July 22nd , Horta Faial,

An hour or so when we came back at Horta again Marc arrived at the airport right on time. We had dinner at Perter's which took a while... they could have some more people working there..

Anyway, next morning we wanted to sail to Lajes on the Island of Pico.. we did just after lunch when it stopped raining..

We had a nice sail and... again saw some some whales :-)

The marina was a bit tiny and when we moored between two other boats... the difference in size did matter.. we were way too big to stay there and moved to a pontoon just outside the marina.

Lajes is a nice but very small village. However it has some very nice places to have dinner and a nice place to have a drink afterwards.

Next day we did a number of jobs on the boat like changing the broken tricolor. Anyway, I spend about 4 hrs up in the mast while Marc and Rutger did some other jobs and Eline cleaned out her cabin...

Just before dinner we booked a swimming with dolphins trip for the next morning. The dream of Eline !! So we didn't stay up too late because we had to be there before 9 am.

The trip turned out to be a combined trip, swimming with dolphins and whale watching, with a whole group on a power dinghy.

It was a close to perfect trip.. we did see at least 6 whales, three of them in a group and a whole pack of striped dolphins. They are really funny, they like to jump real high out of the water and wiggle their tales but they usually don't stay with the boat and were not the right group to swim with.

A bit later we found a good group and Eline and Rutger went into the water. They really enjoyed very much. Only two at the time are allowed in the water so when they came back Marc and I were getting ready to jump in.

Just before I did however, I got this jellyfish on my foot, a Portuguese Warship. That hurts like hell I can say now.... Holy F.. Half my foot was covered and in trying to get the shit off I got it on my hands and leg too... It's sort of a sticking mess that doesn't come off that easy...

Marc was lucky, he was wearing flippers and didn't get any of the shit on his foot or leg.

The thing to do then is to put vinegar on it but they didn't had any. So the trip was over and we raced back to the marina. It was only 15 minutes before we would go anyway so we didn't miss that much.

It took us 15 burning minutes to get back where there was someone waiting with vinegar. I ended up for a check in the hospital but it was all okay..
They told me to just put some cream on it and take a painkiller, both of which I have on the boat and they told me that those probably would be better then the stuff they had.

So I did and we left for Horta where Willem Jelle, Monique and Jantine were waiting for us.

Tonight we all gonna have dinner and tomorrow Rutger and Eline will fly home again.

Then, when we have got all the stuff from the supermarket, we're ready to set sail for Scheveningen :-)