Back to Belgium

Eurostar and National Express East Anglia successfully got us home just after midnight on Sunday morning, with no problems at all. It was nice to be home, although with the odd little worry like the phone line - it broke the day before Guy left home, was mended by a BT engineer, and thereafter took to making 999 calls all on its own, apparently. We even had a message from a policeman who had popped round to check that everything was OK.

There's currently a settled high over Scandinavia with a ridge over the North Sea, which means relatively gentle north-easterlies. We had to stay in the UK until today as Sam had a crucial meeting this morning which had been fixed weeks ago, but this afternoon we'll be back on Eurostar again with the expectation of getting to Oostende around midnight UK time, sleeping on board, rising early to pay the marina and buy provisions, and then heading out on the mid-morning tide. I am very jittery that there will be a sudden change in the weather, the wind will strengthen to a 6 or go north-westerly, but at the moment it all still looks ok. We left buying the Eurostar tickets until the last moment (expensively of course) to accommodate my fears. Ben has to go back to school so we'll have to manage without him - at least that reduces the fares a bit...

Guy texted a couple of times to say he spent just two hours in Baiona, just north of the Portuguese border, on Monday, and rounded Cabo St Vicente on the bottom left corner of Portugal yesterday afternoon. It's a very different kind of sailing from ours, and I'm very proud of him!