Well after 7 months of inactivity - blogging that is - we are now back for more inane ramblings to bore everyone back home.
It's now mid April and we are sitting on the boat in Lagos Marina listening to the wind whistle round the boat at 20 odd knots. Quite a bit of rain and its now colder than last week - almost needing a jacket on to go out. Just like a Scottish summer in fact. The main reason for starting the blog up is that we are about to push off and head into the Med in search of warmer waters and something to eat - Turkey in fact!
The last seven months has been a real hoot. We spent over four of them here in Lagos and really missed the place when we went back home. Christmas day was probably the best one we have had in many years with 14 of us crammed onto "Spirt de Nord Est" for a full roast turkey dinner and a game of Matthew Mark Luke and Martha. There are lots of other live aboards here - many spending the whole winter on the boat - and we have got particularly close to 7 or 8 of them (the crews, not the boats silly!). I won't list them here as they all know who they are!! ...but what a great bunch. Oh Really.
Christmas lunch "Lagos" style
Focus for the marina has been Lazy Jacks "our local" where one or two beers have been known to be consumed. There are so many restaurants around that no one ever gets bored of anywhere to go..... and the supermarket is only 2 minutes from our pontoon (we are at the posh end). We've been out on a Spanish Galleon (actually a Portguese Caravella), done a power boat course, learnt how to pole dance and many many more.
The boat has been tied up virtually the whole winter although we did take it out a couple of times last week to have a shakedown sail and find out what's broken and what isn't. It was also useful to refresh our memories of how to sail. We bought a new inflatable dinghy, the Lupolight front bicolour has stopped working, the computer blew up, one of our unbreakable wine glasses broke and oh yes, Pam cut her finger - requiring 2 stiches. Yesterday Margaret (on China Blue) did the same. It's a great excuse to get out of any food preparation and washing up etc for a few weeks.
More from Christmas dinner. I will try and dig out the pole dancing shots from boxing day if I can find them. Talk about Gumpy old men!!
Plan A this year is to sail to Turkey - the same route as about 15 other boats leaving Lagos. Murray and Alan are flying out to help us do the first couple of weeks to Gibraltar and then on to Majorca and they arrive Thursday evening. We were going to leave first thing Friday morning and do an over-nighter down to Barbete but there is a front due through Friday night so we may delay a day to avoid sailing in the rain - what a load of whimps I hear you say. There is no plan B at the moment so we will have to do a bit of work on that one. One thing for certain though is that we will be back here at some stage to stay, maybe even for an extended period.
I'll keep this entry reasonably short so not to bore you too much and be back with more before we go. On the next entry we will introduce our new crew member who appeared early March and explain the significance of "Oh Really" which is now one of the frequently heard phrases in the marina. Of course, let us have your comments and messages of encouragement - and I know just what we will get back from Liz and Ju!
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