Azores here we come!

Less than 300 miles to go now. We're at 38 20.82N, 35 15.85W and have a lovely 14 knots behind us so we're running along nicely at about 7 knots with just the miansail up. Dinah sails very nicely on this point of sail so it's all quite civilised!

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We've started to make lists of things that we need to get in the Azores - spare alternator belt and more chocolate being the top priorities!!!

Various people have been sending us info on Faial, where is the best food, the best beer, places to see etc... One of Barry's friends, Jim, sent us this gem that I thought I'd share with you. Hope it makes you laugh as much as it did us. Really looking forward to getting there now!

------------ The Azores are a group of half-volcanic, half-spinach-based islands in the middle of the Atlantic. In fact, the Azores are located EXACTLY 0.4792 of the way between Baltimore Maryland and Dino's chipper, Kinsale.

The Azores were initially colonised by a clan of Eskimos, fleeing Genghis Khan's little known invasion of the North Pole in the 1400s. These Eskimos soon intermarried with the native midgets.

Today, the Azores are renowned for their pottery depicting the space shuttle and for a type of flax woven from the threads of old bunting.

Local traditions include the ritual shaving of the heads of visitors to the islands. Guests are often given tracts of land on the remote, out-lying islets in return for telling the mayor who shot JR.

Horta's scrimshaw museum is highly recommended, for all keen lovers of scrimshaw and scrimshaw-related bric a brac.

Visitors are encouraged to draw primitive rock art paintings of their vessels at the marina but are warned that any phallic symbology is punishable by death. The victim is scrimshawed to death over a period of two days.

Mark Twain visited Horta at some point in the past on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem where he hoped to open a pet food franchise. ----------------------