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!