Nick Cole - Daring to fulfill a dream

Nick Cole, an Anglo-Australian with strong Algarve connections, is about to reach a key moment in fulfilling a dream that has been brewing for six decades.

At an age when most professional men are looking forward to taking it easy, Nick has taken on a daunting physical and mental challenge. Having spent virtually every day for the past six months single-handedly refitting a sailing boat he built by himself in the 1980s, he is preparing to put her back in the water and set off alone from Portimão into the wide blue yonder.

His boat is called Dumpling.  Nick delights in her simplicity. Most sailing boats nowadays are high-tech, luxury items, but Dumpling has no engine, square sails and is equipped only with basic necessities. She's "green".

Nick's latest adventure is fostered by a seemingly insatiable wanderlust. Born in Melbourne, Australia, he went off with his parents to Singapore at the age of two. A year later, they took him to England where his father set up a dental practice in London’s Harley Street. After graduating from Cardiff Dental School, Nick started his first job - back in Melbourne. He was soon on his way again, to a string of far-flung locum appointments in Somerset, London (where he met his wife Sally), the far north of Queensland, South Australia and Victoria.

He took a break from dentistry, bought a 45-foot trading boat in Java, sailed her to Bali for a refit and later “pranged” her on Christmas Island.

After a short spell working in Charing Cross Hospital, the intrepid traveller followed in his father’s footsteps and bought a dental practice in Harley Street. That was in 1979. A busy decade followed. Sally gave birth to twin boys. Nick created Dumpling from a design he had found in a book in a Melbourne public library. He completed a master’s degree in advanced restorative dentistry before sailing Dumpling to the south of Portugal where he opened a dental practice in Lagoa in 1990.

Six years on, the twins, David and James, completed their secondary education at the Porches International School. The family returned to England so that the boys could go to university. Since then, Nick has worked as a dentist in various places, all close to the sea: in the port of Plymouth, on St Helena island in the South Atlantic, Totnes in south Devon,  the Isles of Scilly, the Shetland Islands, North Wales, Scarborough in North Yorkshire, and the Hebrides off the west coast of Scotland.

His passion for sailing was aroused as a child by the stories of English author and journalist Arthur Ransome. His childhood hero was Joshua Slocum, the first person to sail around the world single-handed. Nick greatly admires Slocum’s qualities: “He was skilled, brave, enduring, modest, kind, funny.”

So is Nick.

Having sailed dinghies and small boats from his school days, the design that took his fancy in the Melbourne library was an 11.6 metre ketch, gaff rigged and with square sails on the main mast.

After four years in the building, the voyage on Dumpling from England to Portugal in 1989 was most eventful.

Nick recalls with typical self-deprecation: “I got a bit beaten up in Biscay and felt like a hero when I dropped anchor just east of Sagres. But I felt like a berk shortly afterwards when I ran aground off Ferragudo.”

Worse was to come on a subsequent trip off Portugal’s south coast.  “I went out without checking the weather forecast and got clobbered. Lost my mast and had to sail back under jury rig. Tried to get into Portimão but missed. I anchored off Praia da Rocha but had to be rescued by a Portuguese naval patrol boat.”

Dumpling has been standing propped up on a grassy patch in the Cole’s rural home near Silves ever since.

Over the past four years, Nick has periodically taken time off from private practise in the UK to restore her, always on a tight budget.  Crucially, he has enjoyed the unrelenting understanding and endorsement of his wife and sons. Dumpling now has a fully repaired hull, new masts, better accommodation, a proper galley and a ‘head’ that works well.

It was on the remote island of St Helena that he came up with the idea of getting back to an old-fashioned unpowered sailing boat with a hold for transporting traditional cargoes. All rather arcane and looked down upon by those who spend most of their time anchored in expensive marinas, but Nick has incorporated most of his fundamental ideas.  Dumpling has no way of going anywhere without wind in her sails. Her navigation lights will be powered by a solar panel but all other lighting will come from paraffin lamps, candles or a head torch. While a small GPS will be on hand for emergencies, he will navigate by the sun and the stars - just like his hero Joshua Slocum.

Dumpling will be back in the water next week and departing - first stop Madeira – a few days later. Initially anyway, Nick does not plan to sail around the world like Slocum. But who knows?

* We will report on the  final preparations in our next blog and keep track of Dumpling’s progress thereafter. 

Freedom of expression questioned

Hundreds of thousands of anti-austerity demonstrators took to the streets in cities across Portugal last weekend united under the slogan ‘Que se lixe de troika!’ This appeared in most English-language Internet reports translated as ‘Fuck the troika!’

‘Que se lixe’ is slang, but much more subtle than the bluntly profane English version, and so Portuguese newspapers had no qualms about quoting it on their front pages. As to the f-word, should it be confined to f*** - or not used at all?

Questions like this are cropping all the time in our increasingly permissive world.

The peaceful demonstrations in Portugal coincided with public outrage in Muslim nations about a video made in the United States. The video insulted the prophet Mohammed and was offensive to most Muslims.  

While not illegal in the United States where freedom of expression is held in high esteem, the video was clearly divisive and inflammatory. Was it also unethical?

Clearly there is no uniform agreement on freedom of expression. It varies not only in legal terms from country to country, but also in moral terms between different cultures and between people of the same culture. Increasingly, there are divisions of opinion even within families between those who embrace and those who shun the unfettered social media.

Judgements about freedom of expression are sometimes influenced not only by what is actually said or shown, but by perceptions or biased viewpoints. The Mohammed video was followed by publication in a French magazine of cartoons depicting the Prophet naked. The cartoons were supposed to be satirically funny, but the French government has felt obliged to temporarily close its embassies and schools in 20 countries for fear of a violent international backlash.

Many of those in non-Muslim countries think the violent reactions to the video were grossly exaggerated and perhaps deliberately promoted. In any case, is physical violence more excusable than blasphemy? Is racial abuse or deliberate provocation more permissible than suppressing freedom of expression?

Readers chastised the New York Times last week for publishing a photograph of the American ambassador to Libya in an unconscious state after the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi. The more liberal minded asked why it was deemed to be wrong to publish such a picture when the US news media have no compunction about showing photographs of enemy dead?

“Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression,” according to the UN’s universal declaration of human rights. “This right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”

In practice, it is not quite so simple.

In Britain, the publication by a French magazine of topless photographs of the Duchess of Cambridge elicited widespread indignation, even in the notorious British tabloid press. Prince Harry naked in a Las Vegas hotel prompted smiles, but Kate exposed while sunbathing in a private estate in France provoked anger.

Was Kate not fair game since the pictures were taken from a public thoroughfare, albeit with a telephoto lens? A French court ruled not. In the court of public opinion, however, many people outside the UK found it was not worth getting hot under the collar about. Publications in Ireland, Italy, Sweden and Denmark were ready to satisfy their readers’ innocent curiosity about a royal celebrity.

Would the British public have reacted less indignantly before the mood-changing Leveson Inquiry into tabloid phone hacking and bribery? To what extent are attitudes being caught up in prescribed customs, fashionable causes and propaganda?

Even in the United States there is no clear line about what is admissible in the media and what is not. For example, ABC News has just been sued by a beef company for describing their products as not beef at all, but “an unhealthy pink slime, unsafe for public consumption.”

Back in Portugal, the McCanns v Amaral libel action was postponed yet again last week. The parents of Madeleine McCann insist Gonçalo Amaral libelled them in his book A Verdade da Mentira (the Truth of the Lie). Plenty of people, especially in this country, believe Amaral was within his moral and legal rights to publish his opinions on the investigation he once co-ordinated. Plenty of people, particularly in the UK, believe Amaral’s actions have been criminally reprehensible, even though the ban on his book has been lifted.

The Portuguese constitution declares: “Everyone shall possess the right to freely express and publicise his thoughts in words, images or by any other means, as well as the right to inform others, inform himself and be informed without hindrance or discrimination.” 

So why is Amaral, who is said to be ill and broke, facing a claim for well over a million euros in damages?

In principle, freedom of expression in free societies is a fine thing. But how free are we really? 

Future export hopes lie in the past

Two separate stories about two very different commodities that in theory could boost Portugal’s export trade and thus help its beleaguered economy appeared in overseas newspapers this week.

The first story - indicating just how desperate the situation is - was about Portuguese custard tarts. Papers as diverse as the Daily Star in the Lebanon and the Straits Times in Singapore published an AFP report from Lisbon about those tasty little pastries known as pastéis de nata.

The report quoted the Portuguese economy minister, Alvaro Santos Pereira, as saying earlier this year: “Pastel de nata is one of Portugal’s most emblematic products and despite its success, why have we never managed to export it?”

The minister was addressing a meeting of Portuguese businessmen at the time. He urged them to “think international.”  If the Americans were able to exploit hamburgers and doughnuts globally, surely the Portuguese could do the same with pastéis de nata. It seemed like a masterpiece of wishful thinking.

Unbeknown to the minister, a  Lisbon company was already planning to open a franchise chain of pastéis de nata cafes, starting soon in Paris. AFP reported that the franchise is to operate under the slogan, “The world needs nata.”

The trouble is that since the early days of nata production in Portuguese monasteries in the 18th century, various versions of the pastries have been baked in Brazil, Angola, Goa and other Lusophone areas around the world - as well as in places with significant Portuguese immigrant populations such as Australia and France. Pastéis de nata have long been rolled out in quantity in China and  southeast Asian countries, thanks to their introduction via the former Portuguese territory of Macau. Recipes galore exist on the Internet. So Portugal may have missed the boat on that one.

The second rather more serious commodity story this week was about gold. The Gazette in Montreal revealed interesting details of a project by the Canadian company, Colt Resources Inc., which believes it has found a future high-grade gold mine near Lisbon.

People have been digging for gold in Portugal at least since Roman times, but it is the timing of the latest project that is interesting. The CEO of Colt Resources, Nikolas Perreault, said he was drawn to Portugal and its underdeveloped mineral resource sector by a well-known Portuguese geologist in 2006.

“Later, after a three-year negotiating marathon, we bought the 30-kilometre-long Boa Fé-Montemor gold corridor containing several potential producers from the liquidator of a bankrupt Australian exploration firm,” Perreault said.

Colt bought 30 years of historical data when it finally got its hands on Boa Fé-Montemor, 95 kilometres east of Lisbon, in 2010. “That would have cost us more than $20 million and several years’ work to replicate, and it has speeded up exploration,” Perreault said.

The Rio Tinto Group had worked some of the properties from 1991 to 1995, finally walking away because of low gold prices. Others looked them over until the Australians came and then were hit by the 2008 global financial crisis. But no one had drilled below 100 metres.

 Colt is beefing up its drilling programs to improve productivity and test the deeper levels. Mine and plant studies are under way and an updated resource estimate is expected early in 2013 along with feasibility studies - “but we believe we have a world-class project,” Perreault said.

He added: “Portugal’s new government accepts that mining can help it expand revenues and reduce the public debt burden. They are pro-business and will keep corporate tax rates and mining royalties low. Their infrastructure is first-rate … a key cost factor for mining projects. ”

It will be ironic if Portugal turns full circle  and becomes a major exporter of gold having started the gold rush from the Algarve down the West African coast under Henry the Navigator in the 15th century, and imported shiploads of the stuff from Brazil to enrich palaces and cathedrals in the 18th.

Maternal instincts can be maddening!

Unfortunately, the height of the summer holiday season coincides with the peak period for mosquitoes in this part of the world.

If you find yourself lying in bed wide awake one night listening to a buzzing sound, you may like to ponder the following.

The troublemakers are all females. Only female mosquitoes bite. They suck blood. The males feed only on plant nectar. They have no interest in blood.

The bloodsuckers prefer some people to others. It depends on how sweet smelling your sweat is. Victims are attacked with a skin-piercing proboscis (if you will forgive the technical term). Ingested blood provides protein for the mosquito’s eggs.

The trouble is that during this piercing proboscis procedure, mosquitoes are liable to pass on diseases such as malaria, yellow fever, filariasis and dengue.

While males are harmless, female mosquitoes are the most dangerous creatures on the planet. Each year they infect around 700 million people, as well as many other animals, some of them fatally.

But don’t let any of this unduly worry you as you lie awake at night listening to a buzzing sound. Of the 3,500 or so species of mosquitoes in the world, none of those found in Portugal are lethal or even dangerous. 

Malaria was present in Portugal until the 1950s but it was then eradicated. Resurgence, in tandem with global warming, is possible but the likelihood of this anytime soon is considered low. For now at least, mosquitoes in Portugal are just a bloody nuisance.

You can curse them, but you also have to admire them. For sheer determination, persistence and efficiency they have no equal. Despite the serried ranks of human fortifications in the shape of window screens, hanging nets, electric plug-in devices, insecticide coils, aerosol sprays and repellent creams, female mozzies carry on doing what they do best.

They have had plenty of practice. The fossil record shows that mozzies have been around for at least 50 million years. If we were to stretch that a little bit, we see that they may have cohabited with the dinosaurs. Could it be that the humble mosquito was responsible for the demise of the dinosaurs? Just another thought as you are lying awake.

          No mozzies have yet been found on Mars but they certainly feel totally at home here on earth, especially just after the sun goes down on warm starry evenings.

As you are enjoying a gin and tonic or a glass of wine on the terrace, the maternal mozzies are out and about in search of blood while their mates are innocently sipping fruit juice. What a life, eh!

Water - and hope - back at Salgados

Lagoa dos Salgados is almost full of water again. Masses of birds are back. There is even a glimmer of hope that the authorities are going to take care of this important wetland area at long last.

Much of the lagoon was reduced to a dried-up expanse of cracked mud before the end of the nesting season. It started to fill again only two weeks ago. It is not up to optimum level yet, but it is getting there.

More than ever because of the lack of winter and spring rainfall, the lagoon is dependent on input from the local sewage treatment plant. This has recently increased, probably because of an upsurge in tourists now that we are into the peak season.

The lagoon shares the supply from the treatment plant with the neighbouring Salgados golf course. But as yet there is no proper metering equipment, according to the Portuguese bird society, SPEA.

Allegations that the golf course was taking more than its fair share, or even illegally pumping water from the lagoon, were flatly denied by the golf course director.

It is believed that the regional hydrographical authority in the Algarve (ARH) has now applied to the ministry of the environment in Lisbon for funds, (said to be €1 million) to install a water level control system.

The idea is to keep the lagoon level constant– neither too low as in June this year, nor too high and thus flooding parts of the Salgados golf course or even polluting the nearby beaches as in August 2008. 

Such control was agreed in principle in 2008 after years of negotiations between government agencies, municipal authorities, developers and environmental bodies - but it was never implemented because no one was able or willing to cough up the money.

Hopes of proper management of the lagoon should not be raised too high. Added to the history of governmental indifference and ineptness, we now have a deepening economic crisis.

Lagoa dos Salgados badly needs both proper management and protection whether or not the highly controversial new tourist development planned for the Armação de Pera side ever gets underway.

Incidentally, it is difficult to envisage any new tourist development being built, let alone prospering, when one walks around the bankrupt existing one - the sprawling CS Herdade dos Salgados on the Albufeira side of the lagoon.

It comprises a newly built hotel and block after block after block of holiday apartments – all standing eerily empty and abandoned amid a forest of withering palm trees and gigantic weeds. What a depressing monument to the shambolic times in which we live. 

Unique system to find missing children launched in Portrugal

 An innovative Anglo-Portuguese scheme to strengthen child safety and rapidly trace children who get lost or go missing has just been launched. Already it is has attracted considerable interest among parents, municipal authorities and large companies.

Based on Android smartphone and Apple iPhone technology, the scheme has been rolled out in Portugal with a view to expanding it throughout Europe and beyond.

The system is called KiSH – Kids in Safe Hands. It has been devised by an English computer expert, Steve Jones, in conjunction with the Portuguese association for missing children (APCD) and with the co-operation of the Portuguese judicial police.

Mr Jones believes the KiSH system is better than anything similar operating in the UK . He says he chose to launch in Portugal partly because of the legacy of the Madeleine McCann case, which has unfairly tainted the country’s child safety image and damaged tourism.

He is working in close association with Dr Patricia de Sousa Cipriano, a dynamic young Portuguese lawyer, mother of two and founder- president of the APCD.  Margarida Durão Barroso, wife of the president of the European Commission, is vice president of the association.

KiSH works by parents downloading an ‘app’ that allows them to enter a photograph and a description of each of their children. This data is automatically coded and registered digitally at KiSH’s global control centre based in the UK.

If a child goes missing, in whatever circumstances – from simply getting lost in a crowd to running away from home or being abducted - a parent can alert the control centre with the press of a button.

Details of the child, including a photograph, are then immediately relayed from the database control centre to security staff at the appropriate location in Portugal.

In extreme cases, such as criminal abductions, the APCD and the   judicial police may stop publication of photographs or information if displaying them publicly is deemed potentially dangerous.

Public and private venues, including shopping malls, sports stadiums and leisure facilities, are being invited to link into the system.

The Lisbon-based Benfica football club has been among the first to join. The international Auchan Group has agreed to bring the more than 40 hypermarket stores it owns in Portugal - the Jumbo and Pão de Açúcar chains - into the project. The system is expected to be introduced to lifeguards on many beaches in the Algarve and elsewhere in Portugal this summer.

Speed is of the essence in the system. If a missing child is not quickly  found by parents or  local security staff, the police in the area will be informed via the APCD.

Steve Jones emphasised that photographs of children would be held only in parents’ phones. Images would be stored in the database purely in code form and only dispensed to security agents if and when parents raise an alarm. Under no circumstances will images be issued to unauthorised personnel.

“Control will always remains in the parents’ hands,” said Mr Jones.

There are more than one and three-quarter million children aged 14 or under in Portugal. The number soars when visitors arrive on holiday.

Even though Portugal is generally a safe country for children, many go missing each year, as in most other countries.  

In addition to reuniting missing children with their distraught parents, the KiSH system will help establish meaningful statistics. It will tabulate not only the numbers of children going missing and why, but also the most vulnerable times and places.

The public authorities thus will have better information on which to base policies for child safety in Portugal.

Parents can join the system by buying an iPhone app from the internet Apple store. The Android smartphone version will soon be available from the Google play website.

The annual fee for parents is €6.99, regardless of the number of children parents are registering.

For more information, please email: lenport@gmail.com

Women much more at risk than men

Data just released by Gallup suggests that almost half the women in Portugal do not feel safe walking alone at night even in the vicinity of their homes.

Fewer than a quarter of men in Portugal feel unsafe in similar circumstances. Portugal thus has one of the highest gender gaps in the world in this regard.

The question posed by Gallup’s polsters: “In the city or area where you live, do you feel safe walking  alone at night or not?”

In New Zealand, only 50% of women said yes, compared to 85% of men. The gap: 35%

In the United States, 62% of women felt safe against 89% of men, showing a gap of  27%.

In Portugal the figures of 51% for women and 76% for men revealed a gap of 25% - on a par with Ireland, but worse than in the Yemen, Estonia or Slovakia.

New Zealand topped the gender gap; Portugal was equal 12^th.

Worldwide, including many poor and less-developed countries, the  average figures were 62% for women and 72% for men.

Concluded Gallup: “There were double-digit gender gaps in 84 of the 143 countries studied, with broad gender disparities most common among high-income and upper middle-income countries. The implication is that as countries develop socially and economically, expectations of physical security become the norm for all citizens - but in many cases women are less likely than men to feel those expectations are being met.”