We are back on board but my lovely wife is keeping me company for a week, Paul will be back on board in two weeks time. We had a nice week at home seeing Olly teaching surfing in Newquay and we saw Tim off to teach kitesurfing in fuerteventura. Its Volvo week in Galway; the Volvo round the world race finished in Galway this week after 38,000miles the world. Most of Ireland was in the marina having come to watch, 

They say that an epic race deserves an epic party!

Thin Lizzy turned up and took to the stage to warm every body up.

The boats arrived on the final leg from Portugal, reaching the line at 2am, it was quite a sight; sadly the photos didn't work but there were a sea of fairy lights on the flotilla of spectator boats following a single red light at the top of a huge mast steaming in at 10 knots.

Whilst Galway partied waiting for the in bay racing at the end of the week, Mellers and I headed to the Aran  Islands. We stopped in the bay and Melanie had her first go at fishing, with some success


The fish heads went into the prawn pot in the drink over night and low and behold... well , not the prawns we had hoped for but we got a starter!

Unfortunatly we had already caught enough fish for 3 days when this chap was hauled aboard so he lived to fight another day

We even had some sunshine and the boat saw its first real yoga

 From Aran we headed back to Galway for the Volvo in bay race, the ocean boats raced round the bay for an hour for the sake of the public, quite a sight, after which the overall winner 'Groupama' came into the harbour with flares burning in its rigging

The boats parked up in the marina for all to see, the trophy is handed over  and the real party begins!

On Sunday morning I dropped Melanie to catch a flight home and headed off to pick up Pete and Chris.....