We are currently in Vilamoura, Portugal, waiting for better wind to continue east.  We tried to get underway after a day at the dock, but ended up spending an hour motoring into the wind and waves.  We decided to give it another day.

The marina here is quite large and very well protected, but located in the middle of a huge resort development.  We found ourselves surrounded by power boats with no one staying aboard. The plus side is that we had a lot of privacy, something Lisa has been craving after spending the winter in close quarters at Marina de Lagos.  Perhaps this is why we were both alarmed when we awoke at 3:00 a.m. to the sounds of loud voices and someone banging on Gyatso's anchors.  For a brief moment, Lisa worried that some late-night partiers had made it past the security gate and were there to cause trouble.  But then we realized that it was a security guard and a marina staff person adjusting our dock lines.  Apparently, our bow sprit hanging over the dock was causing a problem for them.  They wanted to move us further back in our undersized slip, but didn't realize that we were staying onboard.  We wished they could have waited until daylight, but were mostly glad that it was just a minor issue.

Projects continue as we have time.  David reconditioned three winches and we washed the grit from one of the head sails and some of the running rigging.  A close inspection of the boom revealed a sheared-off cotter pin on the clevis pin for the main sail boom.  We both breathed a huge sigh of relief that it hadn't given out completely on the passage from the Azores to mainland Portugal.  Another stroke of good luck for us.