Sitting in Porto Kayio in Mani, a beautiful quiet bay, that looks protected but when the wind blows as it did last night it can be pretty blowy to say the least. We sailed down yesterday from Pilos in Ormos Navarinou, where in 1827 a British commander defeated the Turkish and Egyptian fleet with almost half the number of ships to theirs. I had a rather unpleasant experience in the morning there though whilst taking Jesse for a walk up to the fortress. I walked into a series of huge spiders webs, and disturbed a couple of indignant rather large spiders, that I don't think were too pleased with me, judging by their expressions...I was looking at them that close!!! Any way as I said we left there yesterday, and with no wind set off for the Southern most part of Europe, although apparently Gibraltar beats it by about 14 miles. A way down the the coast of Mani the wind came up perfectly so we had a wonderful sail, but we needed to tack to change direction at the bottom of the cape to go up the other side to Porto Kayio. We knew the wind would be stronger at this point, but I was not quite prepared for how strong, well, I wanted to sail, and this was the most extreme sailing I have ever done, we did have too much sail out, so ended up trimming three times, the wind was probably a force 7 and we were doing a good 8.8 knots, heeled over till the sea almost came over the toe rail...in other words really tipping over, certainly makes the adrenalin pump!!!!! Eventually we had to give up on the sails as it really was just too much wind, the sea was spraying right up and over the boat as well, and of course I hadn't closed all the hatches...another lesson learned...whatever you think the weather is going to be, always close hatches before you set off, every day I am learning so much, and my check list of things to do before we set sail is getting longer every day. But yes, I am enjoying every moment of it.
 Perfect sunrise this morning and the perfect early morning swim off the boat as Tom took the dogs ashore for their morning walk. We met up with Tessa and Tony here as well, which has been lovely, they have come from Crete with their yacht Little Roundtop, and they are heading to Cephalonia, so basically doing the route that we have just done, they also keep a blog at tntatsea.wordpress.com  .