Location: Port of Horta
Good evening parents, family, and loved ones. We are alive and well in Horta, approximately two-thirds of the way across the Atlantic Ocean. Today, we spent practically all day scrubbing Vela, our home for the past 35 days, clean of all the salt and grime she picked up along the voyage. Starting at around 10:30 am local time, after a much-appreciated breakfast of granola and muesli, we took account of all the provisions we had left and cleaned everything above and below deck. Polishing, scrubbing, wiping, dusting. Vela looks like she did the day we stepped on, minus the dirty footprints left by us roaming around. We scrubbed high and low on Vela, making sure to cover all the angles and get into all the crevices, leaving no stones unturned. Around 2:30 pm, we took a break for spring rolls that Brianne, Savannah, and James had managed to construct, given our low resources. They were surprisingly good (sorry guys), and they were a welcome break from the work. After lunch, we cracked on, making sure Vela was as close to spotless as we could get her. As we prepared for dinner, a rain cloud or two settled in above us, making us retreat downstairs for our final meal of the day, veggie curry and rice, with a tomato/feta salad, and finished it off with a deconstructed brownie/cake blend that was made to perfection. After dinner came our standard dish-pit, and now everyone is getting phone calls into, most likely, those of you who are reading this blog. We are given the rest of the day to relax and decompress after our passage, which is something I think everybody has been looking forward to. I know I personally have been. We are all itching to get onto shore. Still, we have to go through certain regulations and restrictions due to COVID, so it should probably be another two days before we can set foot on land for expeditionary reasons.
That’s it, Skipper Ben, signing off…