After going out to the ocean with Azor, I set my master course for Gibraltar and it seemed to me that in 4-5 days I would be in my native sea. The first day was quiet, so I decided to check the weather forecast. To my surprise, a storm was coming from the north that turned away from Europe in our direction. Almost a headwave and wind with gusts of up to 45 knots. It is clear that there is no point in trying to fight against this weather, so I climbed north in the calm, and when the wind came, I gradually increased our comfort, adding +10 on autopilot. We didn't get one tack to Gibraltar as planned, and the weather kept getting worse. This is where I caught a sea depression. “What am I doing here, why do I need all this, who is it for, why can't I live like a normal person?” — these questions tormented me. While in correspondence with my future wife, I was ready to marry her without going on a first date. I really wanted a flat horizon, a static floor and sunny weather outside the window. I was looking at the map and looking at my ETA (estimated time of arrival), and it seemed like the time increased with every correction on autopilot.

I suddenly noticed that if we dropped another 20-30 degrees, we would be on the shore tomorrow. We checked the team's plans and found out that Airat, with a valid visa, has a birthday the day after tomorrow. It's decided, let's change course to Madeira! It was real freedom, like flying by plane in turbulence, to admit to everyone that you are tired of sitting in this mode and it would be better to board as soon as possible, spend 3 days there and fly on. This is only available on private jets or, in our case, on yachts.

And here it is, “casual love”. By noon the next day, I saw an island that I had only read about on wine bottle labels. The steep northern shore went under the clouds, with the first rays of sunshine breaking through the stormy sky and illuminating the rain-filled waterfalls that flowed into the ocean and merged with the stormy surf. I would love to say that the film is over, but I don't know why I didn't take a single shot of this fantastic picture. The plot was probably embellished with emerging from the storm and the approaching firmament under your feet. (judge for yourself by video)

I'm not going to describe the island and all the beauty we saw, I'll just say that this is the most delicious and beautiful place on Earth I've been to this day. And since I'll be there again on a trip around the world, we'll save the report for later. But it's worth noting that the Portuguese brothers did not appreciate the humor of the Azores customs and scanned our passports in all the coast police offices, apparently we were the last happy sailors on Faial. We literally galloped across the island by car, celebrated our birthday and went back to the ocean. We were “lucky” with the weather again and maneuvered all the way to Gibraltar.

But despite all the hardships at sea, I couldn't forget the island, constantly thinking about living there and spending a few months going through the most basic hiking routes and seeing different seasons. And this distracted me so much that even today I don't remember a single day from Madeira to Gibraltar: we went out, we breathed, we came.

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