For anyone who's tried to contact me in the last 3 weeks by private message, e-mail, or in the forum... my apologies!
I took off on a bit of an impromptu trip: sailing from the Azores to Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, Canada. I'm nearly caught up on the 3000 messages that accumulated in my absence (the only things I saw more than 3000 of while sailing were the stars in the incredible night skies).
The 6 hour Airbus "pulse" took me from Toronto to the town of Horta on the island of Faial in the Azores. Horta is a busy port - a popular stopping place for vessels crossing the Atlantic.
The "glide" took place aboard this German owned, U.S.-built (1938, by Herreshoff in Mass.) 82-foot schooner, "Mistral":
(Mistral in the outer harbour at Horta ... boat details:
http://www.yachtworld.com/core/listi..._id=76628&url= )
Glide time was 13 days. (And there were actually a few hours of propulsion by diesel when the wind died... mini top-up pulses.)
I've done some Atlantic coastal sailing before, but never a crossing. It was quite an experience, with an international crew of characters: 2 Germans; 2 German-Canadians; 2 Canadians; 1 Irishman.
Was funny to find out that one of the crew had been on EcoModder before (reading an electric motorbike build).
The boat had satellite Internet, but at something like 12 Euros per megabyte, you'll forgive me for not loading up EcoModder on a regular basis to keep up to date. Actually, aside from downloading weather maps, I didn't use it for anything else.
So... now back to going through my messages. Be patient with me if you're awaiting a reply about something!