A quick update

Sorry it has been a grillion years since I last published any news, I will answer as many worried emails as I can and hope the rest are responded to by this – the inbox is stuffed and I haven’t that long in which to sort it out. This will have to be quick as we very rarely get access to the internet and it very rarely lasts long...

Our new sails were finally delivered and we left the bay outside Torrevieja (where we were forced to go in order to avoid further violence from the harbourmaster's helpers) in a storm which nearly dashed us up onto the rocks at the harbour entrance and obliged us to leave a perfectly good chain and anchor on the bottom of the sea around there somewhere. Arriving in the bay of Palma, Mallorca, we found ourselves unable to stay or stop, the winds being around 50 knots with gusts of around 70, and ended up making an impromptu visit to the port of Algiers.

We stayed 3 weeks under armed guard (apparently we were in danger of beng targeted by terrorists) and met some wonderful local policemen plus the crew of a ship delivering 11,000 tons of steel - 17 Syrians and 3 Egyptians, all fabulous and generous people (eventually there will be a piece about them in MarineZine)
and spent a fortune getting our brand new sails re-worked because they were absolutely useless... that's another story...and finally left again with our water tanks and galley cupboardsfull to bursting.

We managed to anchor in Mallorca on our next attempt (it was a surprisingly quick journey back from Algiers) and spent the next couple of years running the bar and restaurant at the Anchorage Club in Illetas which was great fun but exhausting. Our contract expired in September 2007 and was not renewed (again, eventually there will be something about it on one of our websites maybe I will even make one especially for the purpose as it was a really beautiful place (I say 'was' because the current
committee seem hell-bent on making it as drab, characterless and clinical as possible in the belief that that constitutes 'going upmarket', bless them) and we looked around for another premises but either we liked a locale and it was too
expensive or we could afford the locale and it wasn't in the slightest bit desireable...

We are still at anchor just in front of the Anchorage Club at the moment - relaxing, giving the boat some TLC after a couple of years of neglect and deciding what to do next at our leisure. Leopard Normand will be hosting a summer-long party (well we've
got to use up all that booze somehow!) and this entry to our blog is being uploaded via a borrowed GPRS 3G mobile connection, some 300metres offshore. Think we might get one of these for ourselves and invest in some extra fuel for the generator…

Apologies again for any concern caused by long silences but just remember - if we're not here then we must be somewhere else and, wherever we are, we're fine! Robbie says "Hello!" I say: Enjoy yourself and watch this space... we may be back sooner than you think..