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Agua Dulce - Closing in on Horta



Bom dia! (practicing my Portugese)

We are down to 230nm to go. We expect to arrive in Horta tomorrow evening, hopefully before dark. We have a good chance, though, since it is still light outside at 10pm.

Sextant update: we took sightings day before yesterday and calculated our longitude as well. We ended up plotting our position within 17nm of our actual position! I don't know if it was beginners luck or not, but it was exciting. We didn't do sightings yesterday as it was overcast, but we plan on giving it another shot today. I'm finding the hardest part is taking accurate sightings on a rolling boat. Without the wind, the swells really rock us side to side. Makes for very uncomfortable sleeping as you have to hang on to stay in one place, which is hard to do when you are asleep. So, it makes the sightings a little trickier as well. I have to say that I am awed and humbled by the people who figured celestial navigation out in the first place. AND by the men who were brave enough to cross the oceans not knowing when or if they would arrive at land and using only the stars to find their way.

We continue to see lots of dolphins and even a few pods of pilot whales. The whales keep their distance and just roll lazily through the waves with the occasional spurt of air from their blowholes. The dolphins, on the other hand, usually come to the boat to play for a while. A group of approximately 12 dolphins visited day before yesterday and stayed and played for at least 15 minutes - jumping, crossing the bow, racing each other and rolling on their backs to look up at the silly humans clapping for them on the bow of the boat. At one point, they all lined up in formation and swam together then leapt out of the water at the same time - kind of felt like I was watching the underwater Blue Angels!

We also continue to eat well - BBQ Chicken and Mini New Potatoes with Warm Wilted Cabbage and Bacon last night. Breakfast this morning was Charles' favorite - smoked salmon on bagels with cream cheese and capers. Tonight, Chicken Burritos with New Orleans style Red Beans and Rice (courtesy of Zatarain's - why make it from scratch when it's this good from a box?).

Although we haven't seen any of the rally boats, we have seen a couple of other sailboats that are heading to Horta. Everyone we've seen is motoring as well. I imagine the fuel docks are going to be busy in Horta!

Ciao!

Gretchen Cunningham
S/V Agua Dulce


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