Well we have been in port in Marina di Ragusa, Sicily, now for about 6 weeks and are settling in nicely. The plan was that after a hectic summer we would winter the boat here, chill out, "dry" out and get fit, basically as we would have nothing else to do. Wrong!

With well over 100 boats here and with at least 40% of their owners here at any one time then there are a heap of people here and plenty of organised activities. We flit between art class (not me), Italian lessons, wine tours, de-stress meetings, coffee mornings, weekly bbq's, not to mention our weekly trek through Sicily in our (shared) hire car. There just doesn't seem to be enough hours in the day!

There are also quite a considerable number of Aussies and kiwis wintering here, so we had a very "happy" Melbourne Cup day watching the U-tube re-run at the exact time of the race (+10hrs). Everyone got all dressed up and wandered off to the boat that was downloading the race on their large screen tv. Plenty of food and champagne flowed just like normal and we even managed a Cup sweep. As per usual tho I came 2nd last so didn't even win the wooden spoon prize

We've also been able to follow the rugby on Saturday afternoons as the Wobbly Wallabies tried to figure out if they wanted to play properly or not. Although it WAS good to see the All Blacks get crunched by England!

We are also settling into the local community as well. There is a weekly market where all the local producers bring their seasonal products. Currently we have aubergines, fennel and artichokes coming out of our ears and I cannot find enough recipes for them. But my weekly Italian lessons are coming in handy and I can now ask for more, less or just get them to plain stop (Basta!!!) filling the bag. For some strange reason EVERYONE sells all their stuff by the kilo and even stranger everything seems be 1euro per kilo. And annoyingly no-one ever has ANY change. So you trawl around all the stalls with your pockets chinking with 1Eu coins each week, working out who has the nicest tomatoes and the nicest eggplants, and drag your trolley home with more vegetables you can eat in a week as you have a kilo of everything you wanted to buy!!. But it is fun none the less, and given we are a big part of the local community here the vendors all put up with a bunch of foreigners mangling their language.

I also think we are becoming a bit more of a "local" as we can now tell our pecorino, from our gran padano, from our parmesan. Not to mention the buffalo mozzarella from the cow mozzarella (yes it's real, the buffalo farm is just up the hill!!), the salad ricotta, the baked ricotta and the provolone!!!! And to think that I thought the French had a lot of cheeses.

And as well as getting used to our little community of Marina di Ragusa we have been exploring further afield each week with a hire car. Many of the towns on the southern side of Sicily got wiped out in an earthquake back in 1693. And when several of the larger towns were rebuilt in the late 16 and early 1700's they all were super "over the top" on the Baroque theme. As a result we have some of the best preserved Baroque towns in all of Europe just up the hill. Noto is the best preserved of them all apparently and has been extensively renovated in the last decade, in part as the Cathedral roof fell in!!! But they are all perched precariously on hillsides, or in the case of Modica (famous for its bitter chocolate) down the sides of a ravine. And the towns are all piled higgledy piggeldy on top of itself, which means no cars (good), tiny winding alleys (not good as you get lost easily) and LOTS of stairs!!! So we take the car in as far as we can, park it and then trudge around town hoping somehow to get back to where we started.

The good part at the moment is that with the cooler weather there are not as many tourists around (read: almost none). The downside of this is that the gelati shops have closed for the season and Dave has lost his favourite dessert. Luckily for him, he has been able to console himself with his new favourite desert the canollo, of which the plural is the canolli (aren't I just the linguist?) and that's usually what he orders!!!, It is like a brandy snap stuffed with ricotta and pistachios (Sicilian style). So he's not pining too much.

The town of Ragusa directly up the hill from us is also a baroque little town like the others, however when it was rebuilt after the earthquake, all the noble families refused to move out of their ruined villas, so they ended up with 2 towns, upper and lower. The 2 were only finally united as 1 town about 100years ago. But it seems to be the rule here that each large hilltop town has its seaside suburb, so we live in an area called the"marina" of Ragusa. And there are marina di this, that and the other dotted all along the coastline here.

Another place that we visited recently was truly amazing. Throughout the summer we have visited numerous ruins, villas, palaces and temples, all of varying antiquity and state of preservation including Pompeii and Paestum. But this was a hunting lodge for Romans back in about 300AD, near a small town called Piazza Amerina in the middle of Sicily. It has the best preserved mosaic floors in the world and some of the rooms and halls were just amazing with their detail. One mosaic story showed all the types of animals that were hunted for the coliseum and the countries they were caught in. Another bedroom floor mosaic had female athletes in their training outfits that everyone here has nicknamed the "bikini girls". And to think I always thought the bikini was an Australian invention of the 60's!!!

We have now put Scarlett into "winter" mode which means taking down all the sails, sheets and halyards and getting the life raft serviced. However we have discovered it hasn't meant an end to sailing, as we were asked to help some friends sail their Catamaran to Malta to pick up the guy's wife. Seems it is easier to sail to Malta, and fly to London than try and fly out of Sicily. And in particular when they dig up the airport tarmac in the middle of November! But we jumped at the chance to visit Malta. We weren't sure we would have been able to get there as they are a bit funny about dogs and I didn't really want Bonaparte being "shot on sight". So we left him with a young family in Ragusa who adopted him for a few days, and sailed the cat over and did a few days sightseeing.

Well I thought the Baroque towns of Sicily were a little "over the top" but the baroque-style Knights of Malta cathedral in Valetta was amazing. I have lost count of the amount of churches and cathedrals I have been into now, and usually just poke my head in and pop out again. But this one was AMAZING!!!! I don't think I've seen so much gilt and gold, and icons, and just glitter anywhere in such a small space. Every one of the 8 houses of knights has its own "area" or nave of the church and it definitely looks as if there were in serious competition with each other as to who could produce the most outrageous decoration. The whole place just shines from all the gilt woodwork, not to mention all the silver and gold statues and busts of long gone "Grand Masters". And the floor is a patchwork of different coloured marble which is where all these knights have been buried under the floor. I literally walked in and went "wow", which given how jaded I am these days about these things is saying something.


And there was even better just up the street. We wandered into this little church which was reputed to have the wrist bone of St Paul, who "apparently" got shipwrecked on Malta at some stage. Anyway we wandered around expecting to see some gilded box, but amazingly there was an entire gold arm (behind glass of course), with this mouldy wizened thing in a cavity where the wrist bone is likely to sit. We couldn't believe how utterly revolting it was but fascinating at the same time. And of course it led to the inevitable discussion on who the bone REALLY belonged to, and how old it really was.

We also watched the midday gun salute from the battery in Valetta's main harbour, all very proper English, before stocking up on a bunch of English/Indian/Asian groceries we had been craving for months, then sailed home again to Sicily.

So far weather wise we have been fortunate. There has been quite a bit or wind coming from the Gulf of Lyon in the north and sweeping south round Sicily, but it's not terribly cold and it's been pretty dry so far. If and when we have rain, it's more like a shower and generally during the night so not too annoying.

But Christmas is now creeping up on us and we are moving into festival mode with the Europeans taking the lead on drinking Gluwein and carol singing. We just follow along and hope we're not too out of tune.

But for all those I may not speak to prior to Christmas we both hope you have a wonderful Christmas and a very festive New Year, and I hope to see some of you very soon, either in Aus or coming to visit us next yr when we are in Croatia and Gr

After being visited by Bruce and Jax, over from London, in Sorrento and Amalfi in late September we sailed south into Calabria and Mafioso land. There seems to be 2 mafia groups in this general vicinity, one in Calabria and the one in Sicily. Reggio Calabria, the head of the region was being given into the hands of administrators when we were there due to undue mafia influence. As a result we decided to give that particular place a bit of a berth. But there were both ups and downs to this area. One place called Cetrara, that we stopped at simply to break for the day was quite rundown, a day after visiting we were told that the mafia have been sinking ships with toxic waste in the area. This probably explains why we now glow in the dark in the cabin at night.

Slightly further south we stayed in a marina in Tropea. This town mysteriously had about Eu400 million disappear from the town's coffers and is now officially broke. As a result the once-lovely marina is now closed, so although we had no water or power, we stayed in this great marina for no cost beneath the walled city of Tropea. It was a fantastic place and we enjoyed wandering through the tiny lanes that seemed to have a dozen restaurants in every lane. We had 2 favourites, one called the Vagabond Café which served the specialty of the area, swordfish and bbq steaks that get banged about with bunches of oregano.

But our other favourite place had a dish called faviolla alla bud spencer. We had no idea what faviollas were, but the name gave rise to many memories of spaghetti westerns with Trinity as the main character. When we finally got our order we couldn't believe that the dish was actually beans and bacon in a tomato sauce just like in the movies. Talk about kitchy, but funnily enough it was also delicious!!!

Calabria's regional specialties seem to be sweet red onions, sun-dried tomatoes, capers, chillies, chillies and more chillies. As a result we now have bunches of onions, chillies and bunches or dried oregano hanging off our walls and littering the boat.

After leaving Tropea and the Calabria region we moved onto the Aeolian islands which include the active volcanoes of Stromboli and Vulcano. We could in fact see Stromboli puffing away from Tropea 30M away, so we were keen to see it up close.

After spending the day sailing over to it, we ran around the active side in the afternoon when it was still clear and sunny and checked out the show. As the water is so deep we were able to sail within about 60m of the base of the volcano watching the whole time for any rocks that might get launched over the side and roll down the sope into the water. Fortunately it only belches about every 30minutes or so. But as it puffed and belched we watched the grey lumps of magma rolling down the slope and land in the sea hissing and fizzing. We sailed up and down the active side of the island and watched until night as the belches of grey smoke and burping sounds turned into a firework display with the magma being shot glowing into the sky and the clouds above the volcano lit orange and red everytime it erupted. It was amazing to watch the power of it. Unfortunately our camera didn't have the ability to catch the pics of the lava in the dark so we will have to rely on our memories for that but even in broad daylight it was impressive.

After Stromboli we moved onto the main island in the area, called Lipari. It had this wonderful museum showing all the archaeological finds in the area. There were so many ships sunk on the islands and rocks due to the poor navigation and the freaky winds, and the sulfurous water stopped most of them being salvaged. Recent expeditions have brought up thousands of pots intact from hundreds of ships.

We then spent a couple of days at the island of Vulcano, obviously named. This one, active like Stromboli, just issues steam (at the moment) and has sulphurous springs. This was fine during the day but as night and the temperature fell, then the clouds descended so did the smell. But we climbed the volcano and checked out the whole area from the top of the crater. From the top you could see all the Aeolian islands laid out like a patchwork quilt, both the comes of the older ones as well as both the active ones of Stromboli and Vulcano

After that Dave decided to check out the therapeutic mud baths while I decided to float around in the sea picking the warm spots where the sulphur springs were bubbling thru the sea floor. By the end of the day we were both smelling slightly of rotten egg gas despite a vigorous scrubbing in the shower!!!

After Vulcano we headed towards the mainland again before heading through the Straits of Messina. We had been warned about the straits which from the time of Odysseus has been a problem area. It is home to Scylla and Charbydis, who brought contrary winds and whirlpools to the straits. To this day there are clearly marked whirlpools to avoid as you go thru them.

Unfortunately a storm started brewing as we made it to Scilla on the mainland and the locals advised us to head to Messina before the storm hit. Having not heeded local advice once before to our detriment, we headed straight out. What with an early sunset due to the storm clouds, shipping traffic in the straits and some "interesting" currents we managed to find ALL the whirlpools instead of avoiding them all. And to make matters worse we arrived in Messina at the very height of the electrical storm and had to tie up with lightning all around us. Whilst the sight of a lightning strike hitting a construction crane in the town and sending down a shower or sparks and metal looked terribly exciting from a safe distance, knowing that the lightning was grounding was not exactly a comforting thought when you are grabbing safety lines to tie fenders on. But with the help of an English boat who we had been travelling with we managed to tie up, for a rather rough night being buffeted by all the shipping going thru the straits. The dock we were tied to bucked so much that it flipped Bonaparte off the dock and into the water in the marina. Luckily I was standing right next to him and managed to fish him out as he madly paddled around.

But the weather cleared next day and we hot footed it out of the area down to a town called Taormina in Sicily. This is another very cute town sitting on a cliff with an even higher hilltop town above it. We decided to visit both particularly as the higher village Castelmola was used in the first Godfather film. Apparently the locals refer to it as "That American movie"!!! But down in Taormina there was no lack of godfather t-shirts and memorabilia. And we had a lovely lunch in a tiny trattoria sampling the local swordfish ravioli before hopping back in the bus down the torturous roads and hairpin bends back to the middle village.

After a couple of days in Taormina and another storm that we survived with only a bit of anchor dragging we sailed down to Siracusa. All this coastline was once populated by the Greeks and Siracusa apparently once rivaled Athens as the main Greek power. There was a fabulous Greek amphitheatre in Taormina and even more ruins in Siracusa. Both towns had their amphitheaters taken over by the Romans and turned into gladiator arenas however they were still an amazing sight, particularly Taormina which was high on the hill and overlooked the straits and the Ionian sea and with Mt Etna in the background behind the stage.

We ended up spending about 4 days in Siracusa, in part as we were almost at the end of our trip, partly as the good weather was holding, and also as we were enjoying the town, particularly the markets. Spain was definitely the breadbasket of Europe and supplied a lot of it with fruit and veges. However it seemed as if they gave the best away and kept the 2nd best for themselves. Whereas in Italy from what we have seen so far the Italians grow and keep their own fruit and vege for local consumption. Going to the markets is absolutely amazing looking at all the super ripe and gorgeously coloured food, all shiny and bright and perfect. We wandered every morning around the markets buying veges, olives, fresh pasta and baked ricotta cheeses.

We also found the local wine co-op in Siracusa, thanks to some other yachties, where we could not only buy cheap Sicilian wine by the bottle, but we could bring our own plastic bottles for refills!!!! This has turned out to be a great boon in terms of purchasing, although perhaps not so great for our livers. But we were surprised at how good the wine was, particularly the reds, and for Eu1.50 / lite it's even better prices than the Spanish wines Dave liked so much. As a result Siracusa is definitely one of our "must see again" towns!!!

Our last night in Siracusa we had 4 boats together and were all enjoying a few drinks and nibbles and the coast guard came knocking telling us all to head out to anchor as there were cruise ships arriving. Given that they had been warning people for 2 days now we basically ignored it, and when the guys came back and said we had till 6am the next day we stopped worrying altogether. But it was a little interesting to wake at 7.30 to find a 100mete long ship berthing sideways about 50ft away from the last boat. However the captain did a very good job and they missed us all!!!

From Siracusa we had our last two 30M trips to get to Marina di Ragusa on the south coast or Sicily. And true to form they were the best 2 sailing days of the year. The electrical and thunder storms of the previous 2 weeks had disappeared and we had fantastic winds and even made a top speed of 12knots down a wave on our last day. It really made us think of going on a little further just to enjoy the weather while it lasted. However we have been on the move since early March and it was time to stop and settle for the season even though the weather is still beautifully warm.

We have still to see our 4th and last active volcano, Mt Etna, located on the eastern coast of Sicily that we sailed past last week.

We plan to do this over winter as we are only about 100kms away from it and can do it in a day trip. But for now it is getting the boat ready for winter weather and getting to know the cruisers who are also staying in Ragusa for the winter and exploring this part of Sicily a lot better over the next 5 months.

We spent the last few days of August after Marguerite and D2 had returned to London in Mallorca waiting for favourable winds and taking the time to reprovision with all the Spanish goods that were by now our favourites, particularly the Albarino wine from Gallicia and an entire Iberico ham that was strung up in the back cabin. Then in company with some American friends Kent, Carol and their dog Jolie we finally made a start for the Italian coast. The first leg of the trip was a 60miler from Mallorca back to Menorca, to pick up another Aussie boat with Ray and Lainey, whom we were to travel in company with to Sardinia. After a bit of a stormy start, being caught in a 40kn squall we sailed onto Mahon. Altho I didn't think it was so bad at the time, the rain was so hard you couldn't see the sea and at 1 stage early in the trip Dave was propped sideways in the wheel well trying to steer. But we realized we were the lucky ones. Kent and Carole's yacht, sailing over to Mahon with us shredded their jib in the same storm squall and subsequently had the shredded sail wrap around their prop which THEN bent the shaft and started letting water into the boat. All of a sudden they were taking on water only to find that 1 in 3 of their bilge pumps were working. So they had to quickly turn around back to Mallorca, bucketing out the boat madly and trying not to sink before they made it back to harbour. So a popped deck fitting on the bimini for us was nothing to sweat about in comparison and altho a bit exhausted when we finally made it to Mahon late that day we were in good shape to make the crossing on the next.

Headed out at dawn the next day, which now, in the beginning of autumn in Spain, is about 7am to a beautiful calm and sunny day. And the entire 220mile passage to Sardinia was the same. We had a constant 10-12kn breeze all day in exactly the right angle and so we made the trip in 1 tack. The sunset that night was as gorgeous as the sunrise had been and the next morning as the sun was rising we were able to see the mountains of Sardinia looming in front of us and Ray and Lainey 2 miles behind us in Moonglade Horizon. All in all we did the 220M passage in 29hrs which was right on schedule for us and had us arriving mid morning in Alghero on the north west coast of Sardinia.

Alghero is a lovely little old walled town and it was amazing to notice the difference between the Italians and Spanish. First I think the Italians are a little less voluble than the Spaniards and also they sound more abrupt as we have left behind the lisping syllables of the castillians. I also think the Italians might be a bit more "enthusiastic" in their conversations (a polite term for it) as there seems to be many more conversations with conflicting opinions here. The arm waving level is about the same though, so far.

But it was good to wander thru the local produce market and pick up some really good quality fruit and vegetables, which seemed to be sadly lacking in the Balaeric islands. Dave is also in 7th heaven as he is now into the Italian bread. He suffered badly over the last 6 months, only getting his definition of "decent" bread every now and then but now he can wander into any pannateria knowing that he will always get a quality loaf or bagette or cornetto (Italian for croissant). And altho the coffee was good in Spain we can now confidently order a cappacino knowing it won't have sprayed cream on it like in so many French cafes. So all in all there are some definite advantages to being here.

After several days sailing up the west and northern coasts of Sardinia we decided to hop over to Corsica and have a look at Bonifacio. It is a town famous for several reasons,
1: Napoleon Bonaparte was born in Corsica and stayed in Bonafacio, and
2: the town is built right on the cliffs of the island.

So we duly trotted across the 12M between the Italian and French borders and sailed into a tiny little fiord that turned out to be the harbour. You wouldn't even have noticed the niche cut into the sheer cliffs if it weren't for all the buildings crowded along the edges. But it was lovely being back in France, if only for a few days and getting some REAL croissants. We took Bonaparte thru the old town and showed him where his namesake lived (he was duly impressed), had a look at what the tourist guide told us was the SECOND most beautiful cemetery in the Med. And so I am breathless with anticipation in find the MOST beautiful cemetery in the Med now!!

We also duly took photos of all the homes clinging precariously to the edge of the cliffs as they gradually get more and more undercut with wind and water erosion. And we oohed and aahed at all the superyachts and motor cruisers that were anchored just next door, including the ship that took 2 fuel tankers and Eu45,000 to fill up. There was 1 Catamaran that is purportedly the largest in the world at 44mt called Hemisphere, with 2 storey hulls. A normal 40footer sailing past it looks like a toy. And even worse it had a 50ft "tender" which in reality was a proper fishing cruising launch that drifted alongside it every day as well as the usual 30ft jet powered zodiac, which I can only assume was "tender to the tender to Hemisphere". And Bonifacio at this time of year it costs about E2000 a night to stay in a marina so I dread to think what all those marina berths were costing that particular flotilla.

After Bonifacio we had a few days in the marine park in the Maddelana Group just near the famous Costa Smeralda in Sardinia. This is the most we have seen dolphins since we left the Atlantic so the prohibition on fishing and anchoring must be working. There was 1 huge dolphin that we presumed must be male that swam over to nearly all the boats in an anchorage 1 morning. It got to our transom rolled onto a side to eyeball us as it swam past the back then flipped on its back and slowly backstroked about 30m past us, before flipping back onto its front and swimming away to talk to the next yacht. Amazing!!

But after about 10days sailing all along the NW and northern coast of Sardinia it was time for another transit passage, this time the relatively small 120miler to Rome. We had caught up with Ray and Lainey again to start the trip so we would have someone reasonably close for the majority of the trip. Because we expected this to be a busy port we decided to arrive in daylight, which meant that we actually had to slow down in the middle of the night as we were sailing too fast. So there we were at 3am plodding round at about 2knots an hr, both of us napping with the radar alarms on, till our passage scheduled a 7am arrival. It was amazing tho, we were about 60M from Sardinia at dusk and still within sight of its cliffs then an hr later we it was night and we could see the reflection of the lights from Rome when we were still 60M from it. It was kind of comforting tho as it made you feel less like you were in the middle of nowhere. But we managed the 120Miler in 22hours so we were happy with our rate.

And all I can say about Rome is that it is "Smart"!!!!! Not smart as in fashionable altho it is that too, no this is smart as in the home of the "Smart" car. They are everywhere!!!!!! Apparently Rome has about 50,000 of the 300,000 Smart cars that have been sold, and it shows. It seems that one of the big attractions is that they are able to be parked sideways to the kerb, allowing 2 cars in 1 space and you see them everywhere parked with their noses pointing into the street. Amazingly they don't seem to have any more scratches and dents than any other car in Rome so the theory works. The new Fiat 500 bambino has now given them a bit of a run for their money but Smart still rules Rome at the moment.

I only had 1 day in Rome, and given my last time there was not a pleasant recollection I felt obliged to give it another shot. Well it was certainly better than 30yrs ago, but still not my favourite place in the world. I decided to do the ultimate tourist thing, getting onto one of the hop on- hop off buses and just pick and choose a few places to see. But my overall impression is that Rome is "old". This is not likely to be news to anyone I suspect, but there are other cities almost as old with some newer architecture. It seems as if there is literally no room for a new building in Rome to be built. So although the internals are revamped and renewed the facades of every building in the entire city all still look old.

Traffic still seems to be the same though, completely mad unless you are an Italian, born and bred to this type of driving. And one industry that I believe doesn't exist here is panel beaters. EVERY car in Italy has dings in it, and obviously there is no reason to get them fixed as the cars will just get dinged up again immediately after they are repaired and so everyone is resigned to driving banged up cars. Suppose that what happens where there are a million Fangios on the road every day.

But after a few days in Rome and its outskirts we moved south, heading towards Scarlett's winter base of Ragusa in Sicily. From Rome we island hopped to Ponza and Ischia heading towards the Bay of Naples. Whilst we had no interest in seeing Naples the area also is home to Pompei (Italian spelling), Vesuvius, Sorrento, Capri, Positano and Amalfi. Dave wanted to go see Sorrento as he had grown up in that region in Victoria.

And we also picked up Bruce and Jackie who had flown over from London for a week-end break. The 4 of us had a lovely week-end staying in Amalfi, eating lots of pasta, drinking Limoncello which just happens to be Dave Shearer's favourite tipple (whom we toasted many times whilst telling the story of him and an unfortunate evening of just a bit too much limoncello!!!!!) and doing the tourist thing of catching the bus up to the hilltop towns in the region.

The entire Amalfi coast lives on the edge of steep cliffs so there are a LOT of hilltop towns to visit and single lane cliff top drives with hairpin bends all with to-die-for views of the bay. We also ran into Hemisphere (the Catamaran) again in both Amalfi and Capri and have some to the conclusion that are obviously following our itinerary. However we did notice that it and its flotilla of tenders spent the night at anchor outside of Capri which is even more outrageous in its port charges than Bonifacio and Amalfi!!

The other thing about Italy so far that I have noticed is that they simply do NOT have enough Pizzerias!!!! Or Gelaterias for that matter. You have to walk at LEAST a good 50m to go from 1 pizzeria to the next if you're looking for a different choice. It's just not good enough.

But the gelaterias are a vast improvement on Spanish ice-cream even though that was also pretty good. We are now in the true home of the gelati and it shows. We've also learnt by this stage to seek out the shops where the gelati is made "in store" as they definitely have the better quality than the mass produced stuff.

And we seem to be in the middle of an Indian summer here at the moment. As soon as the 1st September arrived the weather in Spain dropped a good 5 degrees. We went from sweltering to comfortable overnight, if you can call 30 comfortable. Then 2 weeks later it dropped another 5 degrees to the mid 20's. But the last week of September in Italy we have been back in the low 30's and with a higher humidity than we had in the islands. Not necessarily the ideal weather to go trooping round dusty ruins, but at least it isn't cold!!

As we continue to head south down the western coast of Italy, into Calabria and the mafia areas, although we have been reliably informed they don't seem to worry tourists, just each other. The next major tourist thing to do is the volcano trail. Apart from Vesuvius which is currently dormant, there are 3 active volcanos in this area and we expect to stop at them, climb up them, sail past them in the next month. Well at least it makes a change from old ruined cities. And by the end of October we expect to be all tucked up in Ragusa getting the boat ready for a winter in the marina.

Ciao for now.

Well after 4 weeks and not quite making it around Mallorca we headed east and north to the smaller island of Menorca. It was only about a 35M or 6hr sail and very pleasant.

Menorca's southern beaches were certainly the best in terms of beautiful water colour and clarity being anywhere between a jade green thru to emerald and all the turquoises and aquamarines, though to an absolutely electric blue at one beach off Punta Prima. The only other beach I have seen like this so far was in Formentera, south of Ibiza.

The coastline on the northern part of the island is also very rugged and we had days where were anchored just off the rocks, swimming in the water and watching the wild goats standing on the cliffs watching us.

Mahon, the capital of the island, was an interesting harbour, being and the capital of the Royal Navy in the Med for the British during the Napoleonic wars. In fact the English captured and subsequently gave back Menorca 3 times from the 1600's to the 1800's the last time being 1803. All the blurb here says the harbour is the largest natural harbour after Pearl Harbour. Now I know it is big but I think they may have overlooked the southern hemisphere and a little place called SYDNEY HARBOUR!!!! It certainly wasn't larger than Sydney when you count all the inlets they have, but it was impressive none the less, and anchored near the mouth where we were on 1 occasion it was about a 4 mile dinghy ride into the town centre.

The harbour was also the home to some of the largest yachts we have seen here. To date Ibiza seems to have the largest motor boats with helicopters perched on the foredeck. But Mahon has the largest sailing and possibly charter fleet. In particular there were 2 italian designed "Wally" yachts one ab0ut 88ft and the other over 100+ that sailed out every day, dropped anchor for a couple of hours and then sailed home again in the afternoon in true Spanish style. One was painted entirely in gold, right down to its radar dome while the other was entirely in silver. The silver one, being far less ostentatious, was Engligh flagged while the gold one was predictably Spanish flagged.

Mahon also has a fantastic fort that was built in the mid 1800's after all the wars, when Spain thought that the French, English, Russians or various combinations might be a problem for them (again). Unfortunately by the time they actually got it completed in the 1850's warfare had changed so much that it made the defenses obsolete to the new guns and so has never been used except as a training barracks. But what a training barracks, it's huge and takes about 4hours just to walk around some of its ramparts. The other thing they did was order some massive (15inch) guns in the 1920's. Once again by the time they got them finished in 1936 it was time for their Civil War and they've not been used in anger either. Once again the Spanish troops had lots of toys to play with though.

Mallorca is famous for its leather shoes, and exports the Camper brand all over the world, but Menorca also boasts about their traditional leather sandal, worn by both men and women. They looked comfortable enough despite the fact that some of them have tyre tread soles, and Dave is now the proud owner of a pair so that he has a "resort" alternative to his trusty deck shoes!!!!

From a sailing perspective, and in spite of all the dire warnings about overcrowded coves and breaches we have not seen anything too bad, certainly not to the point of having to watch out for danger of collisions. Either everyone exaggerated or the GFC has dropped the numbers sufficiently to make the cruising fraternity manageable now. In fact late in the month we even had a cala or 2 to ourselves for a night!!!!

The Spanish continued to wander out every day in their motor boats during the month, particularly as August is the big European holiday month where everything apart from tourist resorts shut down. The trick was to get to where you wanted to be and be anchored by midday. Between 1and 2pm all the Spaniards started wandering in with their power boats arriving just in time for their lunch and siesta. And then at 6pm they all trotted off again leaving us nice and quiet with our perfectly positioned anchorage. And getting to anywhere by midday was easy as the island is so small and has so many great places that the next cala is only ever about 3-5M away.

We have also met a lot more French in Menorca and they certainly look to have a stranglehold on the tourist cruising in this island. Most have come from ports such as Sete, and St Tropez etc and are easily identifiable by having smallish yachts (35ft) as opposed to the Germans 50ft yachts and motor boats, or the Italians 60ft motor boats. And as usual they were all great sailors but not that flash at the anchoring business. Not that it was an issue as there was just enough wind to get people to where they wanted to be during the day before dropping down most night to almost flat calms. Perfect!!

We saw quite a lot of wildlife while in Menorca. As well as the ubiquitious "unique" black or green lizard (of which we now have coffee cups, tea towels and beach towel replicas of!) each week-end in August in Menorca saw the traditional horse festival that they performed in different towns throughout the island. Marguerite and D2 (another David) were sailing with us for a week so we trooped off to a little town called Sant Lluis about 5kms from Mahon to watch these black horses dancing down the streets while all the local kids tried as hard as they could to end up under their hooves. Makes great spectator sport is all I can say especially when you turn around from taking a great shot to find yourself bumping into the rump of a huge horse that's just about to rear up on its hind legs. Luckily despite a couple of close calls no-one lost a limb and we all returned safe to the boat that night.

Whilst Marg and D2 were visiting we also took the chance to check out some of the caves for which Menorca is famous. Seems they have been inhabited for some 2000yrs or more and a few are still lived in during summer months when hippies or campers sleep in them for a few nights. Some have been shut up to protect various paintings but one, right on the front of a cliff in cala en Porter, is currently a bar and disco!! We decided to go have a look at the sunset from there but at a charge of Eu50 just to get thru the door we decided the next bar along that had a lovely rooftop bar would be just as good and a hell of a lot cheaper. So we sat there, watching the colours of the sunset change and quaffed a bottle of very good local wine. We also had 1 night just near the old capital of Ciutadella where the restaurant had been built right into the rock and over the water. We simply pulled up to the (cliff) door in the dinghy, climbed the ladder and walked into the cavern. Was very cool!!

Weather wise we had a fantastic August. Menorca as predicted was a little cooler than Mallorca, a point we noted as we had to pick Marguerite and D2 up from there to sail back to Menorca for the week. One might even say that at 35C on the water it was a tad stifling, and for the first time ever I felt that there MIGHT be a time when you can actually have too much sun!!! Never thought I'd actually say that, but with the sun still blazing away at 7 and 8pm it starts to feel a little warm. But it was definitely cooler on the water and so everytime we went inland to check out the towns we kept scurrying back to the boat to jump off the back into the sea to cool down.

Luckily all the doomsayers who told us there would be NO winds in the Med in summer were wrong. We have had just enough to keep us moving on our way, and on the odd day a bit more than we actually wanted. But having dreaded needing to motor all the way through the area we have been able to sail almost everywhere with perhaps just a bit of motoring in the middle of the day before the sea breeze kicked in. So it's been just a perfect summer in all, with 2 thunderstorms, 10 drops of rain, and 90 blazing hot days in 3 months.

But it is now the 1st of September, we are back in Mallorca after having dropped off Marguerite and D2 and it has suddenly become at least 5 degrees cooler, windy and threatening rain. For the first time in months we have to wait for the wind to change before we can move on. The original plan was to head back to the Spanish mainland, visit Valencia and Barcelona before wintering in France. Unfortunately due to full marinas, too small marinas and under renovation marinas there is nowhere in the area we chose.

And after 6 months of Spanish life we have seen enough and it is time to move on. So we are now continuing further east and plan to sail to Sardinia as soon as the wind is favourable. The pan is to sail round the north coast for a while then pop over to Rome (or the marinas outside Rome) then sail down the west coast of Italy visiting Capri, Amalfi, Positano, Sorrento, Pompeii as well as Stromboli, finally ending up in Sicily for the winter. With favourable winds and hopefully a continuation of the warm weather for another month or so we should be able to manage it all.

So it's now ciao from Spain and bongiorno to Italy

In late June after a month and 3 circumnavigations of Ibiza/Formentera we decided to move further north and west to Mallorca. All the stories and books we had read meant we were preparing to see untold nautical wealth and splendor. Well after a month cruising around all I can say is I prefer Ibiza, brash and clubby as it is.

Don't get me wrong Mallorca is very nice and the houses are that little bit more upmarket and more "mature" in their styling however the place just didn't grab me all that much. In part perhaps as it is so much bigger than Ibiza, and after 4 weeks we still never made it quite around the entire island. As a result instead of the leisurely days of swimming then sailing a few miles to the next beach, we often sailed all day just to get to our anchorage. The west coast of the island only has a single port of refuge along its entire 70 miles so there were numerous long hikes as a result.

And what with meeting several groups of guests during the month it also meant we saw a number of places several times, and missed out of seeing others as we headed back to our airport rendezvous.

We are now in full summer mode and the temp is well into the 30's and some days reaching almost 40 once you get a bit inland. And with it being July the festival season was also in full swing. If it wasn't celebrating San Pedro it was the Virgen del Carmen, Saint Joan and a few others in between. Most of these were harmless enough, however we were unlucky to be caught in a very pretty town called Soller on the west Coast. Unfortunately it was San Pedro that night and not only did they decide to have a big outdoor party in the middle of the marina, the REALLY bad cover band (AC/Dc was horrendous but YMCA was worse!!) finished at 2am. It was one of the very few sultry and hot nights we have had, so sleep was elusive for both the reasons of sound and heat. But when the band finished I thought at least we would get some relief. Not to be!!! The DJ then took over and I realized we were going to be in for one of Spain's infamous "all night" parties. With all hatches open the noise couldn't be avoided but I mentally grit my teeth and girded my loins hoping for a 6am finish to the dance party.
Nope. So 6.30 perhaps???
Nope again. When it continued with the incessant "duff duff" of the dance music that had been going non-stop, interrupted only now and then by a frenzied DJ yelling something in Spanish to the crowd, I admitted defeat, got out of bed and made a cup of tea and took it upstairs to the cockpit to drink. It was amazing how many other people in the anchorage were also breakfasting early and there were even boats that were heading out that early in the morning, an event almost unheard of in these areas as being considered highly uncivilized to be up and about so early.

The noise finally stopped at 7am. Dave, who seems to be able to sleep thru a nuclear explosion surfaced and we went down to the marina to find out the cause of the celebrations. "Oh San Pedro" they informed us. And was San Pedro going to reappear Sat night??? "Si, si" they replied, sat night AND sun night also. Ole!!!! So with that we got out of town immediately and headed north to Pollenca to find a reasonably uninhabited part of the coast.

Unfortunately 2 days later we were caught in a storm in Pollenca, our first real thunderstorm for the season and where our anchor dragged for the first time ever. It's been a marvel since we started using it, holding in all sorts of different ground. But this time we were in weed that was impossible to avoid. We'd spent about 3hrs in 25kn watching it and nothing was moving so we popped into town for lunch and a look at the Tour de France on tv. Just as we were getting back in the dinghy the storm broke and we were on land and in the middle of 40knots wind gusts. After a 5minute trip across the bay in the dinghy getting soaked we suddenly realized Scarlett was not where we left here but instead gently butting into the nose of a powerboat a bit further along. Which was a lucky thing really as it stopped her from grounding in the shallow bay and it was such a short time that she had only just moved there and so no real damage.

But it was a sobering experience, made worse by the fact that it took us another hr to get the anchor up between the squalls and gusts, more time to try and figure out a safe place to re-anchor and then we re-anchored only to drag again. So we continued to motor waiting for the winds to die down (they didn't) and watching other yachts also dragging or shredding their sails in the wind. It wasn't a pretty sight. By the time we finally gave up it was 9.30, some 4hrs later and we decided to motor into the harbour before dark. Most of the moorings were Med style stern-to and too difficult in the wind that was still gusting horribly so we finally tied up against the fuel wharf. Luckily it was alongside mooring, otherwise we had decided we would need to spend the night on the water as anchoring was impossible with the gusts that were blowing down off the mountains.

And we were so buggered after all the excitement we couldn't be bothered watching Spain win the final of the Euro football, that was on that night, Not that it was hard to figure out who was winning, the entire town kept erupting everytime they scored. But it was certainly an eventful week-end!!

Early in the month we tool a break from all the sun, sand and turquoise seas and flew back to London, home of cold, flooding rains and green fields. Dave was the Best Man for his old school friend Bruce Johnston, so we spent time in London catching up with Marguerite and Hilly before heading out to Buckinghamshire for the nuptuals. Everyone behaved themselves, weather included, which co-operated on the day so the church roof stopped leaking, and the sun came out in time for the photographer. No-one ran off with either the bride or the groom, and they were married by the real "Vicar of Dibley", the speeches were all witty and not too long, and a generally excellent time was had by all at the champagne fuelled reception.

And while we were on the mainland we also decided to take in the Champagne district for a few days. I'd missed it the previous year and was determined not to miss going there again. So we potted around Rheims and Epernay for a few days doing the sights in between the official champagne tours and I have now realized that I prefer Tattinger. I visited my old friend Dom Perignon at the House of Moet but there were no tastings of that unfortunately. Then back into Paris for a few days to see a few more of the sights we missed last year and have a wander through the streets while Dave caught up on his croissant ration for the year.

Back in Mallorca one of the other interesting things we have noticed is the tourist demographics. Formentera belongs to the Italians, Ibiza belongs to the Pommie clubbers, Menorca belongs to the Frenchies (more on that later). But Mallorca belongs to the Germans!! Every restaurant on the island suddenly had their menus in German and Spanish, serving bratwurst alongside the olives. There were real estate agents with Germanic sounding names and lots of fair haired, white bodied tourists in socks and sandals!!! There's even a town on the north eastern coast that is set up like a little Germany and even has a German version of pommie lager lout boys. Only difference is that these are clean, tidy, polite and well dressed. But they still throw up in the gutters at 4am after too many beers!!!

There have been a few cute towns. Soller, home of the San Pedro all night festival has its town centre about 3km inland and to get from the port to the town you take a vintage tram. It's tres cute and run through the back of peoples' gardens and through the tiny town streets and even the main square. It's a real "who dares wins" as when you are touring the town admiring the cathedral you have to keep looking over your back to make sure the next tram isn't about to run you down!! Soller is also the home of Mallorcan orange marmalade. I'd heard lots of stories about how good this stuff if, so we bought a jar to try. My verdict is nice, not as tart as most marmalades, but nothing much to write home about, so I won't. And their orange liqueur (yes you guessed it Mallorca has lots of oranges) tasted a lot like Cointreau.

We made sure to stop 1 night in a port called Andratx, which most Aussies might remember better as the home of the infamous Christopher Skase when he flitted off to Spain to avoid certain legal processes. We didn't actually manage to find WHICH was his house, but it was not difficult to see that he had managed to squirrel away a few dollars before he ran, based on what the real estate agents were offering in town and the prices in the Andratx restaurants. It was certainly more than we saw anywhere else on the island and more than we were prepared to pay for a cup of coffee!!!

We also had a day trip by car through the inland parts of the island when Xavier, Fred and their boys visited for 10days. We spent it winding up and down torturous tiny roads that seemed to be nothing but switchbacks all the way from the South West of the island through to the North West coast. Mallorca is quite mountainous and so there were beautiful rugged coastlines and spectacular views, but getting down to the beach for a swim often involved a 12km drive to drop the 800m in elevation. It was a bit like driving on ski field roads in summer I guess.

We have also been observing the differing nautical customs of the various European nations thoughout these islands. As we noticed last year the French can sail but they CANNOT park a boat. This continues to be the case.
Italians are all splash and dash, (as in most things) often in VERY large motor boats and seemingly not able to throw an anchor out without immediately ripping out of the sea bed again, meaning the anchoring process needs to be repeated about 20 times before they are happy. In fact we've seen some Italian boats drive off after over half an hr of fruitless anchoring in clean sand.

The Spaniards can anchor. So well in fact that they seem to prefer to leave their boats IN the harbour admiring their anchoring achievements rather than bothering to sail them. Also they are very risk adverse, particularly in terms of having someone else touch their boat. You can ALWAYS tell a Spanish boat from a long way off as they are sailing or motoring with their fenders hanging down, often dragging in the water as they head to their lunchtime destination. Some have gotten crafty and tie a line through the bottom end of all their fenders so they can leave them lying along the decks, and when they throw 1 over all of them hang down in procession. And for the very few adventurous ones who bother put stow their fenders while in transit they hang them out immediately they are at anchor. Who knows, maybe there are a lot of boats running into them by anchor dragging Italians who don't have a clue, or by Frenchies who can't stop in time, and so the fenders are cautious "unexpected" collision preventers.

The other way to check if a boat is Spanish is to see who arrives 30 minutes before lunch (1.30) and who leaves at 6pm. This allows for a 10am wake-up, a leisurely breakfast, a quick trip to the shops for lunch provisions, and the obligatory 15 minute trip round the corner to the nearest cala to drop anchor, throw out the fenders and get down to some serious swimming, chatting and lunching. Then as all Spanish boats turn into pumpkins at night they have to zoom off after lunch and swimming finishes round 6 so that they can get their anchor back down again at home and get organised for a 10pm dinner. Serious! The rest of us all just arrive round mid morning and stay the entire day and night, unless of course the boat is Italian which means it will not have been able to anchor at all, thereby forced to return to harbour. Heavens knows those guys must just eat on the run!!

The other phenomenon we have noticed pertains to motor boats. Or to be more precise when talking about motor boats over here.... SHIPS..... as anything motorized and under 45ft has to be regarded as a dinghy in these waters!! Once again the main offenders are the Italians and Spanish as the French seem to prefer to sail and if they do have a motor boat they are smallish (ie 50ft). Now it is fairly obvious that a motor boat from 50 to 150ft big would need to have a set of bow thrusters. After all even Scarlett has them. And in some cases these motorboats have stern thrusters as well. And the thinking obviously seems to be "If you have thrusters then you MUST use them".

We have lost count of the number of times we see motorboats approach a spot to anchor only to have them bowthrust their way right or left, or worse right AND left. I'm not sure how 1 perfect patch of sand is different from another perfect patch of sand 3ft away, but apparently it is too hard to STEER their boat to the point in question, they have to slide crabwise using their thrusters. And if the boat in question is Italian then there is a more than fair chance that after all the bowthrusting they will fail to anchor securely and will have to use their bowthrusters again to turn the boat and head off home again in the opposite direction. But it is bloody annoying hearing the roar of these things straining under load, just 30ft away in an anchorage, when you are flat out in the cockpit having a cat nap.

But after 4 weeks in Mallorca we have now moved on again to Menorca for another month to complete the final island in the Balaeres before we head back to the mainland in September.

We've been here in the Balaerics now for about a month, or more specifically the islands of Ibiza and Formentera. The 65M trip over from the mainland was uneventful, and nice as the mainland is it is nothing to compare to these islands. The colour of the water is almost indescribable it is such an intense blue. I've seen plenty of beautiful areas in the Barrier Reef and Whitsundays but the intensity here has to be seen to be believed. Also the clarity. Mostly we anchor in about 8m of water depth and you can see just about every grain of sand below the boat. It's easy to know where to throw bread to feed the fishes as you can see each one and the scales on their backs. And we know exactly if we are over weed, sand or rock as it is all perfectly clear to the eye.

Over the last month we have done about 3 trips around both islands, once to orient ourselves, once with Dave's cousins Phil and Michelle as guests for a week, and then a last time to revisit our favourite places and see a few new calas (coves). In the entire month we haven't been into a marina except to get fuel and water in our tanks which has been marvelous.

Formentera is a little island just south of Ibiza and seems to be the home of Italian holidaymakers. Apparently Foremtera is to Italians what Bali is to Aussies. And you can tell the Italians and the Spanish apart as the Italians talk a little less, although they still gabble away at a great rate. But definitely less. Formentera is also the home of the "naturalist" especially a little islet at the northern end called Espalmador. Here you see both women AND men waxed to the nth degree, wandering along the beaches strutting their stuff, literally. And there are also families on all these beaches. We wondered to someone about these little kids being exposed as such but as they pointed out, everybody knows what this area is so don't bring your kids if you don't want them to see. So C'est la vie I guess. Not that it is so bad, altho I DO draw the line at blokes jogging up and down the beach with their tackle hanging out. One bloke almost lost his as Boney was walking without his leash and decided to chase after the guy, jumping up and down trying to bite any bits that were swinging too low. It was quite comical to see the guy jumping and twisting out of the way until I realized that I would have to go and fetch the dog and that meant bending down next to the bloke. Kept my eyes to the ground I have to admit!!!!

We also hired a Vespa while we were in Formentera and spent a day whizzing around the island. At only 20km long and a few wide it was easy to pretty much see it all in a day and made a change from just seeing the calas and beaches. We also found a few new places that looked they would be nice to stay.

The biggest difference between here and say the Whitsundays is that it is simply not possible to find a deserted beach or cove. EVERY cala has at least a few old fishing huts, that may or may not have been converted into week-end storage places for the locals. And EVERY cala has an obligatory beach bar for the 20-300 people that flock there every day from the towns. At best you just get the bar and huts, a few people and half a dozen boats. At worst there are resorts up the hills, DJ's and discoes blaring out till about midnight, supermarkets, souvenir shops and restaurants and upwards of 100 boats anchored and moored.

The busy ones are useful when we are low on supplies and wanting to eat out, and the bars are always welcome especially to view the sunsets over the water from. But we are yet to find a cove that doesn't have at least 1 other boat in it.

One of the cutest was a tiny place called Cala Binirras, on Ibiza, where every evening the local hippies bang on the bongos at sundown. There's quite a crowd gathers to watch every day, and we noticed that there are always more boats in this cala than San Miguel, the one next door, which is bigger and has more bars and restaurants. Apparently they've been doing it for at least 30yrs so obviously a tourist attraction. And San Miguel has its own fame, the rock directly outside is apparently a spitting image of Queen Victoria on her throne, so we always found it easy to identify this one each time we came around.

But my favourite was Cala Sahona on Formentera which has a cute little bar on the cliff, has the right orientation for the sunset, had dogs that Boney played with all night and the most amazing coloured water of all the paces we have visited so far.

The other thing that we are finding amazing is the size of boats here as well as the number of them. The average size of motor boat would have to be 50+ ft which for us is normally huge. But these things look small as most of the motor boats are more like 100+ feet with the regulation paid crew manning them. And THEN you get the REALLY big ships that have the helicopters on the front or back of them rolling past every few days. And the super yachts are even bigger. The best 1 we have seen so far not only has 5 spreaders (the average is 4) but had a rear deck large enough to erect a marquee on it behind the normal bimini and rear decks!!! Not sure why or how they manage to get from 1 place to another and not have it fall overboard but we have seen it at several different spots and always with its party tent out the back. But Dave's favourite was an 80ft "Wally" that was all black and carbon looking and we talked to the skipper but were too afraid to ask how much it cost. "If you have to ask then you can't afford it" seems to be the motto here.

The super yachts and motor boats seem to congregate in several places where obviously the bars and restaurants are more upmarket, although I have to say I've never seen a launch from any of the super boats take a person into shore. Mainly it's the 50-60 footers that are still willing to mingle with the unwashed masses, after that it seems they stay on the boat to stay away from the stench!! And I'm not sure how may guests are on these things, there are often a dozen people in view but given they have crews of 5-6 it's likely there are only about 4-6 guests on a 130 footer. We've even seen 1 that had a guy on an exercise bike on the top deck working out while the staff were below setting up lunch on the lower rear deck. Obviously a privileged life but I'm not sure I would like a crew observing me live my life standing behind my chair with their hands clasped behind their backs!!!!! And surprisingly the majority of these yachts and motor launches are British flagged. Must be there's still plenty of money in the UK if not Spain, Italy and France. We are guessing it's lawyers and bankers....

Ibiza's major claim to fame these days seems to be the super nightclubs that are dotted around the island in either Ibiza town, San Antonio or the road between. The largest (and there are several of them) can fit about 15,000 people into them and with the season just starting they are advertising celebrity DJ's and acts almost every night of the week. There is 1 concert somewhere on the island in July that has Sting 1 day, Elton John and Fat Boy Slim another, and Lenny Kravitz on the 3rd. And that's just their headline acts. There are billboards all over the island and at every cala, advertising the daily artists for all the large clubs. Mostly the clubbers seem to stay in 2 towns, Ibiza itself and San Antonio, and when you stop in these towns there is a passing parade of mainly British, mainly 20somethings, and ALL sunburnt. Seems San An is lager lout territory but is certainly a real "people watcher" stop and seeing these girls and guys all dressed up in body paint looking like lions, dragons and multi coloured fish at 5 in the afternoon after a hard day on the beach is amazing.

But the weather is slowly heating up. It was gorgeous when we arrived that the very end of May and now at the end of June it is still lovely but you can now really feel the heat in the sun and water has heated up to the mid 20's. So no more excuses for me not to be swimming. I never went in the water once last yr in the Atlantic where it was not only too cold but also too sharky. Here the water is getting to the tepid stage, and being crystal clear there is no reason not to jump in. so jumping in we are. It's cool to snorkel round the boat looking at the fish and the sea grass and sea cucumbers, as well as knowing exactly how well the anchor is dug into the sand. And the heat of the day is such that you just have to keep jumping in to keep cooling down so we are spending more and more time each day in the water.

And we've been getting Bonaparte to swim more each day as well to the point where as soon as we get him to the beach now he wades straight in to chest level and stands there to cool down. The downside of all this practice is the other day when we were swimming from the boat to the beach we looked around as he had stopped barking. He hates us leaving him anywhere and in desperation he had jumped off the back of the boat and was swimming after us!!!! I had to turn around as I wasn't sure he'd make it into land. Fortunately I think he frightened himself as well as us and he hasn't tried it again, but we are swimming him into land on longer trips each day now so that we know how far he can go on his own, just in case.

But we are now en route to Mallorca where we will scout out a few places to visit before the masses arrive to visit us in July. All in all we have about 3 or 4 separate groups visiting during what is the height of the season, so will be busy, busy, busy as well as fitting in a trip to London for Dave's mate Bruce's wedding, as Dave is best man. And I'm using the excuse of being on land again for a quick side trip to Paris and the Champagne district before we head back to Mallorca for more sailing and swimming. Hope you are all enjoying the winter over there and that it has finally stopped raining at least