Woke up at 5am to hear the sound of rain on the boat! This was not in the script. The rain increased steadily until 10 o'clock when we picked up Dave from the airport. It then stopped and we put Dave to work helping with boat maintenance. The steering cables needed tightening which was a simple matter of releasing a locking but and then tightening the other nut. This is required for both cables. However the cables can only be accessed by climbing into the back l...

After the long day yesterday we were up feeling slightly tired and headed off to the boat yard to be asked "are we ready to launch". Since the propeller was not on the answer was no. Frantic work ensued for the next 3 hours to take off oat cover, apply anodes and fit propellers. We successfully made it back in the water early afternoon and resumed near our old berth. The rest of the day involved shopping and boat maintenance in lovely sunshine. We collapsed into ...

It felt like we were not destined to arrive. The original flight was cancelled by Easyjet because of the French Air traffic controllers. We rebooked on BA for a later flight in the day. On boarding, we were informed our take off slot was in 2 hours time. We sat in a corner of the air field waiting in case an earlier slot came up. It did not and we arrived in Malaga at 9:40pm to find one emigration office on duty and a forty five minute wait. The baggage carouse...

One small step for John, one large headache for Javelin! As you may recall 2.5 months ago whilst helping put away the main sail, John put all of his weight on the companion way hatch and there was a sickening cracking sound followed by the hatch cracking along its length for half a metre. This was the beginning of a saga to test the patient of a saint and the cheque book of an oligarch. Initially, Peter B and I epoxy glued the hatch back together and retired f...

We are now looking at marinas in a different light as possible long term resting place for the winter. Jessica, the receptionist here was very friendly and quoted an excellent long term rate, about 30% of the price in Southampton. The sea is getting hotter as we go north and is now very warm so daily swimming is a pleasure even when the beaches are crowded.