2004 Portsmouth, England to Portimao, Portugal

We had a shaky start to our adventure with strong winds preventing us crossing the English Channel on our first attempt. Instead of making Cherbourg we made Weymouth and spent 5 days waiting for the winds to die down and finally crossing in calm conditions to Guernsey. The wind picked up again and delayed our move onto France where we were due to meet some friends. They called one night and told us that if we didn’t get there the next day they were going home. So our decision was made, and to this day I swear it was one of our worse sailing conditions that we went out in. But we made it to the north Brittany coast in just about one piece, opening the champagne before even taking off our foul weather gear.

The Brittany coast is a beautiful cruising ground and if possibly becomes more so to the south. It puts your sailing skills and knowledge to the test with the strong and large tides which need working out before moving onto the next harbour/anchorage.

We had friends joining us in La Rochelle to cross the Bay of Biscay, our insurance company insisted that there we 3 adults on board and so we went for safety and had 4. After windy weather we actually motored most of the trip with only 8 hours of sailing at the start. Not that it bothered P, she was just glad to get it over and done with and can say she has done the Bay of Biscay.

We did suffer a leaking stern gland at the end of the crossing and this required us to lift our in Sada, Northern Spain to replace it. We waited until our friends had left so as not to disrupt their holiday. Once repairs had been carried out we continued onward into the Spanish Ria’s another beautiful cruising area where we began to meet the same boats that were going the same way as Crazydream and thus some good friendships began.

The trade winds that are meant to carry you down the Portuguese coast never happened that year, or many other years it seems, and so we motored many long trips down that coast made more bearable in the company of other boats. And of course it wasn’t a race! There were many stops in different harbours to rest after the 10 hour days or to wait for the right weather which enabled friendship to grow more with far too much drinking and eating occurring but we managed to do the sight seeing bits too. Porto and Lisbon to name a couple of places visited.

Much earlier than we thought we would, we stopped in Portimao and decided to spend the winter there. With many other cruisers making it their winter stop it soon had a good community feeling. We visited the UK over the Christmas and New Year period seeing our parents and as many friends as we could.

It was always a contingency plan that we would have the money to get home if one of the parents became ill. Unfortunately we had to make a further trip back in the March as P’s father became very unwell and subsequently died but we made it back in time to see him and say the things you want to.

When we returned to the boat it was the start of the next season cruise and where would we head for