Porto Santo is a beautiful island. Not very big, with volcano tops (700 metres), a rough landscape full of cactuses and a beautiful yellow sand beach on the south side. We anchor all by ourselves just before the village. We drop a second anchor to prevent rolling; the bay is completely open so there's still some swell rolling in. A great anchorage with a handy supermarket (which has really good meat) near the old pier where we can moor our dinghy. The rest of the boats are anchored in the marina, about half an hour's walk from the village.

The next day we drive to the starting point of a hike; a very nice one, quite steep up the highest volcano top via a few hundred steps. The girls do this whistling; for us it's a real condition training. Afterwards we swim around the boat and in the evening we eat delicious meat skewers from the BBQ. What a good life! Friday Oct 16 we sail to the main island, on the engine, because there is hardly any wind. We moor in a new Marina (Quinta do Lorde), where it is very nice to moor under a huge rock. Saturday we do the laundry and prepare the boat for some extra sleepers. Toine bakes an apple pie and then we are ready to receive Mom, Inge and Luc. We pick them up from the airport at 9 in the evening. It is a nice and special reunion. The next report will be written by the end of this week.