Day 27 — ONWARDS TOWARDS FAIAL

Sloooow.

That's my word of the day. We made very slooow progress today, sailing between Flores and Faial, ghosting along at 2-3 knots, without enough wind to go any faster.

The twin headsails kept pulling well, but then the wind shifted significantly and we had to disassemble all that (much quicker than assembling them!) and go back to normal sailing, with the wind more or less on the beam again. If only there was more of it.

But we weren't the nay ones short on fuel after a month's passage. We spoke on the VHF to a French boat with three 23 year old French guys who had sailed from the Caribbean and were in the same boat fuel-wise. They also wanted a weather forecast high made me wonder more about how they were navigating. But, hey, they were 23 and youth makes up for many other faults. They'd obviously done fine and were on the final leg of their voyage. I was imagining how they'd be a big hit with the girls in Horta, but Helena was imagining the state of their boat after a month with three 23 year old guys in charge of cleaning. She shuddered just thinking about it.

He talked about our slow progress today and agreed that it hardly matters, now that we are 'here' so to speak, neither one of us are particularly anxious to actually arrive. I think Helena would be perfectly happy to stay out another week, and she started talking today about doing the so-called European circuit, which is a roundabout cruise from the Azores, down to Madeira and the Canary Islands for the winter, then back to the Azores or Europe for the summer… lots of combinations that could keep you sailing in warm weather for years.

So, we will arrive eventually, I guess!

Anyway, we didn't make it to Faial… the wind died away completely during the night and we just drifted. I will start the engine tomorrow morning and invest a few more gallons of our precious fuel in motoring until the wind returns again at 8 or 9 o'clock. Assuming the forecast is correct.

Tomorrow will tell…