Anyway we are back in adventure mode and heading towards Sotogrande where we will stop for a while to prepare for the passage south to Gran Canaria. 

We had a choice of either sailing direct to Soto which would take two or three nights at sea (depending on weather), or day sailing it, stopping at a selection of ports along the Spanish mainland. To do it in one go would require more crew for the night watches and ours seemed to be a bit thin on the ground, so we decided to go the long way round. 

There was also another Sunday storm forecast (more about Sunday storms later). We could leave our lovely safe haven at the west end of Mallorca and get to Ibiza on Friday the 1st and then across to the Spanish Mainland on Saturday the 2nd. However, we would need the shelter of a harbour once we reached Spain as it was forecast to blow hard. Booking a marina berth was quite a challenge with the first three that were in range all being full, but after a few failed on line attempts and several phone calls, we did eventually secure a berth at Marina Greenwich, aptly named as it lies very nearly on the Greenwich Meridian!

We booked three nights at Greenwich to ride out the storm and let the sea die down a bit. 

The storm arrived late and stayed longer than forecast, initially with wind from the east which was on our nose and then from the north which was on our port side pushing us hard on to the dock, we ended up with 11 fenders down our starboard side. 

through the night it rarely dropped below  25 knots, often holding steady above 30 and gusting up to 46 ! We did well to keep our flybridge cushions, at 04:30the bosun was “starfished” across them waiting for a lull to tighten the lashings. It was still blowing hard Monday morningbut eased through the day so we’re able to wash off the thick layer of orange dust that the storm had deposited all over poor old Moose. 

So here we are now out at sea on our way to Torrevieja. It’s relatively calm but still with a big rolling swell, we have 15 knots of wind behind and we are making good progress.