Alcoutim Tuesday

Thursdays Child
Robin & Joanna Minchin
Tue 24 Mar 2015 21:51
37:28.056N
007:28.092W

Alcoutim/Sanlucar

We are both a bit bleary eyed today after a very noisy night with gusts up to 30 knots making Thursday's Child 'sail' around her anchor; the grinding of the chain against the rocks beneath the boat made horrible noises from 2am onwards when the tide turned against the wind. There were about six boats all 'sailing' around their anchors which was quite alarming in the dark as we sat doing 'anchor watch' in the early hours.
It is much quieter now that the gale has passed much to everyone's relief.

We're delighted to confirm Plan D! Many thanks to Kara in Holland for reading our plea for a 'safe pair of hands' and we now have Fred joining us next month to help Hans and Jojo sail from Lagos to St Malo, setting sail around 25th April. Bol and the children will fly back to the Isle of Wight whilst we sail north, then rejoin Thursday's Child in St Malo for the remaining 6-8 weeks of our very special year afloat. We're very relieved to have it sorted and thank you to the many folks to offered assistance and to the RSYC and YSC for helping spread the word.

There is a lot of marquee building going on shoreside in anticipation of Easter weekend, we haven't established exactly what is going on, but it sounds like it will be an interesting few days to be here. Once Easter is over we will head back to Faro for a few days, then Portimao, before meeting Hans and Fred in Lagos. Somewhere in that time we will haul TC out and pressure wash her off so we are squeaky clean and as fast as possible for our sail north.

Therefore just over four weeks left in this beautiful part of the world.