Last stop in mainland Europe

The journey to Sines was fine - the compulsory lobster pots all over and light winds with several pods of dolphins to smile at. Also our first flying fish of the trip followed by said dolphins.

Sines is great - a really nice Portuguese town, friendly marina and helpful people. Rui, who is an electronics expert who has a boat here and works at the hospital, came over in his lunch hour and spent 2 hours fixing the AIS connections and then returned in the evening to complete the job. He would not accept payment and he was really good company too. Hence our last bottle of good malt whisky went to a good cause and we were happy to part with it.

Scruffbag fixed the loose wire in the alternator so that it can recharge the domestic battery and a new ariel from UK arrived so we now have main GPS working too.

We returned to Porto Covo, where we spent a happy summer 33 years ago and found that the fishing village had become a tourist town mainly catering foe surfers and camper vans as well as lots of Portuguese tourists. It was very tasteful and retained a lot of its character. We found our beach unchanged and we spent a happy afternoon jumping the Atlantic breakers as we did when we were younger and slimmer.Happy memories and thoughts of a close friend who died a few weeks after we left.

Tomorrow we are off to Porto Santo - a 500 mile sail. $ other boats leave Sines at the same time headed for the same place so no doubt we will all meet again. Our Hungarian friend left today - they live on Lanzarote and have given us lots of information about their island and its anchorages.We look forward to warmer seasas they think I am crazy for swimming here/