6.16.06

Photos will be posted by June 22 on the site at www.sailtheblue.com in the "Cruisenews" section.

Land

It's 0500 and I wake up Rike telling her we can see the land. She rolls over and says "Land? what's that?" I repeat the word a couple times and she repeats angrily she does not know what I am talking about. So I say something like "mountains, green, rocks" and she exclaims "Land!" How fast we forget. . .

We had a great trip albeit not a very fast one. It took us 11 days to cover 1769 miles of ocean at an average speed of 6.8 knots. Our top speed was 17.9 knots and our slowest was about 1 knot with our 1700 sqft spinnaker. We motored a total of 12 hours in three separate bouts. Most of the trip was spent under a heavy cloud cover with many days of rain and six hours of fog. Still, we had very benign weather with wind speeds averaging 15 knots from 140 degrees relative during the first five days and increasing to 20 knots for 24 hours. Until we hit the high pressure that stopped us like a wall we were averaging 7.8 knots. But as the hours passed at 2 knots, time and our hard won speed average slowly seeped into the expanse.

The days went by quickly and the only tough time we had was a six hour period when the wind backed and started "heading" us, creating very confused seas coming from three directions for six hours. This forced us to slow down to 6 knots when we could have been doing 10 knots. The routing from Commander's Weather was very good and our fast speed enabled us to stay longer with systems that brought wind. Commander's routed us from Bermuda to 40 North 50 West and then straight to the Azores. They also gave us one, well chosen, change. I also think we were lucky. Boats that left before us faced a low pressure system that sat over the Azores for days kicking up 20 foot waves (mean height). Meanwhile, boats that waited too long are dealing with the powerful high that is killing the wind as I write. Overall the trip was a comfortable one and now that we are in these Portuguese Islands with great food, even better wine, amazing scenery, super friendly people, nicely kept villages we know why we were more than done with the Caribbean.

The slow going of the last days was probably a blessing because it enabled us to see, and not hit, anything that surfaced close to the boat. Orcas, baleen whales, dolphins by the hundreds and a couple of sea turtles whose appearance, out there, surprised us. The baleen whales were big but the orcas were daunting. Contrary to dolphins who would come to us like happy kids jumping and caracoling so they could play with our bows, the orcas seemed to pay no attention to us.

In the meantime Matthew single handedly brought the land closer to us. As we struggled to get the boat moving beyond 2 knots (that's 48 miles in 24 hours), Matthew was looking at the guide of the Azores and wondered why we were not going to the island of Flores that was 75 miles from our position rather than Faial which was 190 miles away. We quickly changed course. It was a fortunate "discovery" because Flores is considered one of the most beautiful islands of the archipelago. I had picked Faial because of it's marina and chandlery, which, I figured, we would need after the passage. It turns out we only need some line.

Celine and Matthew's mancala competition has made them the onboard experts, with Celine still holding the lead. She has figured a system that basically lets her take 80% of the beads in the first turn. Even Matthew seems to have conceded defeat. Reading, mancala, "fish for it" art card games and chess were the basis of our entertainment while the girls and Matthew watched their fair share of videos. We had a fishing line out almost everyday but we never caught anything. The first few days we could excuse the issue with "we are going too fast", but we are now resigned to the idea that we "suck" at fishing.

Rike kept us very well fed, turning out waffles, fresh bread and pancakes for breakfast, and all sorts of cooked dishes for lunch and dinner. She never became sea sick and while I know she does not really enjoy the sailing she kept her spirit in all these days. The only dark cloud for Rike was our abject failure at catching fish. I started worrying because I had just read an anthropology book which theorizes that, as certain societies collapsed, the women probably left for groups where the men were better providers.

Next stop is the harbor of Horta in Faial, the island of Sao Miguel and then northern Spain.

Again, photos will be posted on the website in about four days.

Sorry to all those who expected our daily position updates. Position reporting from Skymate seemed to have failed. Skymate, in fact, became very unreliable.

All the best to everyone,

Claude and the crew from Cenou