What a start to the day as we left Portimao behind and headed out to sea. I was busy putting the fenders and ropes away when I heard Bruce mention that we may have a problem with the chart plotter in that he couldn't set the 'follow route' option. (The follow route option on the chart plotter does exactly that, following several pre-defined waypoints that make up a route, which we inserted the previous evening. Once set, all we have to do is confirm by pressing an acknowledgement button as and when each waypoint is reached - easy and very lazy as we don't have to steer the boat at all until we are nearing land.)

I could tell by the sound of his voice that he wasn't a happy man so offered to drop what I was doing and take the wheel and actually steer Flirtie whilst he poked and prodded the chart plotter like a man possessed... nothing was working so he got the manual out but couldn't find what he was looking for so he moved onto the autohelm unit and gave that a few prods, but still nothing... he eventually moved onto the GPS unit below decks and within minutes I heard a sigh of relief as he worked out what the problem was. When setting the GPS anchor watch alarm whilst we were at anchor he had inadvertently marked it as a MOB (man over board) which we've found out takes priority over everything. Unless you delete the MOB from the original source the autohelm automatically takes the boat to the MOB location when engaged - perfectly sensible... we just didn't know about it. With the MOB removed from the original source everything was back to normal! What a relief...

So with 'follow route' now set we resumed our individual tasks, Bruce taking control at the helm whilst I continued with putting ropes and fenders away.

The wind wasn't the predicted NWW3-4 but instead from the South and a whisper at best but given that Albufeira is just 19 miles away and we've got all day we decided to unfurl the sails and wait for the wind to arrive. With no swell Flirtie remained upright and the sails just sat there limp but amazingly even with 4 knots of wind Flirtie managed to sail albeit rather slowly reaching 1.8 knots - impressive considering she now has a very dirty and hairy bottom.

The coastline was as impressive as Lagos with rocky outcrops, cliffs, caves, grottos and sandy beaches whilst we passed several ribs all gathered around dolphin watching.



By early afternoon the wind arrived, our speed increased and with spray coming over the decks progress was being made. Before we knew it the breakwater entrance came into sight and with the sails now rolled away we motored down a short canal and moored up alongside the reception pontoon to report in. Whilst writing this blog, it's just occurred to me that the last marineros that assisted us were at Lagos and since then we've been on our own. Shame. I wonder if it's because we are now out of the high-season?

Total distance this season: 1146.16 miles