Isabelle is eight in Portugal
Thursdays Child
Robin & Joanna Minchin
Tue 14 Oct 2014 22:30
008:42.325W
The day started with great excitement as it was Isabelle's birthday today. We had pancakes with maple syrup or nutella for breakfast followed by present opening and preparations for a party. Fortunately enough pancake mixture to have them at lunch as well for it is surely impossible to get sick of pancakes!
Our new friends from two boats joined us to celebrate this afternoon so there were ten of us squeezed into TC's saloon to share cake and scones, drink lots of cups of tea and finish with Pass the Parcel. Thank you for lovely messages and then skype calls including her buddy Jessica who had made a cake for her to 'blow out' via skype. Wonderful! She felt thoroughly cared for and pampered. Along with the fishing rod and pen knife, she qualified to receive the Spanish/English dictionary and the new Portuguese/English dictionary in the hope that she'll master these languages in time, or at least become familiar.
For the entire night, and on into today the wind has been screaming in the rigging. After a monumental thunderstorm last night we found six inches of rain in the dinghy this morning. TC is now surging back and forth on her mooring lines and swells reach us deep in the harbour here to make the boat sway from side to side. At least another six days of this, and then another low following close on this ones heels which currently reads 950mb mid-Atlantic. Several boats tried to leave today, picking a quiet 12hr window to escape, but sadly had to turn back reporting 4m waves.
We're happy to be tied up here, even if it is noisy and squeaky, it is at least safe, and sociable.
