Lat: 39:04.6. N : Long: 032:42.4 W.

Wednesday, 18^th June, 2014 – Noon Position (UTC -3) 80 nm to Lajes Marina, Flores in the Azores, North Atlantic.

Dear All,

Well, all good things come to an end, and so it was for us last night. First we got a soaking from steady, persistent rain, so it was full foul weather gear on for those on watch. The wind, having been relatively good to us of recent days, suddenly decided to shut right off, leaving us in a sloppy and uncomfortable sea, with no power to drive the sails and steady the yacht down.

Bang went our yesterday's ETA of an early evening daylight arrival in Flores! I should have guessed it.

The rain and no wind scenario has continued all through the morning, leaving us with the distinct impression that the Low we were hoping to sail into Flores on the back of had in fact become stuck, buffered up, with nowhere to go further East, locked in against the High that we understand is steady over the UK. 

So, it was then a disussion as to whether to sail very, very slowly, or to motor in. The sailing slowly has won out, as we cannot now arrive in daylight and there is a need to conserve fuel still. Flores does not apparently have a fuel dock in its marina and so we cannot top up our tanks again until we arrive in Horta.

Notwithstanding the above, the good news is that we think our fuel gauge was misleading us earlier on. Now we have been stable and on an even keel for several hours the gauge is showing we still have 450 litres left, not the 300 we feared earlier was the case! This being so, we may only be burning 6.1 l/hr, which is a lot, lot better. That would leave us suficient to stay in Flores, run the generator and then still have sufficient to motor across to Horta afterwards, without running out, if the wind stays light next week.

So, for now we are slowly wending our way towards our final waypoint, and, as the wind has slowly filled in a bit again, now the rain has moved on ahead, we are currently sailing under poled-out genoa and mainsail, doing about 5-6 knots.

We have had news that our Rally friends, Joachim and Rosa, will be arriving in Horta to rejoin their yacht a few days after we are due to get there, so the Oyster 56 sisters, "Sulana" and "Mariela" will be able to meet again!

Last night, with further Rally contacts, we managed finally to have a brief SSB radio chat with Stephan on board "Luna", whilst they were some 800+ miles away, halfway on their way from Terceira to Gib! The reception wasn't perfect, but the messages got across and it was good to hear them again. We will try again tonight.

Today has been the real test of the sextant operators, as there was only one 5 minute interval this morning when Jason was able to get a sun shot in before it got swallowed up in heavy cloud once more. It will be interesting to see how close he can get us this time.

Yesterday, for a late lunch, Nelius surpassed himself and once more reinforced the idea of his taking up a second career as a Baker once back home. He used our breadmaking machine to produce some pizza dough and then proceeded to make his first ever home-made pizza, an excellent Pepperoni one! The crust and topping were both very tasty indeed and the base, although somewhat of the 'deep pan' variety, and needing a little less thickness perhaps, showed great promise for the future. It was devoured in rapid order and we are all hoping he will try again in the near future, using his new found skills to even greater effect !! We think we may have to tear him away from his movie series of "Hawaii 5-O", to get this to happen, however!

We have had visits now from several small family pods of Common Dolphins, but last evening Will was on watch and the only one to see a whale breaching twice away on the horizon, through the rainy mists. So more things of interest are starting to appear, with general spirits on board looking up too. We need that after decidng we were missing the originally-hoped-for arrival of early this evening.

The question on our lips now is, "What kind of beer will they serve us in Flores?"

We will find out tomorrow, if they let us ashore without any VAT or Visa hassle....

That's all for now folks,

Alan and the "Sulana" crew.