We finally gave up waiting on a favourable wind and decided just to head out and down for Morocco and the Canaries.

The Gibraltar Straits have quite complex current and tidal flows and so after many hours passage planning we left Gib at 5am in the dark to catch the first of the 6 streams.

Yeah, right.

Whether it was an overly strong current flowing into the Med or we simply got it wrong I don't go but instead of whooshing out on the tide having cleverly jumped the streams we butted the current for hours finally breaking out into the Atlantic and 20 knots and largish seas.

We beat into that for an hour before thinking it would be smarter to overnight in Tangier. Now, having just been in Tangier the week before we should have known better.

There's no marina so we were squeezed in behind a giant car ferry and he pilot boat in amongst the filth of the docks and wash from passing fishing boats. Not bad for €25! We should have waited anger 24 hours but we couldn't get out of there fast enough. Consequently we had a long beat down the coast for 18 hours dodging fishing boats and long semi lit nets finally landing in Rabat marina about 3pm the next day.

The next brilliant idea was to so a DIY trip to the High Atlas Mountains. Teamed up with our NBF's Dave and Linda we booked a Riad in Marrakech and headed for the rail station. Having coffee waiting on he train a text came in from our New Zealand buddies who were already in Marrakech and who had stumbled into and organised a round trip of the Atlas, the desert and back, so we joined them on a four day thrash round the backwoods of Morocco.

Sat here in the marina bar looking out to Rabat's Hassan Tower over the top of the king's pontoon where Mohammed VI keeps his fleet of stink boats it's hard to imagine the absolute poverty two and two hundred miles away.

We are woken in the morning at about 05:30 as the mosques call the faithful to prayer....or at least the faithful early risers.

The mountains are quite impressive and the Berber villages in the oasis all quite spectacular.

The lowlight of the tour, which should have been the highlight was our camel trip into the desert was when Anne fell off her camel after the one behind bit the bum of the one in front etc....

It was quite a fall and she was in a great deal of pain, virtually unable to move all in the pitch black in the middle of the sand dunes. After a painful night during which the Tourag guide did some massage and "accusuck".... A process where a burning piece of paper is put in a small glass then stuck to the skin. As e flame extinguishes it sooks up all the air and create suction pressure on the painful area. Seemed to help!

Anyway, 6am a quad bike arrived and whisked her back to the main camp. (Close your eyes and hold on!) and we got back on the bus to finish the tour.

Thankfully it looks as if she is getting over it so this afternoon or tomorrow morning we will head for the Canaries and see what adventures await there. (Why did I just think I was tempting fate?).