Looking East

We returned to Vagrant last Friday. I am writing this at sea a week later, on passage towards Gibraltar. The sun is out, the kite is up, we're making a heathy 8 knots, and some dolphins have just swum by.

Lagos was a good base for a winter break. We caught up on end of season jobs, some necessary sorting and cleaning, and dried out in Alvor to check the boat over.

Although the sun would appear most days, it turned a bit grey and wet through November and the weather didn't encourage us to sail locally much. We met a few friends on several boats; most have now headed across the Atlantic. But we were in the Algarve for a different reason - to get to the Eastern Mediterranean for the summer.

In December, we flew back to the UK to spend Christmas and New Year with friends and family. The first week back there was snow and -10⁰C temperatures, which was a bit of a shock.

We didn't return until late January, partly due to Sara's traditional annual operation (a minor carpal tunnel fix, nowhere as near as traumatic as last year's broken arm), and partly to the "Schengen Shuffle".

If you unaware of the Schengen area tourist visa restrictions suffered by non-EU citizens, the rule is simple to state ("no more than 90 days in a rolling 180 days"). It turns out to be quite hard to reason about, but we have a plan. Once we are there, we can spend equal time in Greece (Schengen) and Turkey (not Schengen) to balance out the days allowed by the visa. But we want to start in Greece, so have had to limit the days spent in Portugal. To this end, we now need to spend six weeks outside of the Schengen area, two to three of which will be at sea getting there. We are hoping to go to Tangier, but the marina is currently full. The marina in Rabat didn't pick up the phone. So we're off to spend a couple of weeks in Gibraltar and hope for a space in Tangier.

Sunrise over the entrance to the Mediterranean...