Away at last

Anastasia
Phil May and Andrea Twigg
Wed 12 Oct 2011 02:41
We finally set off at 9:30 yesterday morning.  Our current position is 41:11.50N 4:25.73E, which is about 100 miles south east of Canet en Roussillon.  The delay means we have no time to take a leisurely cruise down the Spanish coast and so the plan is to head down to Mallorca, spend the day at Palma on the 13th (Andrea's birthday) and then pick up an easterly wind that should develop on Friday, to take us on to Gibraltar. 
The reason we are heading south east at the moment is that the "grib" files that give us wind information said that there would be very little wind if we went directly southwest to Mallorca and so we are doing a dogleg to keep in the good wind.  So far it is working out well, we have been averaging about 9 miles an hour for the past few hours.  In the morning we will pull down the spinnaker, put up the mainsail and head east to cut across above Menorca.