Yipee!!! So glad to see you made it!! Sounds like a bit of fun competition at the end too. Hope you are having the time of your lives. Love Michael and Nancy
Robert & Judy
SOOO glad to hear you finifshed the 1st leg of your trip. We have been checking regularly to see where you were. Robert & I are learning to sail our boat. Having lots of fun and arguments, but its fun to kiss and make-up.
We just got home from the cruise to Alaska (rd trip from Seattle.) It was great to see all the beatiful sights. Barbara took us to the ship and picked us up.
The weather was beautiful. 65 to 70 most days. Only rained toward the end in Ketchican.
After we got back went to Solduc with Barb and kids. Had a great visit with all of them. They are growing so fast it is amazing.
Karen told you about our visit with them. It was really great and we loved their new home. We did so much that we had
to come home to rest. We covered 4 states in the three weeks we were gone. While we were in Nevada bought 40 acres of land. It has a trout steam on it and is out in the middle of no place.
Now we are going to start on our landscaping on tis house. Life is as adventure and you guys are living it BIG TIME. We are too, but not on the scale you are. We check often to see what is going on with you. We wish you God's speed and good weather on the rest of your crossing.
We are looking forward to your next leg of the trip.
Laura & Jeff
Yahoooooo!
We got the news from AJ congrats! You crazy kids. We can't wait to see photo's it must have been intense. We have been thinking of you guys alot and were happy to here you made it without a glitch. Jeff and I have just started on the house building the forms boards for the foundation are being put in along with the septic and leach fields, both should be complete by 6/15/06. Continue enjoying your journey and keep us informed!
Love,
Laura & Jeff
Sharon
We made it!!!!!!! Our passage was just fine. We had no problems. We did have a couple of days with 30 knot winds and 15 foot waves, but Ronz loves that kind of seas. It rained a few times, but we have the dodger to hide under. The last two days were bumpy. My sisters always teased me about my monkey feet, but they have finally become an important part of life on board a boat. I can hang onto the floor with my toes and it keeps me in place while I´m cooking. Now all I need is a prehensile tail. Watch... soon West Marine will be offering MONKEY TAIL Free both hands so you can do all your work on the boat. Now on sale for $2999. And Nick will buy it!!! We only turned on the motor for an hour while we were coming into the harbor here at Horta. Horta is very quaint and islandish. More travelers visit the Azores by boat than any other way so it is really a sailing type of town. Today we are going to take a tour of the island on a bus. Tomorrow we will all sail to the next island. Then we will go to Sao Miguel and that´s where we will leave for Portugal. Last night there was a coctail party and we all got a little tipsy. I´m not sure how much of it was the wine and how much was the fact that we don´t have our land legs. It´s hard to even walk straight down the street. Everything sways and swirls. It doesn´t stop until we get back on the boat. It looks like we will have a fourth member on the next leg of the trip. A fellow from Italy is going to leave the boat he is on and sail with us. That will make our watch time easier. Now we do a 4 hour watch and the last hour gets very long.
It´s so good to hear from everyone. I´m glad folks are following us on the ARC web site. I was on deck taking pictures of the beginning of the race leaving Bermuda and I left the camara out on deck for two days. Needless to say, it no longer takes pictures so I don´t have any recent photos to post. I did, however, take a movie of the seas when we had some pretty good waves. I have to read the book and figure out how to down load the movie to cds so I can mail them back home.
I´ll write more before we leave here.
Love to all.
Linda
Adam just called and says that you phoned him this morning! You have arrived in the Azores!!! Imagine you will sleep for 14 hours... Oh, Im so happy, been on pins & needles for three days. Been following the www.worldcruising.com/arceurope reports. The second boat in had seen 60 kt. winds, +gusts, i didn't want to think you were in that... ADAM SAYS THAT SHARON ACTUALLY ENJOYED IT!!! Love you all so much. . . Be well, have fun.
Karen G.
We were just checking today to see where you were. The red dot (your boat) is way out in the ocean! AHHHHHH! It looks scarey to me but it seems good to know there are a lot of boats with you. Someone would stop to check on you if you tipped over? Ha Ha. Shows what I know about sailing. Us land lovers are keeping the peace. Ohh! Bob and Judy were here last week end. We were on the end of the Alaska tour. They had a great time and have some awesome iceberg pictures. We did so much with them in two days....from Clackamas to Timberline Lodge to Multmomah Falls to the Troutdale factory mall to Clackamas and to numerous restaurants. It seems like we were always in a restaurant, non-stop eating. It was soo good to be with them. They are trying to get us to come to Greece to meet you. We would LOVE to but we have some significant money problems due to the fact that I had an truck accident in August 2005 where I went to sleep at the wheel because of over use of morphine and crashed into a plate glass window of a camera shop and ended up in the middle of the shop. (It wasn't open yet-no one was there.) But our insurance is saying that they won't pay the last $15,000.00 worth of damage. The store is saying WE must pay them $15,000.00. That is $15,000.00 not $1,500.00. The figure looks so big to me I thought it must say $1,500.00 when I first read the letter. Needless to say, they took my drivers license away. Now I don't take morphine (what a mistake) and I don't drive. What a pain. Wow, I have gone on and on.
We enjoy the pictures and the stories and will continue to follow you as you go. Karen and
Richard.
Cara
I found your web site "cruising" on the internet. Twenty years ago I did all my cruising on Ronzinante! We began our cruise in England and sailed the Mediterranean, Caribbean, up and down the US East Coast, through the Panama Canal, and up to the west coast of the US. I'd love to see more pictures of Ronzinante. From the ones on your web site, looks like the ol' gal is going strong! Take care, and may you have fair winds and a following sea.
Adam
T. call me re: your Laguna Seca tickets.
Polly
Dad, (Nick) Just to let you know we got the shirts. Thank you very much. Mine fits. I am down to 282lbs now. We have pictures for you that we will send to D'Elle. They are family pictures with the boys. Which we have had them for 2 wks. We hope all is well with you and the crew. Polly
D'elle
The absolute best time I've had in 30 years! Every minute, every detail, every different thing we did was totally delightful! The weather and scenery was surreal, the quaint 'easter egg' color houses on every hillside, driving on the left....well, some things took a little getting used to! I cheated and kept my scooter for the duration so I got a little more practice and by the time I turned it in, just in time to catch my flight home, I was beginning to feel confident and zip around like a local! There were so many special moments it would be hard to choose only a few to talk about so suffice to say, I'm hooked! Looking forward to the next rendezvous (maybe the Azores???) Probably Lagos and definately Greece. I had forgotten how much I love to travel. Hadn't done much (especially on my own) for many years and it didn't take much for me to get back into the 'groove'. So happy to see Capn' 'n crew. Tony and Sharon look fit and tan and ready to rock 'n roll! Nick still wears turtle necks so his tan is lagging a little behind, but no matter, all was pretty darn great all the way around. Provisioning is a major undertaking, not to mention stowing it all away, kudo's to Sharon for her skills in cramming things into zero space! The other thing that was SOOO special was that the 'decorator queen' (Sharon) strung little tiny chinese lanterns across the dodger and it made for a wonderful celebratory feeling looking out over all the boats at night and seeing the Ronz with her little arc of pretty colored lights. Meeting some of the other cruisers was interesting as well. I guess there are more than a couple of 'shorebound wives' who meander in to ports and spend a week at a time here and there. It was so 100% incredible it was hard to come home. But, it's wonderful here too. The rose garden is simply spectactular. The late rains and cooler temps have done something magical and we've got an arboretum here! The peacocks are strolling the grounds and finding hidey holes to nest in but it is so picturesque to see all the colors of flowers and the brightly colored birds. I spent several hours just dead-heading and setting the arbors to rights, weaving the new growth through the railings. Nick's vineyard is also flourishing with abudant foliage and jillions of tiny grape clusters forming. We've kept the main predator (Atua the emu) out of the vineyard and it seems to have paid off. Don't know what we're going to do with all the grapes! The weather couldn't be more perfect. It is actually cool-ish at night. I'm trying to remind myself to enjoy it while I can! Hopefully I'll catch up with the crew again in Horta. Have to go through Lisbon though and connections look a little dicey. At least we're allowing for the possibility. In any event I'll catch up with Nick and "Pato" for the Madiera run. Should be just right for a fair weather sailor like me! Love to everyone and hugs 'r flyin' your way. See you soon!
Adam & Liege
Sharon
Thank you for all the birthday wishes. I was getting a little homesick reading them. I do miss you all, however, I had a wonderful day. First I got to swim with the dolphins. That was an extreme experience. One I'll never forget. Then Nick and D'Elle had us over to their very nice suite for nibbles and we drank the bottle of Dom Perignon that Nick gave me for Christmas. After that we went to a superb dinner. D'Elle gave me some very thoughtful girlie gifts. It sure has been great having her here with us. We've had so much fun being tourists and scampering all over the island on scooters. Tomorrow we leave for the Azores. There are about 20 boats of all different sizes heading the same way. We have been in port with them for the last week and have gotten to know each other a bit. It should take us somewhere between 12 and 16 days depending on the weather. This will be the longest leg of the journey and there is a swarm of butterflies hovering around in my stomach. Everyone once in a while when we talk about the trip, they do stunt flying between my belly and my throat. If you want to follow us on the trip you can check out the web site for ARC. That is the rally in which we still are NOT racing. It is www.worldcruising.com/arceurope/ There are some pictures there of Ronzinante and the crew and they will post our progress as we on across the Atlantic.
Well, the lockers are full of food and drink, tomorrow we will fill the tank with fuel, undress the boat, pull up our big kid panties and head off into the blue. We'll be thinking of you and hoping to see some of you in the Med when we get there. Now I'm going to post some photos and then turn in early while some of the other foolish sailors party on into the night After all, I am 60 years old now, you know !!!!!
See you in the Azores......Don't forget about us.