Off again!
Tripled
Wed 8 Jun 2011 08:38
have a new crew on board so there are now four of us - Mum, Andy, James and
I. Hello Jilli!!!
We left Horta this morning after a lovely week. A shame to have missed
Rainmaker and Stella, we hope you enjoy it and I wonder if you spot our
painting! It's not exactly a piece of art..... It is a tradition to leave a
painting on the walls of Horta marina before you leave, it is meant to be
very bad luck not to. Mostly these are just boat names etc but some are
beautiful and very artistic. Not so ours of course!
We had a lovely day today, with beautiful sunshine in the morning and for
most of the afternoon. I got my bikini on again, Andy has lovely sunglasses
marks and James is the proud wearer of some bright pink socks (that's what
comes of wearing rolled up jeans with no suncream on...) Although we started
of with not much wind it gradually increased, much more than the forecast,
and we ended up with 15 + knots from behind which has continued into the
night (I am writing this just before 1am). Following winds are so great, the
first we've had in ages and we have really missed them!! We had the engine
on all morning as we motored through the islands as we weren't sure what the
wind would do, and have more than enough fuel, so have made good speed all
day.
On the down side, it began to cloud over in the late afternoon and it has
been a drizzly night so far with a few squalls. Nowhere near as cold as our
trip over to the Azores though which is good. It is a very dark night with
no stars or moon to be seen anywhere! And the boat is creaking again....
We were convinced we would see whales as we sailed through the islands due
to the amount of whale-watching trips that worked out of Horta. Sadly none
wanted to play today though. We did see two groups of dolphins but all quite
far off. I really hope we get 1) clear skies at night for lots of stars and
2) dolphins and whales - all for the boys to see! We are used to it but
those are two of the things that really make ocean passages special.
It will be interesting to see the forecasts tomorrow as today was so
different from the forecasts we got even this morning! position 40 24N 026 51W