Day 1B – And away we go….

Horta was fantastic – there is much more to see in the Azores than what we had time for.  We will be putting some pictures and video up of our amazing “scooter ’round the island'” trip.  The local cheeses and wines were lovely to taste, as well.  Yesterday, though, we spent the day getting the boat in shape for our second leg to the European continent.

We were a bit sad in that we have to keep moving (although thoughts of our dogs motivate us on), so at 6:30 this morning we untied the lines from the “wall” in Horta and headed out past Pico, then Sao Jorge, then Graciosa, 3 beautiful islands that we hope to get to explore in the future.  It is 922 nm from Horta to our destination in Porto, Portugal (home of Port wine – say no more!), however, we expect to sail more like 1000 nm as we need to sail north first, then east to sail over the top of the Azore High.  Right now we have the big (not to be confused with the REALLY big) spinnaker up in 10 knots and we are making about 6 knots NNE.  The seas are flat and it would be just dandy if we could have these conditions for the next few days.

Just a few minutes ago we spotted two whales close by.  One on each side of the boat.  The first gave us a nice body shot as it arced out of the water only 200 feet or so from the boat.  The second was a bit further away, but treated us with a big tail shot as it dove.  Amazing creatures.  I would guess they were about 40 feet long.

Since we are headed back out to sea today after a few days ashore, Chris decided to take non-drowsy Dramamine to avoid any queasiness.  It turns out the seas are so calm it wouldn’t have been a issue, but you may as well have shot Chris with a tranquilizer dart.  She has been out for about 4 hours.  She can fall sleep sitting upright and while talking.  If I wake her for something she is back asleep 10 seconds later.  It’s actually pretty funny, but she is going to hurt her neck with the way her head keeps dropping.

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