Well its been a busy 2 weeks since last writing, apologies for the lack of communication but we have been beavering away getting the boat ready for the big off. There has been a flurry of activity on Jon Jon in the last week, lots of crawling on hands and knees in dark small spaces, lots of bloody knuckles and fibreglass itch and of course the obligatory Basil Fawlty outbursts!( Kirsty calls it my DIY Tourrettes) However we now have a salt water supply, lazy jacks, loads of stuff has been moved around, the rigging was checked and given the green light, sails satellite phones, water maker and steering system have been ordered and we are counting down the days till we can get sailing again. It was such an epic journey down we seem to have hit a rut here and cant wait to get back into the swell. Phillipa joined us for a week of sunshine on the costa del siesta where we had fun on anchor, buzzed Roman Abramovich's super yacht, got refused entry to marbella marina , flew the spinnaker for the first time this trip and Phillipa tried her best to coax some dodgy spanish cocktail waiter (probably called Carlos) to join us on Jon Jon as crew. I had to put my foot down and say no! Not because he didnt seem like a nice chap but because I just couldnt get on with the South Spanish work ethic. As we observed of most of the locals down here, he would have rocked up about 10am, done 2 hours crewing before knocking off for a 3 hour lunch with his extended family drinking wine and the like, returned to work about 4pm half cut and sleepy, struggled through the last two hours of the day finishing about 6pm before heading off out at about 10pm to party till the early hours. And people are worried about the spanish economy bringing down the Euro.... I can see a way out of this. I might write to Juan Carlos and suggest that he promote going to bed at a reasonable time and getting up and doing a decent days work as a way out of the economic downturn. And while they are at it fix the daft time system here, we are west of greenwich but an hour ahead, by my reckoning thats 2 hours wrong really. Its summer and its dark at 8am but light at 10.30pm again not conducive to a productive day really! Still we did have a hoot I celebrated turning 43 in true Walsall style listening to Slade and eating a fab curry. Thanks for coming Phillipa and hope the bites heal up!
And the heat kept coming, while Gib is windy and cool the Costa really bakes and once more we had an invasion of gazillions of jelly fish which put paid to jumping off the side to keep cool and sent us scurrying back to the most British place in the world to get working on JonJon albeit a dodgy passage in the fog.

We have been able to catch up with folks in Fowey (Ed and Gaynor) on Skype which has been fab except seeing Eddie in his leather pirate outfit was a bit on the strange side. Regatta week seem to go well and we did feel a bit left out this year. Steve confirmed his place for the crossing by booking his flights to Gran Canaria and we think we may have our final crew member but more on that later as we don't want to tempt fate. The more we think about what lies ahead the more excited we get.
Cant wait to leave!