Greetings;
"Those who would go to sea for pleasure would go to hell for pastime." -eighteeth - century aphorism I ran across this in a book I'm reading about Capt. Cook. Sems to fit.
Our current position is 37 deg 08" N - 15 deg 48" W. This puts the island of Madeira about 250 nm to starboard of us. This is where Cook made his first stop after leaving England on his 1st voyage of discovery. He stopped to fill his wine casks. We have plenty of rum so won't be stopping.
We,ve been making good progress since the azores. We're about 480nm from the straights of Gibralter. We expect to be there by Thur. and in Valencia on Sat.. The North Atlantic has been blessing us with good winds in the 25knot range and some surfing seas. You havn't lived until you've surfed a 25000 lb. boat down the face of a big wave. My personal best is 15.4 knots with numerous runs at 14+. Babalu claims 16+. Great Fun! At night it's a differant story. You are mainly tring to concentrate on the compass, apparent wind gauge, and rudder indicator to hold a consistent coarse while sailing into a pitch black void. Then you catch a wave just right,the boat excellerates as you try to maintain a reasonable coarse,and all you see is red and green spray off the bows. Some Fun!
No offense to Randy, but the addition of Urban and the better provisions availabe in Angra have greatly improved meals on board. Today was fresh fish Tacos.
We continue to deal with boat maintenance issues, but nothing we can't handle. However we'll have quite a list for Ni when we get to Santa Margaritta. We still have fresh pastries with our morning coffee!!!
Ray
I'm the new guy on the block, enjoying the trip and the company. Babalu and I have the sunrise shift, beautiful heading into the early morning sunrise, morning dalphins make their appeance, also saw a sea turtle, small only about a foot long, looks like he was headed south. Not much sea life, a few birds now and then, seen a couple container ships headed who knows where, fishing not all that great, hope it picks up as we get closed to land. Time for a power nap before night watch.
Urban
/EX