Friday 16th Jan 2009. Christmas 2008 was spent in our house in Cornwall where we enjoyed a dry, crisp week of countryside walks and over-eating whilst seeing friends and family. The excess Christmas turkey was quickly given away as the day after Boxing Day we flew over to Switzerland to enjoy a week of some of the best snow conditions, skiing in the Portes du Soleil. All too soon however it was time to return to Dubai and after a month of not sailing the boys were desperate to sleep on board Morwenna. We dutifully trailed her down to DOSC in the late afternoon and were leaving harbour at 1633 to enjoy a gentle evening cruise under sail. The sunset over Atlantis was pretty as we were returning to harbour and looking for a slot to borrow for the night.

Due to the on-going Bill Nelson Memorial Race there were plenty of berths available and we enjoyed a good steak at the club restaurant before returning to Morwenna. The boys tumbled into bed and were soon fast asleep and Rachel and I attempted a game of scrabble. As Rachel's turns became longer and longer it was soon clear that she was asleep rather than contemplating a knock-out letter combination so we turned in ourselves. No more than a few minutes later the music started blaring out for Abigail's (I think that was the name yelled over the PA) 21st birthday party. Either she was being 21 again, had a distinctly older taste in music or the DJ had been given free rein with the playlist since the music trotted out as if we were in Quasars (our local nightclub) back in the late eighties. I found a pair of ear plugs in my wash kit but didn't really drop off until it quietened down at 0130. The encore came at about 0430 with the call to prayer.



17th January 2009. I'm not sure that sleeping at DOSC was a good idea but at least the breakfast was good in the morning! We took Morwenna out to sea afterwards, but with no wind at all we were forced to motor and we really weren't enjoying it so we turned for home fairly quickly.

7th February 2009. We had been supposed to organise sea trials for the outboard immediately after delivery but with one thing and another this task had been delayed until now. We launched and met up with Tony, the Honda mechanic, and went zooming up and down outside DOSC after he had checked over the engine and added a little extra oil. We had deliberately heavily laden Morwenna with two full fuel tanks, extra water and camping kit and the 10" pitch prop was giving just over 10 knots at about 5700rpm. We decided to try the 13" prop but we couldn't get up onto the plane so chugged along at 8.5 knots at 4700rpm. After delivering Tony back to the harbour we set off for Safa Island under mainsail only. Made a bit of a hash of anchoring but got sorted out eventually and tried out the inflatable swimming platform. Robert really enjoyed leaping about on this and playing 'air guitar' but Luke found the water was still a bit too cold. We sailed back to DOSC at a good speed, the new wind vane helping Rach perceive the wind direction, and were home in time to prepare for the busy coming week.