Bobby | Sunny and a wee bit fresh
Bloody hell!! that's nearly a year since i last put down my endless drivel in this blog, a bit of an extended Covid vacation away from the boat, so I hope everyone is still alive and if you've not had the dreaded virus and that you are alive and well, and if your dead?! thats pretty unfortunate but you'll not be reading this anyway so on we'll crack on with this years adventure and start Operation "Don't do anything Effing Stupid" lets see how that goes!
Where to start, so much pish to talk and so little time, I think the last time I updated this site I was in Quarantine in Perth so I'll start from there. I was originally planning on living in Sydney and travelling to and from Western Australia to work as I'd normally do but due to Western Australia going in the huff with the rest of the country and closing its borders to everyone, I had to stay there to work.
Work, a necessary evil to build up the sailing kitty and pay for new engines, propellers, fuel tanks, the list keeps getting longer but that's boats for you, so firstly I went here..

Macedon, gas plant next to Onslow in Western Australia, red dirt and lots of flies, not much more to say about it really, Gas comes in from underneath the seabed offshore, gets cleaned up and put into a big pipe that takes it down to Perth and Bunbury and ultimately into folks cookers and fibres so they can cook their tea and heat their houses.
What else happens in Onslow? they make salt there, or rather, they gather it in salt pans, wait for the tide to go out and the sun,(of which there is a lot of), to dry it up before scooping it all shipping it off all round the world.

Onslow Salt Stockpile.
Next it was off to here.......

Pyrenees Venture, FPSO(Floating Production Storage offloading) sucks up the oil and all the other gunk that comes up with it, runs it through a process to get rid of said gunk, and then stores it in massive tanks, ships then come up behind and offload the oil through a huge floating hose.
then it was off to...........

Prelude FLNG: (Floating Liquid Natural Gas) same same but different from above, this one sucks up gas, puts it through a process then freezes it to turn it into a liquid for transportation and storage, no floating hoses here, ships come alongside and the LNG is transferred through pipes on gimbaled loading arms, impressive stuff let me tell you, the engineers who invented all this stuff obviously stuck in at school a wee bit more than I did, also the largest man made floating structure on this planet, 488m long, 74m wide (that's over 20 times as wide as Confidence) and fully loaded weighs around 600,000tons, pretty hefty eh!
That took me through to October by which time I had had enough, wanted to see my small humans and as Western Australia was still in the huff, I got a one way ticket to Sydney to go and hang out with these guys.

Go team!!!
Hasn't Layla grown, and the wee man, he inherited his dads pasty Scottish skin, unlucky son, I'll buy you some shares in Amber Solaire!!
Had to get a normal...ish job whilst I was there, you know, one that you have to turn up at every day and that pays shit money, but needs must right, so I scored a job at the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia, as a boat driver and general dogsbody, apart from the pay being pure rubbish, it turned out to be a good number, cracking bunch of lads so that made it, these guys also organise the Sydney to Hobart Yacht race which takes place every boxing day so I was able to get a little involved on that and was the coxswain of one of the boats on the start line so I had a pretty amazing view of the start, I was also working the next day and also watched a lot of the entrants limping back in after strong southerlies and unfriendly seas ruined the party for a lot of them, lots of broken boats and a few broken sailor's, 31 of the 88 starting boats retired.

Start of the Sydney Hobart Race.

I also worked New Years eve, I thought I would make a fortune ferrying punters out to their boats and back for the fireworks, did I?? did I bollocks, I got three tips, and they call the scots tight!!
So, to the present day, I am sitting in the marina of a small Andalusian seaside town called Aguadulce, I've actually been back at this sailing malarkey for a few weeks already, I went back to Lagos in late January as my cruising permit for Europe was going to run out, turns out they gave me an extension for 6 months but didn't want to tell me until the last minute, I sailed here via Gibraltar and Ceuta, they call it a shakedown after the boat has been laid up, ha! I certainly got a shake between Gibraltar and Ceuta, twas a wee bit on the boisterous side but it was great for the boat and me to find our sea legs.

Parked up in Aguadulce

back in the water in Lagos.

A stormy rock of Gibraltar.

Inside the old Siege tunnels in Gibraltar
Going to Ceuta gives me another 18 months in Europe for the boat just in case the Spanish don't accept the Portuguese extension, which wouldn't be at all unusual, all the European countries seem to have a different interpretation of the rules, although, I think everyone has slightly more important things one their minds at the moment with the lunatic Russian in the east trying to put the putting the frighteners on everyone, good time to stay out of the way on a boat I reckon.

Parked up in Ceuta after a good shoogle about in the straits.

Ceuta.
Plans if we don't end up in a nuclear holocaust in the next month or so? which to be perfectly honest, I'm kind of hoping we don't, is to head back west, Portugal, The Azores, then hang a bit of a right and head for the Motherland via Englandshire and Ireland.
Before that, in fact tomorrow, I'm off to Valencia for the Falles festival...............
On the Bus!!
So take care everyone, be nice, stop drinking Vodka, drink Rum instead!!
Get it right up ye Vladimir!