So, Sunday morning again. It’s seems pretty mad to think that we’ve been out here a week, in many ways it’s been a lot less stressful that the week before we left in Las Palmas. We were glad just to make the start really, on the Friday night it was looking pretty unlikely we’d have the boat ready as it began to dawn on us that our forestay and furling gear were beyond repair. Whilst everyone else was out enjoying free cocktails and the fireworks we were frantically working for 5 hours on our pontoon to try to get it working – it wasn’t the relaxed last few days that we’d envisaged doing the odd job and having a few beers with our new pals.

So there we were, 36hrs before the start with no forestay or furling gear, fortunately with the help of Domingo (our saviour and everybody’s favourite local rigger) a new unit was ordered from Tenerife and the ferry captain (also a mate of Domingo’s) agreed to take it onboard and deliver it to us.

The unit arrived at 5pm and by 11.45 we were able to send our genoa back up the track for the first time in six weeks. Relief all round, never mind the boat being in a mess, we were going to make it – it’d been impossible without the help of Domingo and the good folk of pontoon 16 who’s concern in our plight and willingness to offer tools and any assistance they could never ceased to amaze us. And we were also in time for midnight happy hour at the Match Bar, never has a beer (or 6) tasted so sweet.

So here we are, it’s been a failry uneventful 24hrs by our standards, winds consistently below 10 knts and very low boat speed – the spinnaker has been driving us along as best she can as we try to head south to pick up some consistent easterlies on Moday. Looks like 120 miles or so for the 24hr run, pretty poor, but we reckon that everyone else will be suffering too with the light winds and we’re still looking good against most of the other boats in our class.

Another fish got away this morning, he jumped off the hook as we hauled him in but the sun is shining and we’ve still got two fresh meals to eat so maybe next week we’ll be a bit more worried.