Position                    37:39.46 N 024:25.85 W

Date                          2359 (UTC) Monday 27 March 2017

Distance run             in 7hrs 50mins 61nm over the ground, 58nm through the water

Passage total            61nm over the ground, 58nm through the water

Distance to go          925nm

Planned distance      Ponta Delgada, Azores to Gibraltar 986nm

We have had a great week in Ponta Delgada on the island f Sao Miguel in the Azores.  The city is beautiful, the island scenery is great and the everywhere the people could not have been more welcoming.  The OCC Port Officer, Alberto Pacheco, who is also the Vice President of the Yacht Club, met us on the dock with our delivered spare parts when we arrived.  He also very kindly took us on a tour of the western end of the island on Thursday.  On Sunday, we hired a car and toured the western end of the island. We also found a couple of really great restaurants and they were not expensive, compared to the UK.  We highly recommend a visit, perhaps not from Ascension Island.

Anyway, having had a week to recover and looking at the overall weather for the trip we decided to set off.  The first 2-3 days have a robust forecast but at least the wind is aft the beam.  Getting off the dock with 20 knots of wind directly on the beam was assisted by large chaps of two catamarans that had just arrived from St Maarten.  We spent 30 minutes motoring gently into wind in the harbour whilst we stowed fenders and lines before heading out and it was full on from the start with 25 knots showing across the deck and rising. The run to midnight shows an average speed of over 7.5 knots which is better than virtually any day on our last passage from Ascension.  Elizabeth has stacked 8 meals in the freezer and tonight we dined off seafood pasta, pre-cooked to minimise time in the galley as our bodies adapt once more to being bounced around.