Here you go Richard!

As you know by now – we like a challenge. New Year’s Eve saw us squishing 14 people into CAPE (it was too cold to sit outside) for nibbles, chilli con carne, rice, garlic bread and puds – and most of them had a seat. Those who didn’t have a real seat balanced their chilli and drink on the companionway steps and chart table. This brought a whole new meaning to playing Sardines! The unfortunate squishees were Mike and Mandie (TENGY), Geoff and Lynne (DRY WHITE), Derek and Susan (DAWN RANGER), Nicholas, Valerie, Aline and Mael (RAPA NUI). Plus, of course, our tribe. After dinner we played Who’s in the bag and drank some more to ward off the cold of the impending sortie outside to watch the fireworks and see in the New Year.

Record-winning fireworks

Well, for the first time ever, CAPE was in the right place at the right time – in pole position for the biggest fireworks display the world has ever seen. No, really – it’s going to be in the Guinness Book of World Records – 8.5 tonnes of pyrotechnic whizzes, flashes and bangs set off in sequence over 6 km to 20 minutes of music. We assume the music went ahead; we couldn’t hear anything over the whizzes and bangs!!

Fireworks on Ferrogudo beach.

Oh, I love the smell of cordite…

Derek and Sue.

Mike and Geoff.

Mandie, Lynne and David.

New Year’s Day

New Year’s Day saw everybody up bright and early for breakfast in the Tivoli Arade Hotel next door to the marina. A 5-course, eat-as-much-as-you-can breakfast was just what we all needed. I dread to think how many pounds (sorry kilos) of bacon, scrambled eggs, croissants and Danish pastries were consumed, and how much freshly squeezed orange juice and coffee it took to wash it all down.

It was then back to CAPE to clear up from the night before, a pretty gruesome task which was completed much more quickly than I expected by CAPE’s galley slaves, only to be ruined when I managed to drop half of a rather large, fresh cream gateau all over our unusually clean cabin sole. I even remembered to take a photo of the devastation for the blog, but for some reason it’s gone adrift! Still at least the floor was clean when Beth and Bryn insisted on eating the cake and cream off it!

A week of early nights and no alcohol

Mike, Mandie, Geoff and Lynne had arrived on New Year’s Eve. And unlike Geoff and Lynne who are here for a month, Mike and Mandie only had a week, so we had a hectic schedule of:

·        drinks, nibbles, and very competitive Who’s in the bag and variations thereof

·        belly boarding

·        dinners in (curry on DRY WHITE)

·        and out (Brazilian BBQ – I have never seen so much meat…) (David is still trying to think of something suitably rude to put in the blog at this point)

·        blue-cheese burgers and chilli pork burgers

·        a Pirates-of-the-Caribbean-3 night (complete with long pig and copious quantities of dodgy rum)

·        a scramble in the drizzle through mud, vegetation, bits of ‘nature’ that the children remembered from our last nature walk, along landslipped paths alongside steep sea cliffs and over hotel fences – finally making it to Alvor for lunch

·        an early celebration of Mandie’s birthday.

Lunch in Alvor. What you can’t see in the photo is that we are all plastered in yellow mud from the knees down!

Mandie making her birthday wish…

We now know why you shouldn’t freeze squirty cream! This one developed a life of its own and was eventually banished to the pontoon before it was sick over everyone!

We had a great week, but have all since had to have a week of early nights and no alcohol to get over it!

Looking back on 2007 and forward to 2008

In true journalistic style, January (named after the Roman god Janus, who had two heads – one facing forwards and the other facing backwards) has prompted us to take stock of how far we have got on our very slow circumnavigation. Since leaving the UK on 24 April 2007, we have:

·        visited 3 countries – Ireland, Spain and Portugal

·        explored 27 ports, marinas and anchorages

·        spent 306 hours 58 minutes at sea

·        sailed or motored 1543 miles

·        done all of this at an average speed of 5.0 knots.

Where next, I hear you all cry! Well, the plan is to actually get to the Med in 2008…

Work, school and play

In between the partying, our daily routine still consists of working (writing for me, boat maintenance for David), school for the kids, surfing, and belly boarding. Oh, and scooting – the children bought scooters with their Christmas money, and scoot at every opportunity.

PS: We are still missing two mince pies from Christmas. We had a box of six and can only account for eating four of them. They must be lurking somewhere at the back of one of the lockers… either rotting or breeding!

PPS: I have two New Year resolutions. One is to stop calling people by their boat names, as they have real names and David says I must use these instead. The second is not to overuse and misuse ellipses (…) in this blog… Looks like I’ve blown those already!