First swim of the trip was in Portugal, first snorkel was in Maderia, I am getting used to this way of life!

Technology one Sharon Nil

Well I spent ages bringing you up to date while we were in Madeira, connection difficulties had been overcome and I manage quite a picture gallery! Now here at my next point I see it had not been published and I just hit a key which has deleted the entire section, it did ask if I was sure I wanted to make the changes and I was very confident as I said yes!

Anyway here I go again, good connection, no balancing at the top of the saloon stairs or sitting at the end of the fishing pier, we have all the mod cons in Lanzarote.

To get here we continued a pleasant sail down the coast of Portugal, rounding Cap St Vincent and entering the Algarve, where we had a couple of days in Lagos. Chris had his first 'proper' chandlers since leaving Cork, he is a very happy man! I was feeling quite good with the sailing seem to have beaten the seasickness and life was rosy, then we did the 455 mile trip from Lagos to Porto Santos north of Madeira, the first 16 hours were not good! Found it a bit depressing but dolphins on the trip and the island of Porto Santos and Madeira erased the bad memories! Madeira was quite exceptional, not at all what I thought it would be like, we took a couple of days to be tourists, thank you to Sean for the driving and Eamon for the dancing!

Tuesday 5th October we are moving on to the Canaries a 280 mile journey , we left Maderia late evening so I managed a nights sleep and woke without the dreaded sickness so maybe that is the answer. We arrived at La Graciosa on Thursday 7th October at 22.00 hrs, Canaries here we are!!

Pictures

Could this be the new home?? Requires work the brochure said! On the bank of the river next to the tasting houses of Porto! Chris just thinking of the work to be done.

To all of you who have asked, no there are no photo's of the Biscay crossing, I was too busy being sick, we have not yet encountered sea monsters but promise to keep you posted and no there may at some point be photo's of the haircut. Love from us both xx

Portugal

Well, finally, package arrived, weather fine and we managed to leave Spain behind and arrived in Leixoes, 10 miles from Porto on Saturday 11th September, in time for Fionna to join us on the Sunday (we had told her we would be in Lisbon, so she had an epic journey to find us). I celebrated my birthday on Monday exploring (and tasting)Porto. On Tuesday we moved South to Figueiro da Foz, (50 miles not a lot of wind), the plan is to leave here Thursday early for Peniche (60 miles), and then the weather looks favourable to head to Maderia Friday. A little behind schedule but whatever....

Friday 10th September

I didn't realise how difficult is was going to be to get internet connection, but her we are again.. Moved south by 140 miles and now in Baiona (still Spain) we are waiting for some papers to come from home..Royal Mail took extra money for 2 day delivery and then said that once passed to Spanish post they had no control but if we didn't have it by the end of September they would look into it for us (!) Well it has been traced and we are waiting for it here in Baiona, could be worse places. This coast is just fabulous, and the further south we go the more people we are meeting and the exchange of info is good, Chris is enjoying his ''networking". I am enjoying the weather and beginning to get into the life aboard, still getting seasick at the beginning of a journey but recovering quite quickly and Biscay is now a distant memory.

Hopefully the package will arrive and we are able to move tomorrow and get into Northern Portugal and begin the next leg.

I have a request for you all to send me an email as my address book has been compromised and I have no back up, we are on the same address as usual sulayacht....... . I look forward to hearing from you all. I will try to send pictures next time.

Hi Roseann you remember I didn't want the short haircut? well my Spanish isn't very good and I think the hairdresser was having a laugh!

Love to all xxx

Wednesday 1st September

We are still in La Coruna Marina having decided to take a few days to wait for mail from the UK, sort the boat, have a sail altered and just become tourists. Our new plan is to leave here on Friday/Saturday and head South. x As you see Chris is taking this tourist bit serious!