Sines, Portugal

Noon 25th to noon 26th
Position: alongside pontoon, Sines
Day's run: 0
Current rig: sailcovers on



At midday, everyone was busy doing jobs around the boat to make it harbour worthy, from flaking sails to making sure all the stanchions and fittings are all secured for the next leg. Watch Leader Aidan was up the mast rethreading a halyard and making sure that the cars on the main sail are all correct.
Race director Paul Bishop, who had to fly out early as we were making such good progress in the race, came to visit and congratulate us on crossing the line first. He informed us that it was the first time that Rona II has crossed the line before our rivals Peter Von Danzig. I mean just, it was only 17 mins and 55 seconds.
Happy hour came and we had cake and some entertainment from red watch which was yet another disappointing round of Call 'em all. During happy hour skipper Roy said that we could all have our first shower in a week. Everyone jumped at the chance and the shower block was filled with the Rona crew.
Everyone then 'Ren-Dez vous'ed at the beach at four o'clock where we had a great time playing in the rich blue sea and classic beach games such as fender ball, tug of war and British bulldog. Just to clarify, no afterguard got hurt in theses games; can't say the same for the entire crew. The whole time we were there some locals were playing some volley ball. Rona crew being Rona crew, we went and introduced ourselves and got into a big game of volley ball. At one point we had four local Portuguese and 15 of the crew on the court, we still managed to loose but it's effort that gets an Amory award.
We came back to a chili, no hang on, a curry and popadoms. There was confusion as we had taken the next boxes of food out but in the haste to get to the showers, we forgot to unpack all of them. The afterguard then treated the crew to a different flavour of squash as after two and a half weeks of orange squash it's starting to become bland. The night just ended with everyone bonding and talking around the saloon.

Morning came quick and the crew were rudely awoken by the skipper playing music at full blast through the speakers. Luckily Ferghal and Josh were already up preparing a glorious breakfast of Portuguese sausages in a rather odd fashion sense; boxers and aprons. A bit more deck work had to be done and food sorting had also began for the next few days. All the left over food from the days at sea were put onto the table and a new menu created to make best use of the last of the food. In a modern hipster style - or laziness - deconstructed tuna pasta bake was made for lunch.