Thursday, July 19, 2007

España, Finally!


The party before we left - With 14 people on board the cockpit actually started filling with water


The boat and the captain


Team NZ jumped ship to help the Brits, and a pic of the galley, nav table and dining room

This photo was taken from outside the cabin - (William wondering why he had drunkenly suggested bringing us long)

Job done, yeeeeehaaaaa!

We managed to find a home for the DB on the island of Terciera in the Azores. Its arranged that in September she´ll be hauled out and we plan to go back in about April to start the work. Now we had to find a way to Europe.
After a night of bull running and plenty of beer our english friend William came up with the genius plan of all sailing on his boat to Spain (Willy was just finishing the Atlantic circuit single handing his very humble 24footer back to England).
The trip was great, aside from 30 hours hoved to due to the tiller breaking off the rudder (i am sure that paul and i are cursed with steering problems) we made good progress and had generally nice settled weather. 900 odd miles in 9 days i think. The boat was really small but by constantly running a watch we were able to keep it down to 2 only inside at a time. We compared it to sleeping in our cars back home, something we both thoroughly enjoy so it was fun. William was brilliant, what a contrast going from having no one else on passages to filling the boat with 2 lads and all their stuff! Nice work mate, cheers.
Now we are in La Coruna, north of Spain. No plans really but after a few visits around Europe we´re going to start looking for work again. I´ll probably head to the UK to do engineering and Pauls hoping to go to Palma for the Superyachts.
With over 7 months aboard it was a bit of a sad moment leaving the boat. We really are happy with her and im sure that eventually we´ll sail her home to NZ. What a trip, we are so lucky to have been able to do this and got so much out of it. Pauls a bloody legend and great co-captain, everything worked out really well for us in that respect too.
Right on, i´ll keep this blog going for my travels and hopefully its not too long before we´re back onto sailing missions.

Wednesday, July 4, 2007

Azores


Sao Pedro festival in Flores (famous Portugal rapper on the stage)


We never made it back to the boat so Pablo slept in wet grass by a cliff


We caught a tuna on the way to Horta - Thanks for the lure Mike!


The DB jammed between 5 boats in Horta
Our friend Chris´s boat ´Tradition´
The lads at the top of Pico, 2300m with our boats in the background
Sharing some 1 Euro Vino tinto at the top

Walking in Lajes, Flores
Heres some pics of the Azores - We´ve been to 4 of the islands now looking for a place to leave the DB. Absolutely beautiful place with really nice people.
We are now on Terciera, the most NE island here. At this stage we still havent found anywhere to take the boat out but hopefully this week we´ll get it sorted.
Then we´ll probably head back to Horta by ferry and try crew to Europe.
Hope your all well, Jon and Paul