update #1

Date: Thur,

15 May 1997

14.35:47  (PDT)

Subject: Update Number One - VALENCIA

RTW Travels

Ship's schedule: breakfast at 7:30 (yikes), lunch at 11:30, dinner at 5:30. Our schedule: book reading on the deck at 10:30 (we're already sunburned), nap at 1:30, help them run the ship at 3:30, drinks and videos at 7:30. It's been challenging, but so far we've been able to handle it.

Update on 12 May: we raised Cape St. Vincent, Portugal early on the morning of the 11th and drew into the Straight of Gibraltar at around 5pm. There are few things that compare to the nautical romance of sailing between the “Pillars of Hercules” (Jbel Musa mountian, Morrocco on the right, Gibraltar on the left). Although the Straight is normally windy and rugged, often with low visibility, we sailed through on a day so clear Kapitan Gunther called it unequalled in his 30 years and over 50 passages. We saw whales that the sailors say only appear in the Straight, and many dolphins. The Straight itself, although 10 miles across, seems uncomfortably narrow after the immensity of the Atlantic.

Much love,  ml and v