Into Portugal with Winnie at the helm

Well we really feel that we've started the next chapter of the voyage, after a great time in Galicia.

We left the anchorage as dawn broke; the Islas Cies (where we anchored a week ago) looked beautiful in the morning sunshine:

We had an absolutely cracking sail south, with the wind right behind us. Our extra crew member, Winnie (the Windpilot) did fantastically well in the challenging wind and sea conditions. For a while we had up to Force 7, with 3 metre swell and breaking waves so we reefed down and charged on. Winnie is great in that she steers the boat without the need for electricity, food or sleep and does it silently too. We've filmed a short video of her in action so will post it when the wifi here is less busy
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We decided to keep going south rather than stopping at our planned destination so as to take advantage of the free transport. The forecast suggested the winds would die early this morning and, sure enough, we had to start the engine at 4.00am for the last 5 hours of the 27 hour, 169 mile passage. We've come to a small marina at Nazare, about 80 miles north of the entrance to Lisbon; it's run by an English couple (from Dartmouth, originally) and one of their cats came aboard to complete the rodent check!

After the green hills of Galicia, it's suddenly very brown and dry here. Hot, too, so our sunshades have been rigged. We're planning our next move; the harbour master recommends this as an ideal location from which to head for Madeira and he warns that the weather tends to change in mid October so we should not delay too long.