The Atlantic ocean has been crossed!

We have finally crossed the Atlantic and are now in the midle of the Amazonas river, in Belem. 15 days at sea is behing us and both crew and boat survived the crossing. Some nerves were stepped on and the boat had some minor things that needs to be fixed, but nothing the crew of Bonanza can´t handle.

We had good winds most of time. No storms or strong gales and all we saw of the doldrums were two hours without wind. We had no problem catching fish on our way while we were fishing. Much thanks to a captain on a spanish fishingboat we met in Mindelo that gave us some good advice and some excellent hooks. Though we stopped fishing after we got poisoned by the tuna. Wich was a pitty because we could see a lot fishes all the time in the sea. Tunas jumping and flying fish flying in big groups in front of the boat. We even had visits from both wales and dolphins several days. A funny thing we realized after counting our total catch across the atlantic is that we caught more birds than fishes. (Not counting flying-fish) Even after we stopped fishing with a fishing line we continued to get birds. This time with the help of our "wind-mill" on the back of our boat.

The last two days here in Belem has been spent trying to check in to Brasil. (Let´s just say that Brasil would have perfect if beuracracy was your hobby...) Jon´s birthday was celebrated yesterday at several official offices around the city. In other words a day that will be remembered.

We are planning to make take a tourist-boat further in the river and spend some days at a hotel if we can arrange for the safety of our boat while we are away. According to a "local" american this might very well be possible.

A small note about messages to our sat-phone.
The three last letters in the norwegian alphabet are translated into several numbers when they arrive on our phone. Cutting down on the end of the messages sent. If you use ae, o, aa or similar it would be nice. (We even understand it if you use e, o, a)