We are now about 150 Nm west of Flores, the first of the Azorean islands and therefore what is known as our 'Azores Landfall'. Unfortunately, we are not stopping here and will alter course when we are about 20 Nm south of Flores for Faial, further to the south east. Horta is our destination and a favourite Atlantic stopover for many yacht crews. Plenty of support is available, which is just as well as we certainly need a rigger on the case of Quasar IV! Our repair continues to hold out, but daily adjustments are being made to the rigging tightening screws to keep the past pointing upright. Still, no more adrenelin-pumping excitement for the past few days, and hopefully no more to come before getting to Horta. Mark managed to finally make a catch on his fishing line, but unfortunately, this appeared to be a bird with it's wing wrapped around the fishing line. With Clare armed with sailing gloves on and a tea towel at the ready to put over the bird's head, Mark and Clare started the process of carefully reeling in the line. Bird on board, bird not happy! Bird fights back. Clare's finger bruised by the bird (sailing gloves have no fingers!) and Mark bitten by the bird's very sharp beak, drawing blood. Still, the bird was released and fights to live another day. About 12 hours later, the same process happened again; a different bird, but no injuries this time. We still have plenty of water, and food stocks remain good although lunchtime variations are somewhat limited to noodles, noodles, or noodles! Yesterday, we hit the last of the tinned mushrooms, green beans, baked beans, peas, and ketchup. I used up our remaining supply of vacuum-packed bacon last night in a bacon and garden pea thai curry - that was a new recipe! If you look on our track by clicking on Winlink Position Reporter to the right of this screen, you will see that our course is heading somewhat north east at the moment and more slowly. This is because the wind is from the south east at the moment, and we are having to sail quite conservatively to reduce stress on the rigging repair which must be existing on borrowed time at the moment, so we are taking it steady. Over the next 12 hours or so, the wind should be moving further from the south and we can correct our course slightly more to eastward. On reaching Flores, we have a further 120 Nm to go for Horta, about 24 hours. I think it safe to say that we will really be glad to arrive, especially after some of the other 'snags' we have had on this trip which have not featured in the blog, mainly so you did not all think we were not going to make it! Anyway, all's well and so far today, nothing has broken, but then again, it's only 5-30 am here!!