Friday, June 15th Horta, Azores

This morning at around 7:30 am local time we arrived at Horta. It took us 16 days in all. 16 days of great sailing, no storms, only 2 showers and only 3 days with no wind :-)

After clearing with port control, immigration, customs and the police we were free to go to Cafe Sport for lunch. Walking on the hard again was not easy. The whole place sees to be wobbling all the time..

Right now  we're all sort of exhausted and in for an afternoon nap.. probably till dinner time :-)

Thursday, June 14th Position 37°45.172 N; 31°02.610 W

We're sailing again:-) After a day and a night motoring this morning at around 6am, the wind picked up enough to set the sails and get a decent speed. While setting the sails, we had some real rain, first time since we left the Caribbean :-)

We didn't see much wildlife either. Some dolphins and an occasional bird. We did see a lot of Portuguese Warships, funny little jellyfish, quite colorful, sailing upwind. We tried to catch one but that didn't work out. I guess I'm fine with that, wouldn't know what to do with it and how to get it out of the net …

We're getting close to Horta now. While typing we were called over the vhf. A Portuguese fishing vessel called for a chat :-) For us the first sign of life in 2 weeks...

According to my latest grib files, the wind will hold for the next 24 hrs., by then we'll be there.
So, next update will have some foto's :-)

Wednesday, June 13th Position 36°53.466 N; 33°40.766 W

The wind has dropped a bit and we started the engine to keep up the speed. The ocean is flattening and there's only a nice swell that easily rock you to sleep :-)
Since its very calm we fueled up a bit. All went well without spilling a drop, but wen I got the hose out, the little chain that's securing the cap broke and next moment it was gone..
I had to use one of the wooden plugs as a cap and added another thing on my to do list when we get to Horta.

We thought to be very lucky catching a real big fish. There was something serious hooked on, and it took a while to get it in. However, when I could finally sea it, it turned out to be a fishing net, and of course no fish in it... So, corned beef stayed on the menu...Today Eline will show us how to catch a fish. That's what she promised anyway... we'll sea...:-)

Our ETA is now Friday afternoon, providing the wind picks up according to my latest grib files.
Sofar they were pretty accurate, so hopefully we don't have to motor the last part of our trip.
With about 250 Nm still to go, we all are starting to look forward to make landfall. Obviously we're all in for a real long shower and a nice long night of sleep After having some drinks at Cafe Sport of course !!

It would be nice if we get there Friday. That gives us some days to explore the Island.a bit.
Eline and I already booked our flights to Asd. leaving the 20th . Frits and Arie have to check at the airport when we get there. Frits is looking for a flight on Saturday or Sunday so hopefully there's still an open seat. Arie is planning to stay some more days, I guess he won't have a problem to get a ticket.

Monday, June 11th Position 35°38.483 N; 37°27.002 W

Today we again crossed a time line and gained another hour. Officially that is.... I was supposed to cook dinner tonight but woke up late from my afternoon nap, so I decided to stick to the time zone and adjust the clock tomorrow. So, I was still n time and we didn't have to change the watch times.
Captains privilege, ha.

Last night we had the best night so far starwise. The sky was completely clear and bright. There were so many stars, you could hardly find the ones you know, amazing!!

After breakfast we changed the sails. The night before we put in the first reef and furled in the staysail, still doing over 6 kts. We took out the reef, set the staysail again and changed the genoa for  the gennaker. For some reason the gennaker didn't hold, it wasn't the wind really. Anyway, we ripped it and an hour later we were back to the sailplan we started with...
Well I guess shit happens and sofar we're very lucky weatherwise, so it's not a big deal and easy to fix.

Tomorrow we're gonna celebrate Eline's birthday :-) and of course I'll give her a call over the sat phone :-)

Saturday, June 10th Position 33°58.090N; 42°02.437W

Since yesterday we have real great winds. We're sort of sailing on the edge of a high that gives us a 15 kts on a beam reach. With all sails set, we're doing over 8 kts for hours, heading strait to Horta.

With only 700 Nm to go, the chart plotter already gives us an ETA, estimated time of arrival, of about 96 hrs. Providing of course that the wind stays like this.

Every day we're looking for a reason to celebrate and propose a toast. Today is fathers day, what more do we need :-)
Eline made us all a nice tie: for the dearest father of the whole ocean!
She also backed a raisin bread, for sure the best bread she made, delicious !!
Too bad I can't upload any pictures from here, but I'll add them as we come to Horta.

The nights are getting cooler by the day :-) but during the day, it's real nice and warm and most of all sunny. Clear enough to take some more sights :-)

Friday, June 8th Position 31°33.147W; 47°54.005W

This morning we had bacon and scrambled eggs with champagne to celebrate half way :-)
At around 7 am we hit the 1100 Nm. Last couple of days we had good winds and sailed on a broad reach, doing around 7 kts on average.

Lack of sleep is beginning to take it's toll. Last night all the guys messed up their watch timing. Frits sort of fell asleep during his watch, I woke up 2 hours early, disorientated, Arie only slept an hour ad too was told to go back to bed again. Later, when I woke Frits for his next watch, he told me he'd be there in a minute. But 2 seconds later he was vast asleep again....

So, I guess you can say that if it wasn't for Eline, we wouldn't be celebrating this morning :-)

In all I must say that Eline is one of the most complete and most competent female crew members that I had on board sofar !!

On the sextant part we aren't that lucky. Although the weather is fine, the sun is behind thin high clouds most of the day, keeping us from taking a clear sight :-(
In all the weather is changing. Getting more North by the day, it's cooling of at night. Last night I actually put on a sweater. Anyway. During the day it's still warm, if not hot, with a nice cool breeze.

Wednesday, June 6th ; position 29°55.629N; 51°35.418W

So far we sailed about 920 Nm. And another 1300 Nm to go.
Today and last night we had good winds and could make up for the days of motoring speedwise.
Last night we had our first meal with canned meat, sort of rubberish meat balls, hmm..
The toast on Scott's birthday made it okay though. However this morning we caught a huge dolphin fish. With joined forces we got it on board while I was handling the rod, Arie managed to hook it. The baby bath to kill it was to small though. It took more then a couple of blows on it's head and a knife to make sure it was dead. After I gutted it, Frits cut it into nice peaces, enough for 4 days.
Anyway, for a start we had a very an nice lunch :-) Of course we also had a toast on Marc's birthday.
As the day went by we changed sails a couple of times. We started with the gennaker and later set the staysail too. Then the wind veered and we had to loose the staysail. Afterwards we went back to the twin genoa's. It's keeping you busy :-)
We also took some sights today and worked out the pro forma's. Tomorrow we'll do the plottings. The sun's out and very hot all day but most of the time not clear enough to take a sight...  anyway, it's fun to use the sextant again except for Eline, she  could not be persuaded to give it a try too. She's sticking to the old fashioned GPS :-) and steered the boat while we were fiddling around with the almanac and reduction tables. She also made some more yoghurt, the best sofar!

Just when I was about to write this update, I was called on deck because of some rope we were dragging. Hmm,... we couldn't find a simple way to loose it so I decided to heave to and put on my swimsuit. Once in the water, it was quite easy to free the rope of the prop and within 10 minutes we were sailing again.