This evening was an opportunity to say thanks and goodbye to our friends in Portimao. They have all helped us continue our preparations before the trip and a special thanks to Steve and Anne from Water Dragon and Mark and Jane from Learn2Sail.

Tomorrow we have a short test sail planned in the morning (after breakfast, of course) and then in the afternoon we will depart for our 650 mile trip to Las Palmas marina, Gran Canaria.

The forecast for the next few days suggests a quick trip, with PredictWind showing some potential boat speeds in excess of 20knts, using the Rapier 550 sailing polars! We might decide to keep the sail plan a bit smaller until we are all sure that we are ready to go that fast! Even at a slower pace we should be in Las Palmas in less than 3 days.

We do have a bit more slime on the hull than ideal and we might try to get that washed off when we get to Las Palmas. The boat speed under motor is down to about 8 knots from the usual 10, which often indicates that it could do with washing off.

Mark