The wind had been forecast to increase to 30 knots overnight and stay high until lunch time. We had originally planned to leave at 8am before we were stuck on the bottom in the marina. I decided to delay our start because leaving on a falling tide with the possibility of running aground in a force 6 did not feel a good risk to take. We duly left at 1:30pm and changed our plans to sail to Mozagon. The sailing was great with a broad reach all the way and average sp...

An early start for Sue and me this morning. We needed to be entering the river 48 miles away by 4pm. This was a typical day for the Algarve, no wind to start with and so motoring, then the wind increased at lunch time and carries on increasing all afternoon. The marina us shallow and we have a big spring tide so will sit on the bottom tonight before another early start tomorrow.

A lost and found day today, this morning received text message from Alex to say she had lost her passport and was turning the house upside down trying to find it. Subsequent texts confirmed she was unsuccessful and so could not get her flight! We are disappointed because we were looking forward to sailing with Alex for a week but sad for Alex who has a complicated itinerary for the next 3 months outside of the UK which will be now subject to the vagaries of the ...

Set off from Lagos with our normal northerly wind and as soon as we out the sails up it switched to southerly and then to westerly. Stopped in Portimao to drop off Jim who is taking the car Sue hired back to the airport. Jim has been aboard for 3 weeks and I will miss his excellent company and sailing support. Having dropped Jim off we put the sails up and headed east to Albuferia. Initially we had 14 knots from the west but that soon built up to 20 Knots and I ...

Sue and Emma joined us and we went to Sue's favourite restaurant in the Algarve from the dinghy for lunch and afterwards decided to sail west again to Lagos. This is 8 miles west and we were close hauled with 20 knots of wind as we got closer the wind kept rising eventually we were in a near gale with the wind over 30 knots, not quite the leisurely sail I planned!