And we’re off!

Today’s the day.

Yesterday, after a month in the boatyard and 3 weeks of work and sail trials we un tied our lines and left the dock on Maru Noa, bound for Horta, the Azores about 2000 miles away.

As I lie in my bunk after my last full nights sleep for the next couple of weeks, I’m feeling quite calm. All the nerves and stresses of the last week are beginning to melt away as we detach from land and I’m transitioning into this new mode of being.

After leaving the dock in Newport around midday we sailed 25 miles to Cuttyhunk island where we picked up a mooring for the night. We often find this softer start to a trip to be helpful, there’s a lot happening when you leave a place; after the nice part of saying goodbye to all the friends you’ve made, there’s always last minute runs to the shops or the hardware store, then there’s the people to pay and it seems like there’s always something or other on the boat that suddenly needs fixing.

It’s nice to have this middle ground, not to be plunged straight away from land, to life on the lean - stopping over after a day sail gives us chance to settle in, find our sea legs again and tighten up on our stowage once we see what moves whilst underway. I also made an enormous chicken curry last night so I won’t have to worry about cooking tomorrow.

It’s looking like a good passage ahead. We’re leaving on the tail end of a big low pressure system that’s moving north quickly. For the next 12 hours it’s forecast to be north westerly and westerly winds at about 20-25 kts. We’ll be running dead downwind until early tomorrow morning when the wind will come south westerly and eventually southerly. Then it looks like we’ll have a reach all the way to the Azores, with maybe some headwinds on Wednesday and Thursday. We’re expecting a passage of around 15 days, but of course it’s hard to say right now.

This will be our first passage with starlink internet so we plan to turn it on for maybe an hour every day or so to check the weather and send out any updates to those of you following our progress.

I’ll try to keep writing this substack and share some photos. Jasper and James plan to put out a few videos and reels so do follow us on Instagram if you’d like:

@mora.ocean

@jasper.at.sea

@jchapman_photography

@georgie.holman

You can also track us here at: https://share.garmin.com/MARUNOA

Thanks for reading and wish us luck!

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Georgie, Jasper, Tino & James x