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