Hello Everyone.
Gosh it's the second day of the year 2016! Have we really been away for nearly 7 months?
Apart from a very smoochy ( sorry folks!!) Christmas photo with us in our Christmas jumpers and shorts , it's 2 months since I wrote a blog update.
We just can't believe how warm the weather is staying, excellent for keeping both our spirits and tans topped up.
November was a time of meeting new friends, which pleased Ricky greatly as his ears were bleeding with my constant chatter.

The first couple we met were Karen and Holgar from Luxembourg.They are a lovely couple, with a beautiful boat, a brand new 50 foot ( yes folks I did say 50 !!) Hanse called "Oyster Bar",named after a restaurant in America. They leave the boat here on pontoon B and fly out when ever they can to sail it as they are still working (Holgar says to pay for the boat.)Their plan is to sail across the pond to the Caribbean next year - so who knows we may well follow literally in they wake!

I befriended Benta from Denmark in the laundry. Her and her husband Alfred are sailing on a 42 foot Rassey ( my dream boat - sorry Patience ! No offence meant.) They too are a great couple,Benta became my beach walking partner, while the men worked, but alas Benta has gone to nurse in Greenland for 3 months!! I don't think it was anything I said...
Alfred will be back in the New Year, having spent Christmas at home, so Ricky will have his buddy to talk engines,maintenance and battery consumption again, soon.

I befriended Miriam from the Netherlands in the shower block. Her and her husband Peter are sailing an even bigger boat , a classic, an Oyster 56. It is a year older than Patience and is beautifully maintained. Their saloon table would comfortably fit 12 for dinner.Peter has done a lot of sailing, recently he and Miriam were sailing in the Caribbean and their photos look amazing.They may be heading over to Greece like us in Spring , which would be fabulous.

We were introduced to Jana and Basti from Germany by Karen and Holgar. They are wonderful - crazy and great fun!! Basti works at Fords and Jana is teaching.They rent a motor boat on pontoon B , which is more like a house boat, and own their own sailing boat that they are lovingly doing up in their spare time.We had a little sail around the dock in it, then in the afternoon they drove us into the mountains. It was breath taking, amazing views and only 30 Km from the port! The photo is of us stood at the top.On the way down we filled our water bottles up from a tap connected to natural mountain stream water - the nicest water I have ever tasted , and so cold.
One weekend,they came out for a day sail on Patience, just across the bay, which everyone enjoyed, especially us, as we miss being at sea.Pontoon B in Valencia is fun and relaxing, the city exciting,but we can't wait to sail off again to explore new places.

We sailed to Pobla Marina, about 6 miles away, to do a recce and stayed a couple of nights , but that is all the sailing we have done - sadly. Pobla is where we will take the boat out of the water to prepare her for our trip to Greece. Lots of scraping and disgusting blue anti foul paint- yuk, not looking forward to that.

I popped home for a few days before Christmas. Sorry I didn't get to see many of you, but those of you I did it was lovely. Didn't think I'd get home sick but I kind of did a bit xx Thank you all so much for your cards and messages on the blog it meant so much xx We had a lovely Christmas here in the sunshine, with Dom, Tina, Joey and Kate. We hope you all had an equally lovely time with your friends and family.

On New Years Eve we donned silly hats and cycled to the main square in Valencia, the 'Plaza Del Ayuntamiento' to listen to the music, watch the lazer show and eat grapes. Yes I did say eat grapes. It is a tradition to eat a grape on each of the 12 bells of midnight on New Years eve. If you succeed then you will have good luck for the following year - so the challenge was set !! Despite Tina buying grapes with pips we all managed it,so...
2016 is going to be a LUCKY year for us, I hope it is for you too !
Much love as always, Donna and Ricky x