39:41.4N 25:13.6W

We’ve had a good first day with 123 miles of comfortable sailing to help us regain our sea legs. For a while this morning we had the motor on as well, in order to keep up our speed to reach the latitude where we know there will be wind tomorrow. But now the wind is good and the motor off.

Weather forecasts and Passage plan

We are now out of range of Herb, who gave us bespoke weather advice by short wave radio from Bermuda to the Azores.

So we download weather charts each day which give us a three day forecast. The charts are full of symbols showing the wind strength and direction, and from these, Charlie and Allan can infer the isobars and the weather systems that move across the Atlantic. In addition there are sea areas in the Eastern Atlantic that extend to the Azores and are the responsibility of the French weather service. Forecasts for these areas, named Charcot, Josephine and so on, are available in English on the automatic radio system known as Navtex. Eventually when we reach 15 degrees west we will back listening to “Sailing By” when Radio 4 closes down, and then hear what is happening in sea area Fitzroy.

At the moment we are heading north east and hope to pick up more wind tomorrow nearer the southern edge of a low which will reach the UK in a day or two. This should give us plenty of wind from behind the beam to help our progress.

All in all a hectic final day in Terceira. Charlie lost his wallet and mobile phone, thought he’d lost the marina access key but found he’d already handed it back, and then we watched the World Cup. We were outnumbered by Germans in the bar by about 4-1, a familiar score!

The night before we left the Azores we turned on the navigational instruments and found them all blank. This was quite a setback, as we might have had to steer by hand and check the wind by looking at the burgee on the masthead – just like old times! Fortunately, first thing on Monday morning, Charlie spoke to an old chum at the manufacturer who suggested a work around. By disconnecting some repeater dials near the wheel, the single rogue instrument has been isolated and everything now works normally.

There was another problem in the forward heads – the squeamish should skip the rest of this paragraph. In a nutshell, the holding tank (for use in harbour) was full and the outlet was blocked. We pondered whether this should even be attempted in harbour, but decided to proceed. We tried a bit of compressed air by pumping it up with the dinghy air pump. No benefit, but we then had to flush down the deck when the pressure was released . . . . Next, Allan volunteered to poke something up from below, being ready to swim away the moment it was successful. Fortunately for Allan, this didn’t work either, so we are left with one loo and a full holding tank of some maturity which will have to be dealt with in the UK.