Flores And On to Faial

We are currently established in the oldest marina in the Azores archipelago which is in Horta on the island of Faial. We thoroughly enjoyed our stay in Flores though did not manage as much exploring as we would otherwise have wished. Our stay was enlivened by running into Dan and Charlotte on Hestur who we had last seen in Les Saintes in Guadeloupe.

Here is Hestur in the marina. We are in the background.

The harbour at Lajes is tiny and the marina only has space for around 45 boats, most of those quite small but it was extremely friendly and there was a nice atmosphere in the harbour and in the island generally. The harbourmaster in particular was very friendly and helpful and seemed delighted to have us itinerant yotties staying in his harbour. Our time in the marina wasn't the most peaceful owing to the amount of surge getting in which seems to be almost inevitable in these islands. After a bit of exploration up the steep hills of the village we found the supermarkets and the garage. We obtained delicious bread and cheese from the former and some much needed diesel from the latter. The attendant at the garage was very proud of his English and delivered 50 litres of diesel free to the boat which gave us enough to motor here to Faial.

Flores is one of the smallest and westernmost islands in the Archipelago and the town council in Lajes have a sign proudly announcing that they are the westernmost council in Europe! It really has a feeling of being on the edge of the world. The island is around 2000 miles from America and is 130 from the next island in the Azores while being somewhere over 1200 miles from mainland Europe. They have got the newest marina in the islands so it was easy for us to find space to put a painting on the wall announcing our visit. Here in Horta, there are literally thousands of them covering every spare centimetre of the breakwaters.

Here are a few pictures to bore you with. The weather was actually better than it appears in the photos though.

The entrance to the harbour. It was actually easier than it looks. We managed it with the dinghy towing the boat after all!

They do a very nice thing with old houses where the cement is whitewashed between the stones which makes for nice looking buildings.

This is the southern edge of the island and it really does feel like the edge of the world

Hydrangeas grow very profilically here and form the hedgerows which stop it feeling entirely like SW England though it is incredibly green for us who have been accustomed to tropical islands recently.

A rather steep lookout point.

Every night we had an amusing serenade (of sorts!) by some sea birds whose cry honestly sounded like a Pundh and Judy show! I believe that they were Cory's Shearwaters but we never saw them it being dark. There are even some here in Horta as well.

We celebrated our arrival in Europe with a meal at an excellent restaurant run by some German ex-pats. Good company was provided by a couple from the States recently arrived form New York. Joan and Wolfgang are working out where they can leave the boat and how they might be able to import it into the EU without having to pay VAT given that they will be taking it back to the US in due course.

Several of the other people in Lajes intended to take advantage of the light easterly winds to take themselves round to the western side of the island and spend some time at anchor in a bay called Faja Grande but we decided to head on east to Faial. Those same easterlies were very light and meant we had to motor the whole way for 36 hours! Still, we are now established in the marina and rafted next to a friendly Dutch boat.

Finally, thank you to everyone who identified our hitchhiker as a Booby of some sort though it wasn't a blue footed one. If we ever get into the position buy ourselves a new boat we have how decided to call it Blue Foot Booby!

I'll do an update on Faial once we have done some exploring.