Pandora of Feock - Pandora

Great start with good wind when, at the south of Sao Antao, we noticed a tear in our mainsail.  Now an intelligent crew would have repaired the sail in the wind shadow south west of the island, but we were more concerned at finding some wind and it was a little rough .   We spent the first night sailing with only a jib and found that most of the fleet had passed us by next morning!  However we had learnt by our mistakes as we repaired our hole in the chute immediately.   On a more positive note we are making better headway with chute in light winds. Fishing  has not been successful as we have returned more fish to the ocean than landed on the boat.   We have seen various birds (which we do not know the names), flying fish and porpoises. read more...

Pandora of Feock - Helming

Helming is fun!  So we have discovered after 2 days at sea. Trying to give the autopilot a rest and have discovered that Jerry is betterthan the autopilot and so he can stay there for the rest of the trip.   We had an interesting discussion last night with a large oil tanker who wason a collision course with us.   The Captain was extremely polite andaltered course for us but was worried when we told him there were another 44yachts in the fleet.    We have kept to the east as per ourcunning plan and have had good wind and boat speed but now have to work out howto go west, thus the reason for keeping Jerry at thehelm.. read more...

Pandora of Feock - Las Palmas - Ready to go!

We thought this was going to be an easy week!   However, bigdecisions have had to made such as where do we put the extra fuel cans, how wefind  space in the bilge for 8 dozen eggs less the two that Jerry droppedon the pontoon, and in addition it has taken three good men most of theafternoon to send a mouse down the boom and another one up the mast. Finally Gill has been trying to get her head around the SSB email for most ofthe week and has made great achievements sending an email toherself!     We are ready and looking forward to the start of our Atlantic crossing onSunday.  We  have now managed to extricate Mike from the Chandlersthough Jerry, being a US citizen, still needs to get his permission toleave  with us.   Hope. read more...