We are still in Horta, still fixing, still shopping, still getting ready. I tightened 70% of the genoa traveller bolts, found 4 that turned free which I filled with sikaflex. We finally got wifi so I could down load weather analyses files which confirmed my findings off the grib files - the deep low to our west is very deep and stationary extending up into the 500mb altitudes. we should expect winds 30 to 40 kts in the region off and on till the 1306 from the SE. For us this would mean beating into gale force winds for 1 to 2 days so I’m staying put until it moves a bit north, the wind looses 10kts and veers into the S. I heard myself think that we don’t have much time and we can out sail anything... and then reminded myself that that is exactly the reason for most accidents - no time, got to be back to work, and bullshit, we are minute out there. 10 minutes after I showed us all the weather maps and told them what i had decided the marina guys showed up asking everyone to layout anchors in the harbor because we were going to get a beating tonight and tomorrow. Sitting around here has been really hell - rice and calamari at Peter’s Bar, baked cod and potatoes at Captielo, and tonight we might have to go to the other side of the island to a special fish restaurant to fight off our depression. Esa is being interviewed about our trip by a charming french grad student, Juha is watching football at the local bar, Jorgen is - where is Jorgen? Yesterday we did a major overhaul of the toilet and I rewired the GPS antenna on the AIS which seems to be transmitting for the first time. Oh yes, for those of you that think we have hidden a woman on board, i have no knowledge of this. I did a full inspection of the ship looked into all lockers, and found no stowaways. Oh yes, Mona, well Mona is with us but she is our name for the wind-vane... and very sexy she is all decked out in stainless steel - kind of hardcore and really intelligent!!!! And it is raining xxxx p PS I am looking for a crew member from the south of spain to Perpignan.
