Finale

We had a great summer.  Thanks to all of you who took the time to dip into the blog, or otherwise offered support and reminded us of the normal world.  We were away 4 months and a bit, covered 3300 miles, and stopped in 82 ports, several of which we remember not at all.

Here are the way points in our chart plotter (we call him Aubrey).

We promised you the Cruise Awards:

- Most efficient service - the Raymarine organisation, who managed to replace our faulty plotter in Galicia within 3 days without delaying us by visiting in one port and supplying a new machine in the next.

- Most helpful harbour - Marina Greenwich on (0 deg longitude in Eastern Spain) who provided us with all normal assistance at reasonable prices, and also offered to drive us to the local-ish shops.

- Most chaotic harbour - Cudillero in Asturias, where the assisant harbourmaster tried to help us pick up a mooring, failed because the lines were too tangled,showed  us where to drop an anchor, which we couldn't recover because it was tangled in other lines, then  helped us dock alongside a pontoon which broke.  We declined his offer to dive for the lost anchor!

- Most mercenary harbour - San Jose, who provided an extremely uncomfortable berth exposed to heavy swell, charged twice what nearby marinas charged, and still wanted us to pay for the night we left after being storm-bound 5 days.

- Most determined visitor - our daughter Cathy, who joined us for the three windiest places of the cruise, but only got sea-sick twice.

- Most officious police force.  The GNR in Portugal.  It did get tiresome to return from the police station having completed multitudinous forms to find the police at the boat wanting documents and more forms completed.  And the fact that police and marina offices don't communicate, but do need the same data and copies of the same documents (I think that there are now several hundred photocopies of our passports in Portugal).  And the police launches which speed up to you as if to intercept, and then object to us not giving way.  They were never rude to us - just extraordinarily tedious!

- Most customer-focussed restaurant - the harbour cafe in Marina America in Cadiz.  They provided us with simple but excellent fish dinners, at what we thought were very reasonable prices.  They may have thought differently, siince having paid they then provided unlimitted quantities of brandies, liqueurs etc to us and Ian and Helena, Cathy and Marion.  A win-win!

- Most inviting marina water.  St Peter Port in Guernsey - ask Val!

And no - we don't know where or when we're going to go next!

We're back

That's it then.  No more wondering where to go tomorrow, worrying about the weather, trying to remember the code for the marina toilets...Funny places, houses.

Friday was Val's birthday, and we were on our way on a short hop from Trebuerden to Treguier, further East, when we realised that the wind was better for Guernsey than Treguier.  So we gritted our teeth (the grit seems to need replacing more frequently these days) and did a hard 50 miles to Guernsey.  What's more we got to St Peter Port in time to celebrate with a good meal and a drink or two.  We had to moor outside the marina, so we took the inflatable dinghy ashore. We were still celebrating when, on getting back into the dinghy, Val lost her balance momentarily...  She was able to clamber back into the dinghy with good grace, and nothing lost but a sliver of dignity.  Her phone however is not happy!

And from Guernsey to Alderney, and on Sunday a good, very fast sail from Alderney to Lymington, reaching in up to force 7 at a steady 7+ knots.  Tiring, but very satisfying!  And we got the boat into Birdham, where we will probably keep her, today.  Val's brother Alan, who has kindly been house and mother-sitting met us there.

For those of you (if any!) who are still following, all is not yet complete.  There will be a final blog entry, including some reflections and an awards list from the cruise.  Watch this space!

Rockin' on

We've done the last corner now, and are homeward bound.  We even caught a snippet of Falmouth Coastguard on the radio.  With Cathy and Ian we stopped at a couple of very pleasant Breton towns, and had some excellent seafood (and we even caught a mackerel, which made a dainty lunch for four).  It's an impressively rocky place this end of Brittany (Finisterre it's called, which I always confuse with the cape in Spain).  And they have some impressive lighthouses to go with them

This one, on Isle de Vierge, claims to be the highest in the world, at 77 meters.

We are now peacefully anchored in the Morlaix river - well anchored anyway, since the wind is howling round us.  It's the wind that has been the problem the last few days; we've had continuous strong Easterlies, with more forecast to come.  And where to we want to go, now we're round the corner?  East!  So it's slow, and quite hard going.  We've been up at dawn the last two mornings to get some help from the tides, but even then, trying to head directly into strong winds gets tiring. Or maybe we just get tired.

By the way, Steve asked what a backstay tensioner cleavis pin was.  Really!  For the really ignorant amongst you, its the horizontal pin towards the bottom of the picture.