Les Sables d'Olonne 13 June 2005

After six hops in seven days, the shortest of which was still 27 miles, we decided to stop for a breather. The weather forecast showed signs that the high pressure which had given us such stable conditions was about to evaporate from the Atlantic Pressure Charts. As we approached the harbour a bright yellow 'Open 60' yacht, the type that contests the Vendee Globe race, shot past. It was quite a sight, we had 17 knots of wind and she was broad reaching, even more impressively, she was towing a RIB and still going like a train.

Chris took the opportunity to do some maintenance work, changing the 'wand of power', what Poppy calls the combined throttle and gear lever mechanism - a quote from the film 'Toy Story II'. The old one was getting a little sticky and becoming increasingly hard to smoothly move the boat into or out of gear.

By Friday we were ready to go again and planned a day-night-day hop to Santander , 200 miles away on the northern coast of Spain . Giblet scuppered these plans by disappearing and not returning this morning. Chris said we could go anyway and he would get me a new cat in Santander but I persuaded him to wait. I think he was joking! The weather is near perfect for this trip so Giblet could not have picked a worse time to go gallivanting.