We arrived just after sunset and with barely enough light to see our way to the dock.  It was worth the wait for a great downwind sail today.  We were making such good time, we decided to bypass Tavira, our planned destination, and to head into the Rio Guadiana, a river forming the border between Portugal and Spain.  We "timed" our entry perfectly, arriving at the mouth of the river at exactly half-flood  just as the pilot book recommends, but this left us with failing light.

We saw lots of Northern Gannets today which reminded us of the other times we have seen these magnificent sea birds during their migration or nesting.  Lisa will never forget her first sighting with her mom in New Zealand in 1996.  They took a detour one day and found a nesting colony of gannets on a rocky promontory along the coast of the North Island.  Hundreds of birds were sitting on nests or tending to new born chicks.  Gannets also accompanied us on the Chesapeake Bay during our first trip south on the Intracoastal Waterway in November 1997.

We talked about how we have such a range of experiences in just one day of coastal sailing.  At times it is exhilarating with the wind behind us moving along at more than seven knots.  At other times it is quiet and peaceful as we slide along the coast.  Sometimes it is a bit tense or scary, mostly related to the unknown, like heading into an unfamiliar port as darkness falls or feeling the wind and waves build and wondering how nasty it might get.  There is nothing like experience to alleviate some of these concerns.  We are amazed at how our range of comfort under these varying conditions has increased with time.  Even though it is more challenging, we find ourselves much more suited to being underway than living aboard the boat at a dock in the marina.  We live in anticipation of what we might discover in the next port or what we might experience while underway.  This is our chosen lifestyle, and it gets better and better all the time.  But we are never too far from the realities of every day life.  For example, today we had a small crisis in the galley: we are officially out of peanut butter!