I'm beginning to feel like I’m back on my paper round! After a pleasant dinner at Brain’s parents in Lagos in which we almost felt normal, surrounded by things like chairs, tables and televisions we were up at 5am and off out into the dark.... and straight into the 2 mile long tuna net which the cunning fishermen have set right outside the harbour, right on the logical route into and out of Lagos.

Fortunately, with our long keel and its integrated rudder we could just switch of the engine and drift over the net. We motored for 20 miles into 3 metre seas, climbing up each long, high swell with the bows seeming like they were pointing higher and higher till gently coming down over the crest. Once at the point, we killed the engine and sailed for the rest of the day making a solid 7-8 knots and one of the best days so far.

We made Sines (pronounced cinch) by 18:30 and tied up in the small marina inside the petrochemical harbour! As long as you kept looking shore wards it was alright although the council seems to have decided to rip up their once attractive promenade and refurbish. Consequently the front is a mess of tractors and mud. However, the village was quite pleasant and we landed for the day of the Spring Festival.

Stuck for a few days as the northerlies had settled in I decided to renew the eye splice in the main halyard. As it was chilly sitting outside I took all the rope down below and spent a happy half hour perfecting my eye splicing technique. The final part of this process, once the splice is complete is to give the line a really hard pull to “bed” everything in.

I therefore nipped outside and tied one end around the winch, climbed back down below, grabbed the new splice and, from the top of the steps give an almighty tug on the sail tie I had put on the end of the splice. (Can you see it coming?).

One minute I was upstairs, the next, downstairs, face down on the floor, blood oozing from a 1” hole in my elbow where I clattered something on the way down. “Ouch”, I said.

Now, about that camper van………