After Mars, it is probably the most enigmatic place that Humanity has never set foot on: the deep sea. Symbolically named Challenger 150, in reference to the deepest point on the planet (Challenger Deep), a new program with scientists from all over the world aims to bring to the surface the knowledge that is still hidden in the depths of the oceans.

Portuguese woman Carla Fowler (nee Magalhães Oliveira), together with her husband Simon (UK) and their cat Dobby, made landfall in Vilamoura, the very port they departed from 2.5 years ago, after sailing 22,000 nautical miles and visiting 45 countries.

Covid-19 has marooned liveaboard sailors worldwide. Portuguese born Carlos Dionisio, owner and Jump Master of Bungy Portugal, formally situated at the Marina de Albufeira, faces the last leg of his passage back to Portugal from the island of Madeira.
The adventure began with a crew of 3, who sailed from Portugal to the Northernmost island of the Canaries, Ilsa da Graciosa. This was the first planned stop of a passage to the Bahamas. Unfortunately on the 3rd of February, after 11 days at sea, disaster struck.

A 104 year old vessel and her crew, who after 14 days quarantine at anchor, and a total of 52 days at sea, have now been refused clearance into Portimão, where major refit works were planned after a 3 year circumnavigation. 

I am determined to bring to fruition a project into which I have put a huge amount of work during the past ten plus years, writes Michael Pease.

This would honour those Portuguese who rescued from the sea not far short of 2,000 people of many different nationalities during WWII. My proposal is for the placement of a Memorial in Faro and, futuristically, perhaps a replicate in The Açores, to commemorate one specific incident on November 30th, 1943, in which two local fishermen saved the lives of six American servicemen, the only survivors from the eleven-man crew of a US Liberator bomber [See attached short summary of the incident].

Since 2001 Julian Mead has been running Portugal Sail & Power, an RYA Training Centre, in the Algarve. For the first 10 years the operation was based in Vilamoura using sailing yachts. In 2011 the move was made to Albufeira and for the next 8 years the operation expanded to include tuition for both motor and sail boats.

An organisation in Portugal’s Azores is pressing ahead with a joint innovative project aimed at substantially tackling the problem of plastic waste in the archipelago.

A pilot scheme by the Brussels-based NGO ‘Waste Free Oceans’ (WFO), which started in mid-October on São Miguel, the biggest of the Azores islands, is to continue into 2019 and could lead to a much wider, open-ended programme.