Azulita Adventure

450S Lagoon

Vessel Name: Azulita
Vessel Make/Model: Lagoon 450S
Hailing Port: Cruz Bay, St. John
Recent Blog Posts
16 August 2017

Time of Contentment...and...

Have no fear, Ziggy is here still applies :-)

15 August 2017

On the Seas Again - Alboran Sea

And we're off again! Back to a beautiful day and perfect weather! For the moment anyway!! I think we are giving up on weather forecasts!! No matter how many we look at, they keep being wrong! The research does say that weather is very unpredictable in the Mediterranean West though, and that it can [...]

14 August 2017

A Little SNAFU

Smooth sailing all day yesterday...until about 9pm. Then the wind kicked up and up and up, along with the wave action. Around midnight, we decided it was time to look for potential shelter to ride out the weather. So off we went to find a marina along the Spanish coast at midnight that could fit a 14m [...]

13 August 2017

The Calm After the Storm

What a difference a day makes :-) !!!

12 August 2017

Part II - Straits of Gibraltar - Success!!

So far the wildest ride around a point we've had on this trip, and I think that goes down in history for both of us!! Confused seas, wind over tide, 32 knots coming around the point of Cape Trafalgar. I know when LOML says, here comes a big one, he isn't kidding!! Brace!!

12 August 2017

Part I of the Straits of Gibraltar Passage

We are so excited to be off!! Goodbye Portugal! It’s so good to be back at sea in the fresh air and sunshine!! Beautiful day so far, wind and seas are calm and the sun is shining 😃 Ziggy has the music going, fishing lines are in the water, and we are off! Couldn't be a more glorious day :-)

Time of Contentment...and...

16 August 2017
Have no fear, Ziggy is here still applies :-)

Has been a fantastic couple of day passage. Winds, waves and temperature has been perfect. The dolphins have swum along with Azulita multiple times, playing in the bow wake and jumping all around the boat :-) and when I say dolphins plural, I literally mean like 30 dolphins at a time :-) Was a beautiful and awesome sight :-)

As the sun sets tonight, the realization of this being our last "passage" is dawning as we just see the outline of Ibiza 18 miles ahead. As we pass Ibiza and head in toward Mallorca, we should be there by morning and it will be the end of a blissful passage.

We even had fun solving for another little (ok, maybe not so little) SNAFU with the forestay misbehaving again. This time the screw that holds the furling foil to the torque tube popped out, which means the foil alignment of the roller reefing didn't work. Luckily, the wind and seas are calm, there isn't another boat to be seen, and we are still 30 miles off land to be able to deal with. We've learned that we make a great team :-) The three of us worked together to take down the genoa sail, repair the forestay with a screwdriver, nail file and duct tape (the essentials on a boat), rehoisted the sail and were good to go again !!! My job was to lie on the sail and not get blown away :-) LOML and Ziggy did all the hard work!! Ok, not quite, we all worked together to make it happen!!

Even as we work out the kinks on a new boat, with the chart plotter and the starboard engine and the genoa roller drum and the forestay... it has been an absolutely incredible adventure and learning experience :-).

I appreciate the words of Kenny Cheney's "Soul of a Sailor" all the more:

He walked in with a salty sway
Lookin' like Blackbeard in his day
A brother in arms just like me
I was born a son of the sea
I can't be still, I can't be tied
The only time I feel alive is
When the wind fills my sail
Riding on a lifelong swell
Let my heart take me where it wants to go
That's the soul of a sailor, the soul of a sailor
He slid a stool and a beer to me
Said, you know, we're both a dying breed
Here's to love lost and new found friends
And living out life in the boat we're in
I can't be still, I can't be tied
The only time I feel alive is
When the wind fills my sail
Riding on a lifelong swell
Let my heart take me where it wants to go
That's the soul of a sailor, the soul of a sailor
Let my heart take me where it wants to go
That's the soul of a sailor, the soul of a sailor

It has been an experience that we have loved. 1700 miles of ocean including the Bay of Biscay, Cape Finisterre, the trades of Portugal, the Straits of Gibraltar and getting through the Alboran Sea to the Med...

Yo me siento triste (I feel sad) that the passage is coming to and end, but excited to expierence and enjoy a bit of Mallorca :-)

Thank you all for sharing in this journey with us :-) xoxo
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Created 6 August 2017

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