Leg 3 Day 2 Horta to Hamble
40 12N 25 57W 1200 hrs UTC Wednesday 15th June 2011 Part 3 Horta to Hamble Day 2 of the amazing journey of Diatonic. On line again as the "TWO Amigos". Fantastic!!!! After 3 weeks of headwinds, between Tortola Bermuda and Azores, soaking wet close hauled we are now enjoying downwind sailing again. With only a scrap of the 2 Genoa's winged and no mainsail we can forget about sail trimming and enjoy 6 to 9 knots of surfing in a dry boat, hot sunshine in the daytime and full moon all night. We might get bored but have plenty of films and computer games to while away the hours, not to mention the beer. We have plenty of beer supplies but sadly will be missing our G & T's as we come to the end of our tonic. This is therefore an emergency call for Tonic and Ice. If someone could fly out a chinook they can have a free bottle of Gin. We can meet in any position on the rumb line Horta to Falmouth. We have heard that Suzana of ARC Rally Control has been unable to get a flight out of Azores so we are prepared to return and offer our now spare berth in return for supplies of tonic. Sadly for Lyall of ARC, who is also stuck, we have no other berths available. Failing these options we may have to go onto rum & coke. We left Horta at 0930 on Monday 13th June having left our mark on the harbour wall. Not the best painting but something that will ensure a safe and happy voyage. Had a good time in Horta and sorry we missed the Islands cruise due to friends flying in and not wanting to spend time sailing. At the last minute Paul decided to leave by air and we therefore had to hang around to advise immigration of the change of crew. Paul was our Facebook user and therefore we cannot udate this, so apologies to our fan club, President Mary and director of activities Jenny. Lady Ev a Bavaria 47 left Horta 3 hours before us and is sailing more to the west about 80 miles away. Although they have a watermaker they cannot find the on/off switch and so we are making plenty of water in the hope they will swap water for tonic when we meet them in a few days time. In fact we have so much water David is threatening to fill up the cockpit and use the last of the tonics to provide the bubbles for a Jakusi !!! So please hurry with fresh supplies. David is up to his usual tricks and claims to have seen lots of UFO's last night but on closer inspection we established he needed to clean his sun glasses. Tony was able to confidently verify they were the lights of steam trains about to run us over so we better hurry and finish the Gin. It was shortly after this that we came acrossh a stashtionary yacht with 6 beautiful Philipino girls on board. On pulling alongside we were asked for assistance. Apparantly they were on the way to France for a culinary course as trainee chef's, and being gentlemen offered a ride in our boat to France. This was on the condition they share the six cans of tonic they had on board and cooked for us. So we are now towing their empty vessel and looking forward to sampling their domestic skills over the next few days. The TWO AMIGOS are happy because they have tonic and aquired 6 cooks. The 6 girls are happy to be cooking British Fish and chips but still do not understand why we put gin in the tonic. Read the latest update to this in our next blog. Signing off THE TWO Amigos David and Tony - S/Y Diatonic |
