Raggy Doll - Friday 23rd and Saturday 24th June - The Feast of St John

Friday should have been a nice relaxing trip to the local town, but we spent the day sucking water out of the bilges that had been put there by the delivery crew, whilst they were trying to unblock the heads, I hasten to add it was not sewage!
We had been warned at the sardine dinner, that today was the eve of the celebration for St John the Baptist's birthday known as the feast of St. John. There would be a parade and fireworks and lots of celebrations. We ate on board as we quickly realised trying to eat out could prove tricky with the amount of people in the town. Around 2100 a small group of locals came down to our berth and we could hear a rather excited conversation, so duly went out to investigate. It transpired that it was their boat we were wedged up against and they wanted to take it out that night for the celebration, leaving at 2330 and not returning until 0230 the following morning. Deep joy! As we were the visiting boat, that was causing the problem, it was common courtesy that we offered to stay up and see them out and back in and considering we had to be up the next morning for an 0800 start, it was not an idea we relished. They left slightly happier than when they arrived. We sat and pondered for a while, then Andrew was gone, he came back a short while later with several other yacht crews and Raggy Doll was removed from her very tight berth to a much more appropriate space that left us free to enjoy our evening without having to stay up until 2.30 in the morning.
Andrew and I went with the assisting crews to check out the very lively celebrations that were all over the town, returning to Raggy Doll around midnight to try and and get some sleep. Little did we know the celebrations went on all night and even with ear plugs, at 4.45 in the morning I could still hear the beat of the music!
Up bright and early Saturday ready for the off, we were already shattered and it was 55 nautical miles to Peniche. The wind was pretty non existent and temperamental, so we ended up motor sailing just to get there quicker, it still took us nearly 9 hours and when we arrived at the marina we had to be rafted up against Mila of Falmouth, who in turn was rafted against Blonde Moment. We then had Sweet Harmony rafted to us. Most of the rally ate in a local restaurant arranged by Arc and when the meal ended we had to avoid the 7000 runners who were doing a 5km race for charity!
Another poor nights sleep due to slapping water and rocking and rolling, we really weren't up for the 50 nautical mile run to Oeiras!

Sally Dolden