After Monday's excitement we hoped for a quiet onward passage to the Azores. Tuesday morning found us very upbeat. Three sleeps until Horta and only 337 miles to go. We were getting excited about making landfall as early as Friday. We got our weather update later that morning. I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings, but it was not good. A crazy Atlantic low pressure system, with storm force winds had "morphed" into being, right between us and the Azores. We were gutted. Being in "shore" mentality we briefly discussed just ploughing onward.. "it might not be as bad as forecast etc..." .was the chat we bandied about. However, in our limited Atlantic experience weather is usually twice as bad as forecast, which was about 23 knots. Common sense prevailed, and with heads down we again turned away from the Azores and headed south as quickly as we could to get onto or beyond the southern periphery of the low pressure. This is the third system of gales/storms to have caused us to detour, and to be honest we were really disappointed. Not to worry...at least until about 1 a.m this morning (wed), when the storm caught us up. You have been exposed to weather horrors too often this trip, but it was absolutely brutal. Like a few days ago we were again reduced to a very small pinch of headsail, and weather on the beam. Thanks to learning from experience we didn't get caught out with too much sail and were as ready as we could be for what followed. Unfortunately, what followed was a full on severe Gale 41-47 knots. Poor Restless, what a night, and at first light, about 3 a.m. we could see the full extent of our troubles. Massive waves, strong, strong winds, rain, poor visibility. Quite a few huge waves broke into the cockpit, filling the sole with inches of water. Happily I can report the drains worked well. Undaunted, at 5 a.m. we had a good few A-Z games as we toughed it out in the cockpit. Our sweeties version of a-z threw up a few old names, Aztec's, Dime bars, spangles, all giving away our vintage. We had a doubler (twice round the alphabet) for the Caribbean memories theme. Amazingly, storms, wind, rain or freezing didn't feature, instead it was all sun, sand and rum punches. The weather was due to ease this morning but didn't by much. We gibed the boat (stern goes through the wind) and headed for Horta at about 9.30. Gibing was scary amongst big breaking waves. We had let out a bit more headsail to make sure we got pushed round, but were worried we might get caught by a big wave when turning and fairly powerless. All went well. Since then we sailed downwind, and then following a front going through we are now beating to windward in big seas and against 30 knot winds. What is it with this place and big weather. 😬. Our current position is 35 12.39N: 31 33.51W. Horta is 245 miles away. Barring weather or mechanical disasters we could be there overnight Friday/ Sat or on Saturday. Might be three sleeps to go. Forecast is for light winds but we'll see. It was freezing and wet all day. I made another batch of flapjacks just now to keep us going on night watches. Dinner was very iffy. Frankfurters, mushrooms, peppers and noodle jalfriezi stir fry..... keeping the pigs cheeks for best. However, thanks to Roddy's biscuit management genius we had a "loaves and fishes moment" when our one Penguin became two, and we tucked in with the last of the tea with milk, looking forward to some healthy food. All going well for now, it is late evening here, and alreadyThursday with you, so hopefully you will get this Thursday. Will keep you posted. Thanks for keeping touch, completely agree, don't buy a yacht, or if you must then stay in sight of land. Ideally buy a canal boat and stay within a few feet of the shore at all times. 😀. Also, never run out of chocolate or booze or you will suffer greatly. 🍸🥂🍷🥃🍫