So it took me a couple of days, okay I admit weeks, to decide how to start again. I still have no clue, since last time I posted quite a bit happened and changed.

Well, let’s just jump in at the deep end:

We spend some quite days at Portimão. Having a reunion with our old boat Sophia and her new owner Jörg, who sailed her across the Biscaya with Ru a couple of years ago.

Henri couldn’t believe we all fitted on it. I still can’t believe we all survived it without killing each other. No matter what she is still is a beauty, and we had great trips with her.

We also picked up our boat neighbour from Oeiras, who wanted to join us on our way back. And that’s what we are currently doing.

This morning we set sail to Arrifana, the first port coming from the Algarve at the Atlantic coast. Light wind, blue skies, some dolphins, happy crew. Anything more you could ask for, I guess not.

And than the wind freshened up, instead a child friendly 4 Beaufort, it went up to a very strong and Lenaunfriendly 7 Beaufort, with quite a few waves. So we decided to stop way earlier at the bay of Baleeira. By the books it sounded like quite a picturesque bay, with some sort of harbour. It turned out to be a selection of well used fisherboats.

We weren’t to fussed, since it was our home for only one night, so who cared. Anchor dropped, a strong tug, we seemed to be safe, so we thought.

The wind continued to blow rather strong, so Walid and Ru decided to take some pressure of the anchor. Unfortunately the carabiner they used for it strongly disagreed, actually so did their second construction. By than our anchor decided, he had enough and jumped for freedom. From his point of view understandable, but any sailor would agree, drifting is not a lot of fun, let alone wanted, especially with your anchor somewhere out there.

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Quickly we lifted the anchor and went for a second manoeuvre. We proudly announce we found a rock and called it Rachel. What sounds like a great achievement (come on, who wouldn’t enjoy anything called after themselves), was a rather scary thing. The sound and the jump everybody does is nothing enjoyable, and being unable to manoeuvre makes it even worse. All we could do is wait and hope.

Thankfully we only slightly hit rock with the keel, so no real damage was done, but it scared us enough to leave Baleeira and stay at the next bay, where we were not to hit a cliff if our anchor wandered off, but get closer to South America. There are worse places to drift to!

Well that’s it for today, a good night to everyone, and some for us, as I am very sure, everyone on this boat will be bright awake by the slightest unknown sound.