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A sailing saga


In addtion to Eerika, Siera, Kelly and Karl Marits, we have onboard HALCYON VIII: Keith Alsop. North Vancouver; Ken Robertson, Vancouver; Joe del Grosso, New York City.

We left Tortola, British Virgin Islands on May 7 and sailed 1,360 km to Bermuda. It took us 6 days, arriving on May 13. The trip was very good, but the last two days were without much wind. At one point we stopped HALCYON VIII and we all went swimming in the middle of the Atlantic. At first the girls were a bit reluctant, but after they jumped in the first time, we couldn't get them out. Also, the colour of the water is a blue that you only see when you are in the deep ocean. It is an amazing sight to watch the sunlight pierce the water and disappear into the depths. The other highlight was having 12 to 16 dolphins playing at the front of the boat for about 20 minutes.

We left Bermuda for Horta on Faial Island in the Azores on May 17. We sailed 2,880 km, arriving at 2:40 on the morning of May 30, having taken a little over 12 days to sail from Bermuda. The first 3 days were stormy, but then the weather settled down and again we had 2 or 3 days with almost no wind. Highlights of the crossing including seeing dolphins almost everyday at the front of HALCYON and seeing whales on several occasions, including a Fin Whale, the second biggest whale species after the Blue Whale, not more than 10 metres from the boat,

After a two-week tour of three of the islands in the Azores archipelago, Faial, Sao Miguel and Santa Maria, we left June 12 for Lagos, Portugal, a distance of 1,296 km. We hope to make landfall by June 18th. There were many highlights, but from a sailors point of view, painting our boat name, logo and crew names on the dock in Horta was the fulfillment of a long tradition of sailing vessels that pass through Horta.

We sailed from Santa Maria on June 12 for Lagos, Portugal, a passage covering 1,296 km. We hope to arrive before June 18th. The highlights of this passage has been seeing several breeches by a pod of large whales which we even managed to get on video. The most exciting highlight for us, however; was that after 4,000 km, we finally caught a fish, an eight pound tuna. The tuna was cut up into 6 steaks which were on our plates an hour later. When we arrive in Lagos, we will have sailed more than 5,500 km.

Karl Marits

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