Arrival in Portugal

Today we left our home of nine years and flew to Lisbon to begin our adventure. Last night in bed, the enormity of the propossal hit me and I felt quite apprehensive, but now we are here, it seems like we have never been away from our stalwart boat.

We left a cold and frosty Britain ahead of the rain and managed to get away with checking in 82kg of baggage at Luton along with four sizeable cabin bags. A heady 21 degrees and sunshine greeted us in Lisbon where we were chauffered to Cascais by the boss of the wife of Nuno Diaz - the Portuguese chap who lived onboard the first winter we had Croix des Gardes and worked 16 hour days to get her seaworthy back in 2007.

James got on with the seemingly endless tasks, prioritising getting epoxy in the leak over Elizabeth's bunk before tomorrow's forecast rain, and I got some provisions then took the kids to the beach for a swim.

 Cascais is very chic, with coastal citadels too numerous to mention, classy yachts in the marina and kilometres of pristine sandy beaches lines with palm trees and bistros. Despite that, the spectre of plastic waste raises it's ugly head even here. In just 25m of strand line, I collected significant waste from plastic bottles, to mooring line, to a bicycle tyre to an unused condom. Despite the gloom, the marina teems with healthy grey mullet, occasionally harassed by small stripey jobs, and the live mussels washed ashore were massive and very tempting.

 Back aboard now to occupy the children and prepare for supper. The boat is a bit of a tip but we'll deal with that over the next few days. So long as we can find anough space to sleep....