36:49.5N 028:18.7E

Thursday 6^th May

Pretty hectic day despite all the preparations there were still loads of little things to do as well loads of goodbyes. Some boats we will be meeting up with either in the Canaries or even the Caribbean but mostly they are staying in the Med for another year.

Sarah went up the mast to check all the rigging connections which went fine, but then when she offered to help some New Zealand friends (Bruce fell and broke his elbow at the airport on the way here last week) they asked her to check their rigging as well. This meant that I had to winch her up their mast using a manual winch!

Trevor and Lesley moved their stuff on in the morning and were given the full tour and detailed safety briefing by us.

No real idea where all the time went, but as our transit papers were not going to be ready until 5.30pm we fortunately had all day to get ready. Minor panic in the afternoon when Outlook crashed on my computer and a fraught hour passed before I redeemed the situation.

Manni and Bin our Aussie friends from last season arrived some 24 hours after they were due here which sadly meant that we did not get to meet up and spend any time with them before we left.

Finally got our transit papers around 5.45pm and our release papers from the marina at 6.00pm and then it was just a case of waiting for the marineros to turn up and finally at 7.00pm we slipped our lines and as we edged our way out of our berth and down the trots, horns sounded and people waved us farewell. Some of this was directed of course at Trevor and Lesley who having spent the winter here on their own boat are something of local celebrities!

We reached our destination just 5 minutes later which is the idyllic bay just across the way from the marina! The important part was that we dropped the anchor here, close to Souris Rose and we were now no longer attached to a pontoon. As soon as we had put everything away and secured the boat, Jill from Souris Rose came over in their tender and picked us all up and took us over to their boat for extended drinks and another big farewell as we will not be seeing them again for a very long time.

Lovely clear and still night and the very perfect start to our 7,000 miles,  12 month odyssey.