Trans-Atlantic Voyage Complete!

Ahhhh....

That, my friends, is a sigh of relief. Amanda and I have just crossed the Atlantic. Four thousand miles of zig zagging from North Carolina and we're finally in Portugal. We've had many realizations along the way.

1: Weather predictions are NEVER right. Seriously, are people getting paid to do this? I think I'll get my weather from reading tea leaves instead. What were supposed to be consistent Portuguese trade winds turned into an ugly storm and then two weeks of calm. WTF!

2: Sailing is slooowwwww. A turtle passed us. With a walker. On dialysis.

3: Sailing can be white-knuckle frightening. The waves get big. The wind howls through your rigging. Your port holes go below the surface and their seals are tested. You wonder when it will end. I've developed a rationalization out here, which is "well, if the birds are still flying in this weather, it can't be that bad." Even the sea birds sought shelter that day.

4: The saying is true: sailing is the lowest of lows and the highest of highs. There's not a whole lot of In-between. Unless you pair "in-between" with purgatory, then there's a LOT of in-between.You can spend days, even weeks, seeing and doing the same things over and over. Haven't I seen that wave before? I think that cloud's been following me. Somethin' fishy is going on here...

I'm sure coastal cruising is undoubtedly more pleasant.

Regardless, now that we've made it to Europe, it's time to explore! We've caught word of new-fangled machinations like locomotives and automobiles. There's even one called an aero plane they say can fly.

Guess what happens in Germany this month. OKTOBERFEST!

So, the sailing trip. This time we saw whales. And not just any whales. Big whales. Blue whales. The largest animal on the planet whales. And it was totally awesome!!

They came right up to our boat. Then they swam under our boat and my chest started going thump, thump, thump. You know that Discovery Channel footage of a blue whale seen from a helicopter looking like he's a mile long? Put a tiny speck next to him, and that would be us.

Amanda caught our first fish of the journey, a Skipjack tuna, AKA "Bonito". We fried him up and had a lovely dinner.

Then Amanda started showing off.

As usual, we were bombarded by dolphins. They surfed our bow wave, performed aerial somersaults, we even got to see some of their babies, which made Amanda go "AAWWW! IDGAWEEDLEBITTYBABIESTHEYRESOCUUUUUUUUUTE!"

Ah, women.

 

 

Now, for the weird. Two hundred and fifty miles off the coast of Portugal, in completely open ocean in broad daylight with nothing around, an owl flew around the boat. He proceeded to circle twice more, his flat face and large round eyes fixated on me for the entire duration. He then flew straight back in the direction of land. Anyone ever hear of owls out at sea?

Time to get the boat prepped for storage on the hard, we're about to be land lubbers for a few months.

If you all have any recommendations for must-see's and do's in Europe, please let us know!