Off again

21st July 2010 20.50. 39deg 45N, 30deg 32W.
Off to a nice start, picked up northerly breeze after less than an hour motoring out of the lee of Flores. Lovely coastline, mountains and valleys with waterfalls pouring off the sides of cliffs into the sea. And green, green with stripes of pale blue hydrangea growing wild far up in the hills in the little patchwork fields. A beautiful place indeed. But now hidden astern with it´s sister island, Corvo just a smudge on the horizon silhouetted by clouds bright with the low sun. Wind northerly, about 14kns. Got up to near 20kns as it was funneled past the island but getting lighter now. Due to die overnight according to the forecast then hopefully start picking up light southerlies from the high pressure further east. What would be nice would be to have them for a few days to get north a fair way then turn right towards UK as the westerly's start to do their thing, keeping well clear of biscay. But the weather does what it wants so who can tell. 40 miles down, about 1300 to go. Always seems a long way at the start. Possibly because it is.