance, but JD was an experienced sailor and so it was just the two of us with me feeling slightly nervous. I need not have been.
He went through all the things once more as we took off our shoes and socks and pushed the catamaran out into the deeper water that would start our journey. He showed me the ropes.
‘There they are’ he said.
He stifled a chuckle and carried on explaining what each rope did, and how I would need to take care when we swapped sides to turn the boat in case my head got struck by a billowing sail.

So we sat on the canvas deck checking all was well but the left hand rudder was being a right PITA and kept popping out so the plain sailing became slightly more spicy.
Eventually with the sails tightened and the wind puffing slightly harder, we took off.
Of course that is not strictly true, we carried on forwards on the water, gently at first and then as a sudden gust caught our sails we really sped across the lagoon. I was encouraged to hold onto the plastic handle and put my feet through a webbing strap so that we could lean backwards out of the craft and use our weight to counter the push of the wind and make us travel faster.
JD was insistent that it was not anywhere near as fast as the vessel could go, but I was quite happy to absorb the sensation of speed we attained as the spray from the tiny waves washed over us. It stopped again just as quickly and we slowed to a crawl, but then we had to leap across to the other side and turn before we got tangled up in the shellfish pots of the fishermen that were scattered all over the water in front of us.
We had to move quite fast to the other side of the boat because if the wind took the sails before we had moved our weight than there was a possibility of capsizing.
A couple of times we made good speed and then JD asked me if I wanted to take the rudder.
‘Do you want to take the rudder?’
‘No thanks’ I said. ‘I am quite happy sitting here letting you do all the work.’
He said, ‘but you only really get a feel for what is happening when you sit here where I am and you can feel everything that happens.’
I was unable to feel comfortable enough to do that.
Looking back now, it seems very silly and I hope there will be a next time and that the wind will be a little kinder.
As we drifted slowly back to the sailing school, I reflected on the expertise with which JD handled both the craft and my obvious nervousness and reluctance to take over at the rudder. He was a gentleman and I look forward to another outing some time.

So thanks JD, I enjoyed my first session and it so different to my normal day that it will stay with me for a long time.
Cheers.

Please follow the link
Thank you.

Weekend Break | Bed and Breakfast | Portugal

Enjoy.

OK so it goes like this. I have been trying unsuccessfully, to re-launch one of my domains with totally fresh content.
All the tricks I have used for my sub domains have so far resulted in zilch.
I still am not in a position to go for the extensive links campaign, so this is yet another attempt to get my domain indexed.
Wish me luck!

Bed and Breakfast | Portugal | Silver Coast | Country Getaway | Wine Tasting | Golf Breaks
In 24 hours I will possibly have my wish granted. It is a totally redesigned site and I might just alter the whole circus to reflect my most recent work.

Andy

This is another attempt to shamelessly promote my new sites.
This time I have upgraded and refreshed the root home page of my site.

Bed and Breakfast | Silver Coast | Portugal | Country Getaway

It has links to the recent sub domains and right to important pages on the main part of the site.
All the content is different and fresh.

I remain hopeful that it will get picked up by google soon, within a few days, because my other fresh content is appearing in searches already. it takes a little longer that I anticipated but id does seem to have a positive effect.

Cheers, have a great weekend, and that goes out to my two readers somewhere on planet earth.

Here we go again.

Fishing | Carp Fishing | Fishing in Portugal | Fishing Silver Coast

This one looks nicer. The others might need a little work done on them now.

I was not sure what to expect but I hoped for google re-crawling my web site through following a link on my blog.
24 hours after the deadline passed, I am still not seeing any fresh content.
So the theory is wrong, and I am looking rather silly!

Ok, it looks like I may have to rethink my options and invest in some SEO software. It looks as though the link building is going to be the way forward after all the initial excitement.
I am still going to keep trying for a little while so forgive me if my posts are littered with links back to my own sites.

I just re-launched my root domain to make it more relevant and a bit better than the mess I had in there before.
See if google re-indexes this:
bed and breakfast | portugal | country getaway

Cheers for now
Andy