Monday 9th September
We set off with sunrise at 8am and no wind. It was a bit chilly and I almost went for gloves on the helm (but my fingers and toes do suffer from cold) but it soon warmed up as the sun rose. Once around the headland and heading south we had a brief period of F4 where we sailed but it only lasted half an hour before fading back to nothing.
Instead of wind we had dolphins come to play for us for over an hour, swooping around the hull and seemingly bashing into each other off the bow. One of them was completely missing it's dorsal fin (we named it Stumpy) which made it easy to keep identifying it. The dolphins escorted us across the Spain/Portugal border where we had the courtesy flag swapping ceremony.
Dolphins
The wind built again and we were now able to sail; with the wind at 160 degrees we went with just the genny and made reasonable speed. The swell was from the north west and less than 1m with a rare biggie to knock the wind out the sail. The wind stayed good throughout the afternoon, but picked up as we closed on the marina - no surprise!
With a F5 we made our way around the green buoys and someone from the marina came out to guide us into a berth. Good job as the pontoon fingers are very short and narrow, I'd have probably gone for a swim trying to get off with the lines. Our friends from Ostryga came along to help too and Emerald was soon as snug as she was going to get.
The temperature has got noticably cooler the last couple of days, I needed socks last night and Colin even had his woolly hat on today. We are now pretty much at where we intended to winter after our delayed start from Britain, but in the last week we've decided there is plenty of time to get further south which is seeming like a better decision!