You might have wondered why no blogs recently. The main reason has been sickness aboard Javelin. We have all succumbed to diarrhoea and sickness. Hopefully it has now gone through us all! In the meantime, the story of the hatch continues. The companion way hatch was broken in June and a couple of repairs made with epoxy which is still holding ok. I tracked down a replacement hatch in Sweden and was originally going to have it sent to Lagos in Portugal but the Sw...

We have been in Gib four days, due to a combination of bad weather and crew sickness, both Sue and Dave have stomach problems. We plan to set off tomorrow for the Costa del Sol now both sickness and weather have improved. Phryne (pictured) moored up in the marina yesterday and the crew all threatened to jump ship until I pointed out that with a diesel tank of 45,000 litres it would cost £50,000 to fill her up! Gib is a strange mixture of good old blighty and ...

Barbete is 35 miles east of Gibraltar and the last place a yacht can stay before Gibraltar. Mostly the winds are from the west in the straits of Gibraltar, however a strong easterly wind was forecast called a Levanter. To try and beat this and get a favourable tide, despite 25knot winds being forecast, we set off at 7:30 am. Initially, there was no wind, then for 30 minutes we had 10 knots from the north west ie behind us so we sailed, then it switched to the Eas...