Update by bat phone

Quickie call tonight just to say all is well, but no wind as expected. They have motored as much as they could and are now having to save diesel for their arrival, so they are lolling around waiting for the wind. They have had whales and dolphins for company this afternoon, and hopefully the wind will pick up by Saturday morning and give them a bit of a push. At the moment the weather is giving some 5s and 6s in places, so they might get more of a push than they bargained for!

Next Stop Lanzarote

They set sail at about 2pm this afternoon, having done the shopping and checked the weather again. Not going to be alot of wind until Friday/Saturday so they are expecting to have the engine on a good bit to start with. But then it should be northerly again for the weekend which will be quite welcome I'm sure. Because of the lack of wind they expect the trip to take approx 7 days, its about 560 miles apparently. They could have stayed put and waited for the wind, but I think they were both anxious to be on the move again, especially with their deadlines approaching. Chris needs to get back for half term - and Pete needs to be there! 2 weeks and 5 days till we arrive out there, so time to get a wiggle on! (Not that I am counting or anything!)

Sines 01/10/07

We spent the first night at anchor in blissful conditions, but by Saturday evening the wind was quite fresh from the south, and although its sheltered from that direction the ground swell that came running into the harbour was quite something. We kept an anchor watch through the night and on Sunday morning, just before lunch, we shifted into the marina, as the waves were breaking much further from the shore now and quite close to our stern. The marina was not much better as boats were heaving around in there as well because of the surge. Anyway once alongside it meant we could relax and at least go out for a meal, which we duly did but it would seem that Sunday is a day of rest here as we struggled to find anywhere open. We did find somewhere in the end and had a lovely meal. the average here seems to be a starter and main plus a bottle of wine and a beer or coffee after for about 12 euros each, so less than a tenner in real money.
As we are alongside now we have taken the opportunity to get stocked up for the trip to the Canaries, this takes the dinghy ride out of the equation for now, but as soon as the swell dies away we may go back out to anchor as it is cheaper.

It rained quite hard through Saturday night into Sunday morning and was then showery all day, but now the sun is out again and it is really humid and hot. Good job I did the washing early on Saturday and got that chore out of the way, else we may have struggled to get it dry.
Sines is a lovely little town with narrow cobbled streets lots of little shops and bars/cafes/restaurants. Surprisingly all the industrial parts which look awful from the sea are out of sight from the town. Stocking the boat here has been a bit of a challenge though as there are only small convenience type stores in town, but there are very good butchers and also a market for fresh veg which is very useful. The main supermarket, at 6km away, is just a bit too far and I’ve yet to see a taxi or bus here at all.
That’s all for now folks got to get back to some relaxing.