ships!

Patricia sent this to show us what's ahead. We are in the box.

Showers, Ships and Sailing

It's Shower Day. I've often read that line in other sailing blogs and have wondered, really? What's the big deal? As it turns out this is a real phenomenon out at sea. Showering on a moving sailboat is not easy and quite honestly there is no real motivation to bathe daily.

If you are sailing hot water can be a luxury, if you are motoring it means the wind or the seas are not agreeable. It takes a perfect combination of hot water, sea state and stench to get all crew members into clean clothes and clean bodies. Today was the day! Yes, we all feel better.

We are closing in on mainland Europe, with that comes shipping lanes. We have Automatic Identification System (AIS) on board. Our chart plotter shows a little red triangle for every boat or ship out here that has the same system. It is required by international law for all commercial vessels. Typically on this journey we would see one maybe two a night. Currently on my screen there are 32. They no longer carry names like Rhumb Line, Sophie or Blue Moon, now they are Costa Rican Star, Grande Tema and Zim Qingdao. These ships are bigger than football fields, traveling at 12-14 knots and passing each other within a half a mile. All I can say is freighters, tankers and cargo ships oh my! Gratefully none have come closer than 5 miles to us, let's hope that trend continues.

At this point we are approximately 36 hours away from our destination. We have some of the best sailing conditions of the entire trip. We are on a beam reach, which I am told is a sailors favorite point of sail, scooting along at 6+ knots. We are comfortable, excited and looking forward to "land ho"!

Not much to report here....

We took off from ponta Delgado knowing we would motor some, sail some and arrive Lagos in about 6-7 days.

We motored in flat seas and nearly 0 wind for the first 36 hours then we had some wind but from the wrong direction. The jib went up at 9 pm last night and the mainsail at 6 am this morning.

Instead of the beautiful blue sky melting into the deeper blue water today is all the shades of gray you can imagine. The sea is a deep color of gray with streaks of white from the breaking waves. It appears lifeless.

The sky is a mottled institutional gray. Threatening squalls disappear before we reach their location. When not on watch we are all sleeping. It's that kind of weather. The crew is subdued but happy, we are sailing!

We have started our final leg.......

Pixie Dust is on the move. We would like to say we sailed away from Sao Miguel Island but again we are faced with no wind. The weather forecast says its time start the last leg of our journey acrss the Atlantic. We will probably motor for 36 hours then set sail. The winds will be favorable and the seas calm. We are excited about the next 6 days.

As we departed Ponta Delgado we were once again graced by the presence of Dolphins, twice. Thats a sign of good luck!

These islands are beautiful. Filled with old and new calderas, the hiking options are endless. On Faial we saw a volcano that erupted in the late 50's. It was like walking on the moon. Here in Sao Miguel we saw volcanos that erupted 1000's of years ago, it was like being in a garden of eden. Fresh water lakes fill the calderas and the vegitation is lush.

Sao Miguel has black beaches and surfing on the North side. On the south Whale watching and Dolphin watching tours are plentiful. We didnt see snorkeling but scuba dive tours went out daily. Both islands were clean and the people friendly. It is not crowded. Hotels are scarce but our tour driver said Airbnb is a good option. Our island tour yesterday lasted 8 hours and not one time were we bored or not engaged. These are not your typical islands. We wish we could stay longer. We will make plans to return.

We are off the grid for the next 5-7 days, if you'd like to contact us use pixiedust@myiridium.net.

The adventure continues....

As you all know we made it to Horta, Faial Azores!  Yay!  This is a beautiful place, put it on your list of travel destinations!  The island is diverse, the people helpful and friendly and it is not crowded. We are sad to leave. 

Tomorrow we will set sail for Ponta Delgado, Sao Miguel another island in the Azores. It is a 150 mile sail and will take us between 24-30 hours. We will spend a minimum of Saturday, Sunday and Monday before we hopefully depart on Tuesday June 16. We need a radar repair and that is where we will meet up with the Garmin technicians. 

On Tuesday we hope to start making our way to Lagos our first destination on Mainland Europe. This is a 6-7 day trip so get your trackers warmed up we will be on the go soon.  The rally trackers will work throughout our journey to Lagos. 

You are able to see the entire fleet by going to this link. http://www.worldcruising.com/arc_europe/event.aspx and choosing fleet viewer on the left hand side. We will be at least two days behind. 

Another option is our Iridium GO tracker. This track can be found at http://forecast.predictwind.com/tracking/display/PixieDust.  This tracker updates hourly. 

I will continue to post short blog messages that will be posted to Facebook. If you happen to not be a Facebook type you may find anything we post here:  http://pixiedustsails.blogspot.com

Through our Iridium Go we are able to receive email while underway. The address is pixiedust@myiridium.net 

Thank you to everyone for your continued support. We are having a blast!

Love to all,

Dawn and Joe

Sent from my iPad

Dawn

we have arrived!

Afternoon Playtime

Mid afternoon ramblings....

Everybody is sleeping. After a rolly polly night, with a midnight sail change, things have calmed and the crew is taking this opportunity to rest. We press on with 8 knots of wind basically from the east. The way we want to travel.

While they are sleeping I just had my own personal visit from some Spotted Dolphins. I very much enjoy the visits from the Dolphins, it just adds to and brightens the day.

We've seen whale spouts in the distance, I keep my eyes peeled for an actual breech. I wonder how birds get so far away from land.

We found a rip in our spinnaker two days ago, we fixed it with sail tape. Then later in the night the halyard (the line that holds the sail up) chafed through right above the head of the sail. All 4 of us were up at 4 am dragging this huge sail out of the water. I think we can be proud of how we handled that unfortunate incident. We secured the sail and all the lines safely and quickly. We are not sure what the cause of the chafing was and it will require a trip up the mast by captain Joe. We prefer not to do this at sea.

Most of the fleet has either arrived or will be arriving Horta in the next couple of days. We are still 4-5 days out. The crew is in good spirits, well rested and I must say well fed. We didn't buy too much food for this excursion!

And so it goes....

It has been gorgeous the last few nights with the moon up through the night and shining brightly on the ocean. We can't hardly wait for tomorrow's full moon.

Life at sea with no wind had been peaceful and frustrating. The seas are flat, there is no rolling or creaking of the boat, there is no wind through the rigging, there are also very few miles crossed towards our destination. The captain and crew scratch their heads, try to put together a successful sail plan and check weather multiple times a day.

The Dolphins seem to have a nightly playtime. Just about 6 pm everyday we've had them playing around the boat. They swim with the bow, turn over and show us their bellies then head out and jump in and out of the water for awhile. We look forward to the nightly show. Last night while on watch I could hear the Dolphins chattering.

While the seas were flat I kept thinking I was seeing trash in the water, clear plastic cups every time I looked up. Turns out those clear plastic cups were Portuguese Man of War a form of Jelly Fish that basically puts up their own sail. This is something I will need to Google later as I have no idea if that is accurate.

All the wildlife is wonderful but gets us no where closer to our destination. We are expecting more wind in the next 24 hours or so, here's hoping.

I've been in a bit of a funk as things at Texoma are not good and we feel totally powerless. We have good, good friends who have emptied the trailer (by boat no less) of most of our personal belongings. Unfortunately the furniture remains. It was too late to get it out. Though elevated it will surely mildew as there is 7 inches of water inside the house and of course no electricity. It is very hot inside that home. It looks like our adventure this summer will be cut short as I think it best to go back for the clean up. I suspect once we hit Portugal we will store the boat somehow and head to Texas.

Thank you for all your thoughts and prayers, we are in good shape out here albeit slow.