Summary + pictures

Okay, here are some pictures with short stories.

First I want to quickly mention everyone who took part in this adventure.

There were Marja and Michel. They are basically in charge of the Ithaka and everything that comes with it. The way those two run the Ithaka-business has impressed me a lot.

Don't think for one minute that this is an easy-peasy job that they've taken on (on the contrary).

Then there were the two 'cool-dude brothers' Anton and Bas. And then finally Eric and I made six. Except for me, most of the people in this group have either known each other for a long time or sailed together before. They're a friendly lot and I'm glad to have met them.

Here we all are in café Peter Sport (picture above). This is where most sailors end up after arrival in Horta on the Island of Faial (Azores). Desperate for a nice cold lager, we had wobbled up hill after we had cleaned the boat and downed some champagne to celebrate our arrival after almost 13 days of non stop sailing.

As I had mentioned before the sailing had been pretty amazing. (Eric on out 1st day)

We had a lot of sunshine and although there had been days with quite a lot of wind (with some strong gusts) and some big waves there were also days of calm sailing, sitting outside with a book, catching the sun, chatting and ...fishing!

The first time we caught a fish, Michel managed to reel in a Dorado, which was then knocked for six with a hammer and gutted within minutes. The Dorado itself had been pretty busy himself as you can see in the picture and ended up in a nice fisherman's pie cooked by Bas.

We also caught some tuna. Two at the same time. Eric was manning one fishing rod with Marja, Michel and Anton handled the other one and Bas was wielding the hammer.

All I could think as I was watching the slaughter was....

Man! One minute you're swimming, the next minute you're sushi!

Literally. The whole process took about one hour, which included placing the tuna in the freezer to kill off any possible parasites. Marja made a fantastic soya sauce and we even had some wasabi to go with it. Luxury Galore.