At last we got to leave Gibraltar after a week on the rock. It felt like being at home, shopping at Morrisons and English being the language. In preparation for leaving turned on our ships radio to hear" this is British warship calling Spanish fishing vessel on our bow, you are in British territorial waters please make your intentions clear". No reply was received so a more stringent call was made and again no reply. This was followed up with " this is British w...

Yesterday was a long down wind sail from Mazagon to Rota on the Cadiz bay. Today the wind had gone and we motored for all but the last 30 minutes to Barbete passing Cape Trafalgar, the site of Britain's most famous naval victory. It was odd, a short swell on the beam and no wind made Javelin roll around all day and relaxing difficult. It was particularly bad at Trafalgar, where the shoals shortened the waves and it took many attempts to get the light house in t...

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 great meal last night, spoilt only by a bird who dropped so much guarno from a great height that it went through the table sun shade and landed on our food! Fortunately, we had finished eating.