Cathy has left.

Cathy has left the boat this morning. She is on her way back to France to buy a house in Portugal. It was a pleasure to have her with us and we wish her the best in her new home. Here are couple of stories which happened while she was with us.

On Friday, July 31st, we rented a car with the intention of going around the island of Flores. After a day spent visiting Caldeiras (craters) filled with water that now serve as natural water reserves, all sort of different villages and a waterfall at the bottom of which we went for a swim, we hesitated on going to the last village because it was getting pretty late. The tourist guide book was selling Lajedo buy saying it is the most serene village of the Island and that we could find some charming warm baths close by. The water in these bath which comes from underneath the earth reaches almost boiling point. It is warm enough for the locals to cook shell fish in them. So it was finnally decided that it would be our last stop. Once we arrived we found out that we had a «short» 1,6km hike to do. It started off pretty well; we were crossing a field and going down. But as we moved forward, it

became more and more difficult and steep... dangerous even. At some point we figured that we had walked far enough and yet we could see any bath and the wall was now almost staight. Gaston went ahead to see if we could find anything while Cathy and I waiting for him. Of course that lasted about 5 minutes before we decided to go look for him. He had found the baths. Or should I say the bath. Actually, is was more like a hole. A small one. On the other hand, it was warm.

On the Island of Faïal, we also rentend a car but this time we were five because Michel and Martin from the boat «La Foret d’eau» (www.laforetdeau.com) joined us. Our first visit was a very

interesting one. We climbed on a volcano which erupted the last time from 1957 to 1958. The cities being far away from it, only the bottom part of a light house was filled with lava. At the top, a cleft about 15 feet long and 6 inches wide was lettingout such heat the we couldn’t stand to leave our hand in it for more than a minute.

Not from from there, a cell phone rings. It was Cathy’s. Verizon only wishes they could get this good of a reception! As she is conversing, she mentionnes with a very french accent and a very serious tone: «I can’t

take anything down right now. I’m at the top of a volcano and I don’t have paper and pen.» Classic! However, we rented this car mostly to go visit the biggest crater of the Island. This one has a diameter of about 2km and is 290m to 440m deep. So we go up the winding and very narrow road with leads to the top. Once we get up there, we see... absolutely nothing! A big cloud had settled on

top which made it impossible to see more than five feet in front of us. Since we have no say on what mother nature decides to do, we decided to go back down and visite the parts of the Island that were not in the clouds. Anyway, finding a café on the beach into which we can have ice cream suited us just as well.

Do you remember a sailor by the name of Daniel? The one who had time to count every drop of water that has passed under is hull while crossing the Atlantic in more than twenty days all the while collecting mishaps (air in the engin, breakage of a diesel line, leaking diesel tank, closed water valve to the engin, lost of the axel with holds the rutter, breakage of 4 automatic pilotes, ...) Well, he has finally arrived in Horta! In one piece! He is quite the number and we are very happy to finally meet him. Another good news is that we use to be a restaurant owner and tonight we are having paëlla on his boat! Excellent! Miam! Miam!