Mir, Mandy & Me

Wow!! I see why there are so many boats in the Mediterranean, the sailing is really great, no tides, flat seas, zillions of safe anchorages and the anchoring is much more relaxing as we don't have to worry about the tide turning every 6 hours and hoping the anchor resets itself. Saying that we got a bit of a battering leaving on our overnighter from Gibraltar. Being used to 4 metre swells in Biscay and the Portuguese Atlantic coast I ignored the wave height of 1 metre, thinking it was insignificant. What I missed was the wavelength. The 4 metre swells have a wavelength in the order of 10 seconds. So the boat fits between the waves. The 1 metre waves had a wavelength in the order of 1 second, much shorter than the boat. With wind of 25 knots there was some banging on the hull I'd never heard before and so we had an uncomfortable and noisy night. I think I say this at least once a day. Every day is a school day when sailing.  But the next day the sun came out and the sea flattene...

 As soon as we arrived Mandy put the Christmas decorations up. A few days after that Mandy went home to work and Dave and Andy came for a visit. All three of them agreed that Gibraltar airport is the best airport in the world. No waiting in long queues, crazy security checks and you can walk across the runway.  Dave brought whisky We did the tour of the rock, amazing views, big gun emplacements, monkeys, caves, tunnels, bridges. Really interesting, highly recommended. We walked around for 6 hours, the next day I could hardly move as my calves were so sore with walking up and down inclines. A lot of history for such a small place. Andy got attacked by a monkey, well belted on the head, as it thought he was chasing it's baby. (He wasn't by the way).  The monkeys are really cute until you see their bums. This is our marina Runway and Spanish marina This gun could shoot across the straits to Morocco. Then, again, they were gone. It's really sad when people leave. But a good s...

Shil and Helen came for a visit. Would you believe  I've been friends with Shil for nearly 60 years.  We stayed at the marina in the lovely Portuguese town of Olhão (oh-lyo) which is 15 minutes from Faro airport.  Had a few lovely meals and went out on anchor for the night to show them the beautiful sunset. They took to the sailing pretty well. We had no luck fishing for our dinner. I think we need some advice. Then they were gone :-( I think they'll be back as Helen loved the bobbing of the boat and slept like a baby.  After Mandy did her 3 days work we left the cool anchorage of Culatra and did an overnighter to Bonanza  in Spain. Goodbye Portugal. The nights are long at this time of year, 14 hours of darkness but there was a full moon so we could see the zillions of fishing boats playing Galaxians with us at 3 o'clock in the morning. We arrived in the river Guadalquivir and parked at an anchorage just inside the river entrance to shelter from the co...