37°32N 42°20W at 1600 040608

Cirrus stratus fro SW, alto cumulous in a band N to S - changing weather systems, occasional cargos.

37°48N 41°59W at 2300 040608

Yesterday we cooked, today we dragged in low and variable winds, and we can’t get anywhere near a run in these conditions. We are broud reaching with only the kite up in 7kts of wind, charging the batteries - sounds like a factory. After days alone saw 2 cargos going west one 10 and one 2 miles off. Our AIS is receiving but not transmitting, our range is about 15 miles with the antenna on the pushbit, they were both going about 16kts. that is about as far as one can see and about as far as the radar is effective... Both ships responded to my VHF calls. I saw a big shark swim by. Our main meal in mid afternoon was cabbage cooked in beer, with apples sausages and onions, with a dash of mustard, vinegar and soysauce... Esa is now working on a rice pudding for our dinner - hope he put enough rum in it. We are just about out of vegetables. Supermarket quality in Trinidad was shitty so the stuff didn’t keep for more than 2 weeks. We have tons of rice and cans of everything. In one of our more frustrating windless moments we did a wild manouver and put the main sail forward and the kite aft all twisted around just about everything. Now this is not easy to accomplish and we were sorry there was no one here to see us. We had to drop everything and untangle piles of sheets, halyards, downhauls, barbar hauls, preventers... not to mention the spin sock, bedsheets that we were trying to dry out and Esa’s long johns. XXXP

38°28N 38°52W at 0000 060608

Variable winds, barometer over 1030, fixed fridge belt.

38°34N 33°36W at 1200 070608

Storm raging since yesterday, SW blowing force 7 and maybe 8, seas 2 to 3,5 meters filling the cockpit every so often, Mona is at the helm ( a bit jerky for my taste), Naomi surfing along with 2 reefs in the main and the 135% reefed 50%... and we did out best day ever 178M/24h!!! We watched the front come at us and hit us at 2000 last night. More traffic crossing our track, one every few hours, all respond to VHF and agree to joint maneuvers. Barometer never lower than 1025.

38°32N 28°37.5W at 2000 090608

Very spaced out here on land, and swinging a bit when walking... we got here to Horta last night at 0300, this morning, drank some champagne and tidied up a bit and fell into deep slumbers till this morning’s formalities (something we forget exists living in a Europe where we circulate freely once inside). The last few miles were rough and we had to tack our way south in strong winds. We finally dropped the sails and motored the last 2 hours back into civilization. We crossed in 18.5 days, did 2661 miles, which gives an average mile/day of 144 miles, which gives an average speed for the whole trip of 6 kts. This is fast, very fast if you talk to other sailors in Horta, most of which could count their days with wind on one hand, the guys next to us spent 30 days getting here. We did all but a couple of hours on the starboard tack (the couple of hours on port tack felt very strange (like sleeping on the other side of the bed). We used about 200 liters of water and charged the batteries using the engine 27 hours using about 70 liters of fuel (we haven’t touched the jerry cans in the fore and aft lockers). we still have about half our total food, but no fresh stuff at all. Naomi handled extremely well. We felt safe and powerful in the shittiest situations, permitting us to continue sailing our course in a storm that gave us our best day of 178 M/D. We mainly used the 135% and the Genniker, changing back and forth many times in a day depending on our AWA. For the most part we sailed at around 90° to the wind. We didn’t break anything, this is exceptional. We have problems with water leaking in various places, mostly in the fore cabin - i think from poorly sealed through deck fittings. We have problems with the toilet which never stays empty of water - I will re build the thing tomorrow. The engine gave us endless problems, none of them drastic. As I mentioned in one of my last messages, I have worn the same shorts, t-shirt and cap for the whole trip, adding leggings and my foil weather gear for the storms which amounted to about 3 days. I finally opened my locker a few minutes ago - everything in plastic bags is fresh and ready, everything left out covered with mold. The guys are off doing the laundry and taking a shower - i was so thrilled with our last bucket of sea water over the head yesterday, and with my first underpants and a change in t-shirt in 3 weeks that i have decided to stay in this state for another day - one shouldn’t shock the body (or the soul). The other big question is the beard... see what happens. Stay tuned for our video clip which will top the MTV ratings for this classic documentary of off shore sailing - the only problem is that it is so heavy we can’t find a way to get it off the virtual boat.

HORTA at 1400 110608

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.

HORTA at 2100 120608

Here is a 20 to 30kt wind blowing straight down the harbor at us, and it is pouring (more like driving) rain. Been this way for hours, maybe days. For those of you that don’t feel it yet, it is like sticking your head out the window of a car cruising through a downpour. And there is a lot of pressure pushing us toward the rocks, pushing on the boats around us, pushing. And the wail of the wind in rigging. These boats are made to sail, to slice through the sea, these sailors are happy out there where they think they have there destiny in their own hands, active people, active boats. Imagine all this bottled up, helpless in a small space inactive, worrying about the shore lines that aren’t right, the anchor that could have been bigger, the fenders that keep slipping, and howl of the wind. This is no ordinary storm, it spins on the surface and climbs turning straight up into the sky. I have never seen a tight deep low tight on the surface and deep right up to the 500mb level - has its own private jet stream spinning around up there. One on top of the other means the system is stationary, which means its been there and there is more to come. I check it out every morning on the weather maps, sort of say hello to an old friend - and when are you going north, anyhow? And nuts like me keep the windex on so i have the wind speed flashing in my face. Looks like we’re here till Saturday because 35 to 40 kts out of the SE means more brutal then I’m willing to subject my crew and boat to. The predictions are for a turnaround tomorrow night. We are ready to go, but for the moment I wish I had put the bigger anchor out with the full chain, and how about another line to that steel sailing barge dockside, and it is leaking around the aft hatch... but Bob Dylan is ripping it on the CD, just came in from the cafe-bar after a couple of beers with sailing cronies (i hate beer but it sure is great when you should have put the other anchor out), off at 2100 for dinner of grilled squid, and Naomi is definitely the sexiest boat in the harbor even in the driving rain... so life is super even if a bit wet. The problem with the cronies is that they don’t seem to have any other existence other than sailing, and like anything else, it gets boring after a while. Turning the discussion around usually takes excessive effort and it usually doesn’t hold for very long. These guys seem to live outside of any political or social reality. They are living wild experiences all of them and they are all thrilled to the core. They have risked obliteration and usually broken a fair amount of material doing so. And this is what is on their minds - how to fix it, when is the low moving north, and when are you heading out? The guys are doing great. And yes we are all ready to be out there, and yes 4 guys living in 10 square meters gets a bit tight sometimes, but for the moment there have not been any explosions. The captain is all doing fine, but he also wants to get on with this, ‘cause there are a lot of very wonderful people he misses very much, and it is definitely time to on to other adventures with them xxxxxx p

38°27N 27°37W at 1700 140608

We left Horta this morning at 07:00, motored out into the outer harbor, pulled up the main and the 135%, and set our course to pass over the island of Pico. The sun is out, the clouds are rare. We soon switched to the genniker and cooked at 8kts till the peak of the volcano was off our beam. We soon ran out of wind and motored for a couple of hours. We saw a lot of whale backs and some spouts but no post card tails in the air. Once we cleared the end of Pico we picked up of WSW winds, brought the kite back up and we now headed E. As usual, we did some fast repair work on the main sheet traveller while bounceing around in the swell, opened up the starboard cam, shook out all the smashed ball bearings and redistributed the remaining 44 whole ones. Good news is that the toilet is working and the engine pushed us along at over 5 kts. We are all glad to be back out here, even if some of us seem to have momentarly forgotten how to sail. Our course is to continue E for another 100M and then curve NE about 50M before setting our couse ESE for Gibraltar. Got to go mess with the weather predictions xxxx p

38°39N 26°15W at 1200 160608

A lot of nowhere all night, wind shift at 1000 in WNW and we are back on the move. The kicker ripped off the mast at 1100, black tool bag on deck drilling and tapping new holes. The ware is beginning to show on the material and the crew. 108M/24h - our lowest ever - plunge us all in the blues.

38°38N 23°13W at 2100 160608

151M in the last 24 hours, great after the 108M of the 24 hours before. Mostly under genniker until the wind went to 20kts... We are in much more complicated weather, we could go north or south or straight. The high seems to be everywhere at one point of another and often in all three places at the same time. I’ve opted for the direct route and we are beating into 6 kts of wind on a flat gray sea toward a bank of thunder clouds. The wind will run out sometime in the next 24 hours but when? I am beat today, up most of the night doing putting in reefs, and I forgot to eat breakfast till 1500. The combination put me in a rotten mood. I made pasta for dinner in the pressure cooker - not perfect but not bad at all. I made a zucchini sauce, added some water, threw in a bad of rigatoni and pressurized it for about 5 minutes. Next time I’ll try 4. Mona the wind vane is back in service the wind is expected to do a 360° in the next couple of days - I hope I can sleep some tonight!!!!! The wind out of the north has us all wearing clothes for the first time, still no socks but sweaters are out, leggings and a hat has been seen.

We were passed by a cargo on its way to Quebec doing 16kts in exactly the opposite direction to us. I don’t remember if I’ve talked about what we are doing about keeping these guys at a distance. Basically we have 3 tools at our disposal : our eyes, the radar and the AIS, each of which has its qualities and its defaults. For distance we can see a ship that is transponding at around 24 miles depending on its size and the sea conditions; then comes the radar which will start to pick up a clear blob at around 12 miles, then come our eyes at around 6 to 10 miles depending on conditions. AIS is the best but you have to have it on, have the computer on and be sitting in front of it - this is impossible because they consume too much electricity and I can’t sit here all the time. The radar is the same, eats too much electricty and you have to be there. So if the conditions are good (which means good visibility, good maneuverability and some one at the helm that keeps their eyes open) we rely on eyes first when off shore; when conditions are shitty or we are closer to land or shipping lines than I have to be close to one or the other of the electronic means of visibility. Next question is what happens when see a ship? If it is far away and I have ascertained that there is no risk we go back to whatever we were doing, if there is a danger or I don’t know, I fire up the computer with the AIS, and maybe the radar. If there definitly is danger on the AIS and or the radar, I try to contact the other ship to let them know that I see them and that they should see us and hello hello. Mostly they don’t move much and we do. Usually the fact of seeing them early means that the course change for us is minimal. At night it is more complicated because there are fewer people around to keep a watch, because I try to sleep a few hours and because it is easy to mistake ships for raising stars. For the moment I’m not convinced that they see us on their AIS receivers, we have been seen on some of their radar screens, I have very seldom seen other sail boats on my radar screen. Most of these cargos are moving at around 15kts. Toward each other means their 15 and our 5 makes 20 kts, if we see them 20 miles away we have lets say 10 minutes to get all this clear, 12 minutes to be a mile out of the way and 40 minutes to play with. If we only see them on the radar 12 miles away we have 10 minutes to play with, if we only just see them 6 miles away we have 18 minutes, we need 12 to be out of here and 5 to decide which makes... move fast, be sure and keep your eyes open. Luckily most boats are not coming from head on, which gives us more time and very very few are really on a collision course, but there have been enough to keep us on our toes. The best solution is to have another source of electricity, keep the computer and the AIS running and wire some kind of alarm to the system.