A long slog today, not so much the distance of 30nm, but the fact that 20nm of it was into yet another 20 knot headwind and choppy seas. Still, the early start paid off so we anchored by 3pm off a beach at Quirra. At the time of writing this blog update, we are the only boat here - wonderful! The forecast for overnight is a SW 2 to 4 which means we will be well protected once the unforecast easterly wind stops blowing putting us on a lea shore.... I have already planned our route for tomorrow to Cagliari so if we need to make a hasty exit during the night we can simply head out the anchorage and leave for Cagliari very early. This would not be the first (or indeed second or third) time that we would be making an emergency exit from an anchorage - several hairy moments in the Caribbean spring to mind...The journey tomorrow is about 55nm which doesn't sound far but at between 4 and 5 knots could take over 13 hours so the plan is to depart shortly after 5am. Cagliari is a large commercial shipping port with about five marinas buried in amongst a lot of shipping so it needs a careful arrival and preferably in daylight hours, hence our early start. Mark flies in on Sunday to rejoin QUASAR IV for the next offshore leg of the journey direct to Malta, hopefully departing on Tuesday, weather and repairs permitting. Not too many repairs here, just the autopilot actuator rebuild, replacement of our bow navigation light following the loss of the original during a 'minor incident', unblock some toilet breather pipes, remove the barnacles from the wind vane steering rudder, un-seize our small paddle wheel which tells us how fast we are going through the water, stock up with some food,...etc,etc. Well, perhaps departure on Wednesday may be more likely!