I wanted to get an update out to our family and friends. We have had a very difficult 72 hours. It started on Friday morning and pretty much beat us to a pulp until 8:00pm yesterday. We had a 12 hour reprieve in between there. We fought the sea for two days straight until we learned the lesson. You can't fight Mother Ocean - She is in control. We surrendered yesterday morning and ran downwind until the weather pattern broke. In all it cost us about three days of time and most of our fuel. At one point all we could do was face the waves with the bow of the boat and motor up them at 2 knots - for 24 hours we did this!! Yesterday we had a wave break across the side of Palarran and fill the cockpit with 6" of water. When you look at a picture of the boat you understand how much of the wave had to be breaking in order to do this. The pounding on boat and man, physically and mentally, was extreme.

Today we are going to recuperate and fix some of the broken gear. Our plan has changed and we are now making for Sao Miguel where Kerry will still hopefully be joining us and Stosh will fly home. I'd like to have 4 days of rest time before we take on the next leg to Gibraltar and if we headed to Horta that wouldn't happen. It is disappointing as the most renowned sailors bar in the world is there and during the storm we had so looked forward to having many pints of beer there. If someone could do us a favor and contact the beer distributer in Ponta Delgada to make sure they have extra supplies of Scottish Ale and maybe some Busch beer we would appreciate it.