Last Blog from the Ocean

As you may know, we are already in the Azores. This entry was written during our last hours at sea.

Blog No 6 38’14 N 29’32W at 21.00GMT

Yesterday’s wake - up call from skipper and wife: “Orca’s”! Two pods of the big

toothed whales had no interest in Yacht 42 at all (maybe good for us) they were

probably on a hunting mission some 100 - 200 meters away. Little did they know

about our sweepstake and our desire to reach Horta in daylight on Tuesday! The

favourable wind conditions changed and, even if Michael tried hard to make it by

supporting the spinnaker with the starboard engine, mission impossible.

Calculations this morning resulted in an ETA of around 3 am on Wednesday morning

- destroying the dreams of a decent pint of lager later this evening. The winner

of our bets will certainly be Dalit and she already made some investment by

supporting Noam’s backgammon games with Michael (in fact no support needed at

all as it turned out).

The log after two full weeks “on tour” shows a mileage of 2656 i.e. an average of

189, 7 miles per day....with approx. 80 miles to go. The “direct” line between BVI

and the Azores is 2200 miles – so we did quite well!

Alex and Hans were allowed to practice their helming skills – with not much risk for

the experts even if the spi was set: with a stable wind of about 14, worst would be

arriving in Morocco (where most of us have not been before). “Lady M” passed us

not far away - a private motor yacht of about 200 feet, probably only with crew

and without the single widow owner (dream on Hans). We might meet her again in

Horta (“Lady M” not the owner). Also dolphins were part of this sunny leisure day

– we are getting used to them. Another delicious dinner awaits before we get to

the delights of Horta; looks like we’ll be exchanging the pints of lager for bloody

Marys to breakfast in style and to celebrate the crossing. You will, dear reader, be

receiving this news after the event as we hope to have ‘proper’ internet from about

6am tomorrow. We will also be posting the photos missing from the previous blogs

for your delight and delectation. You may also appreciate that this blog has had 4

authors to date; some more cryptic than others.