Voyageur - Leg 2 - Log 14 Ninety nine miles to San Miguel

6 June

Today was without doubt the best sailing we have had since we launched on the 2^nd December last year in Grenada. It was such a good call on David’s part. As always he studies the weather assiduously and makes a decision based on several aspects. The wind overnight for our intended sail would be over thirty knots, but experience has taught us that more often than not, you add another ten onto that. But the more important aspect was the direction of the wind. If we left tonight we would have the wind forward or on the beam, but if we bided our time until the morning the wind was forecast to veer round the north west, which would give us the wind and the seas coming from astern, an important consideration especially if conditions are going to be a little bit lively. However, the overriding decision for us was that we could have one more evening spent in the company of our World Arc friends from ‘A Lady’, Aileen and Stephen along with their crew Vera and Denis! After a last minute surprise presentation from the Angra Yacht Club, where the entire fleet were given a plaque along with a box of the yummiest delicious cakes you have ever tasted, our A Lady crew came aboard for a farewell supper. It was such great fun but tinged with sadness too for now it is a parting of the waves for our two boats. They have decided to sail directly to the Emerald Isle from here in Terceira and we are continuing on one more hop to San Miguel where Donald Fraser is to join us for the last push home to Scotland. Stephen is one hell of a guy to cook for. For a start he doesn’t eat tomatoes. Imagine that! David is a tomato addict. He looks for tomatoes in every dish. So I make a compromise, I know that Stephen loves pork so I have a lovely piece of pork fillet bought in the BVI’s and make a casserole and instead of tomatoes I cheat and put in tomato puree. I don’t know if he notices but he seems to eat it happily enough anyway unless he is being ultra polite which I doubt very much because it is not in his nature. To follow we have fresh locally grown strawberries which are in season at the moment, in a marinade of balsamic vinegar with ice cream. Everyone else seems to love it but at the end of the end of the day it is more about the company than the food so what the heck, the company is great. Stephen is on good form and tells a couple of cracking jokes that David loves so we are all very happy. 

Susan Mackay