Atlantik-Azores

Hi!
On June 18th we arrived to the Azores after 21 days and 21½ hours at sea and are now in the marina of Horta. We left St Martin on May 27 and we were racing against a dutch 36 footer and of course (!) we won the transatlantic race! They arrived the day after us so now we are looking forward to being invited to gin and tonic at Peter Café Sport! We received a medal from the "Queen of Holland", saying "Winner" but are still waiting for the Gin and Tonic which was supposed to be the price.

The passage was nice and actually very calm with not so much wind. Some days we could take a swim from the boat in 5000 meter deep water (!) and we saw dolphins and whales quite a lot of times. It is really nice to see the dolphins swimming around the boat and jump in the water! The water was sometimes flat and clear as a mirror and with a deep blue, not possible to describe or catch on pictures. During the passage we also caught three fishes so we had really fresh and delicious food! Sometimes there were less than an hour from the time the fish came out of the water until we had eaten the grilled fish. Because of the little wind we had to run under engine for 150 hours but still we had about 170 liters of diesel left when we arrived. About the same with water and most other food, we only used about 1/2 or less of what we had on board. The freezer worked so well that we had cold drinks all the time, and after 16 days out we could eat a chicken.

And with a 3-year-old it never gets boring! Denise was jumping around a lot but she was amazing because she never complained during these three weeks that she wanted to go ashore or about anything else. She could sit alone inside making bead necklaces and drawings or sit in the cockpit with us watching dolphins or just the water. She slept well in her bed behind the sofa, normally from sunset to sunrise, but when we got further north and the days became longer she also slept less…

Now we are enjoying Horta , the habour with all the famous paintings around the pier, and we will stay around for about 1 week more.

Wish you all the best!
Peter, Charlotte and Denise