Haley did a great job planning our passage, despite Stuart’s attempt at putting her into uncharted territory swiftly put right by Captain Bob! 

Last night was a taste of things to come when we experienced the Atlantic roll caused by a following wind.  You rock one way, rock the other building up, building up and then after a giant rock that tries to toss you out of bed you go back to a mini mini rock for the cycle to begin again.  Whatever position you sleep in you find yourself tensing and waiting for the build up to the big one and being thrown across the bed.  We didn’t sleep much last night needless to say.

The groovy cruising chute yesterday wasn’t enough to keep the boys happy and so this morning they put up the spinnaker which proved to be just as loud and garish, orange being the predominant colour. No wonder indeed that the dolphins are nowhere to be seen, just a lot more lobster pots and the endless blighting wind farms that cover every hill. Oh, and we saw another yacht!  The second at sea since our journey began.

After a serene sail under the spinnaker, under blue skies and going a steady 6 knots we arrived at our next destination, Sines (pronounced Zinch) much too early for dinner.  Bob took the opportunity to do a whole snagging list worth of jobs including starting the generator, which just to be contrary started first time, and swapping over the wiring of the anchor light and the tricolour so that we actually had the right lights on (how could Berthon have got that wrong!)  We are trying to imagine what the big boys out there must have made of a wee yacht so called “anchored” in 500m  deep waters.

Sines is not entirely inspiring.  Someone has tried very hard to make something of it, planting trees, modern but attractive seafront, but it has then fallen back into disrepair with layers of graffiti.  The saving grace has been the castle that they are renovating, the sky full of shrieking swifts and the friendly Portuguese, who once again are very limited in  the English speaking department resulting in Haley choosing totally randomly from the menu this evening.  She ended up with pork, nay half a pig.  Dinner was absolutely delicious but was somewhat late as Stuart decided to take us on a short cut to the main part of town which involved climbing a mountain, walking past  the delights of a building sight and ending up at the dodgy end of town after what seemed forever.  Another foray into uncharted territory!

Tomorrow we leave the sanctuary of tenderly hugging the coast to launch ourselves across the ocean proper. Next stop will be Porto Santo, Madeira so we expect to be at sea for four days.